(Press-News.org) TORONTO -- The practice of sexting may be more common than generally thought among adults. More than eight out of 10 people surveyed online admitted to sexting in the prior year, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's 123rd Annual Convention.
"Given the possible implications, both positive and negative, for sexual health, it is important to continue investigating the role sexting plays in current romantic and sexual relationships," said Emily Stasko, MS, MPH, of Drexel University, who presented the research.
Stasko and her co-author, Pamela Geller, PhD, associate professor of psychology, ob/gyn and public health at Drexel University, surveyed 870 participants from the United States age 18 to 82 to assess sexting behaviors, sexting motives, and relationship and sexual satisfaction. Just over half the participants were women.
Sexting, for the purpose of this study, was defined as the sending or receiving of sexually suggestive or explicit content via text message, primarily using a mobile device, said Stasko. Participants were asked if they had ever engaged in such behaviors.
The researchers found that 88 percent of participants reported ever having sexted and 82 percent reported they had sexted in the past year. Nearly 75 percent said they sexted in the context of a committed relationship and 43 percent said they sexted as part of a casual relationship. Additionally, the researchers found that greater levels of sexting were associated with greater sexual satisfaction, especially for those in a relationship. Participants who identified as single (26 percent) had significantly lower overall scores for sexual satisfaction.
The researchers also found that greater levels of sexting were associated with relationship satisfaction for all but those who identified their relationship as "very committed."
The survey also asked about attitudes toward sexting and found that people who sexted more saw the behavior as more fun and carefree and had higher beliefs that sexting was expected in their relationships.
Sexting has received growing attention as a risky activity, associated with numerous other sexual risk-taking behaviors (e.g., unprotected sex) and negative health outcomes (e.g., sexually transmitted infections), said Stasko. This perspective, though, fails to account for the potential positive effects of open sexual communication with a partner.
"This research indicates that sexting is a prevalent behavior that adults engage in for a variety of reasons," said Stasko. "These findings show a robust relationship between sexting and sexual and relationship satisfaction."
INFORMATION:
Session 3014: "Reframing Sexting as a Positive Relationship Behavior," Symposium, Saturday, Aug. 8, 9 - 9:50 a.m. EDT, Room 203D North Building, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 255 Front St. West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Presentations are available from the APA Public Affairs Office.
Contact: Emily Stasko at emily.stasko@drexel.edu or by phone at (215) 827-9878.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes more than 122,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
Researchers shed light on why some plants thrive in different environments while others become extinct
Plants with C4 photosynthesis can thrive in a range of ecological conditions
Discovery could be key in helping improve vital food security
A team of international researchers, led by the University of Sheffield, has moved one step closer to discovering how physiological attributes allow some plants to thrive in a variety of conditions - something that could be the key to future food sustainability.
Climate change strongly impacts on biodiversity, putting some ...
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill, August 7, 2015 -The FDA recently approved two new endoscopic bariatric therapies (EBT) for the treatment of obesity. According to the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), this development provides important new, minimally invasive tools for combating the obesity epidemic and offers many patients an alternative to surgery.
The ReShape™ Integrated Dual Balloon System (ReShape™ Dual Balloon) was approved by the FDA on July 29. The ORBERA™ Intragastric Balloon was approved by the FDA on August 6. Many new and emerging ...
Athens, Ga. - Recent research published in the journal Microsystems & Nanoengineering could eventually change the way people living with prosthetics and spinal cord injury lead their lives.
Instead of using neural prosthetic devices--which suffer from immune-system rejection and are believed to fail due to a material and mechanical mismatch--a multi-institutional team, including Lohitash Karumbaiah of the University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center, has developed a brain-friendly extracellular matrix environment of neuronal cells that contain very little foreign ...
When the right gene is expressed in the right manner in the right population of stem cells, the developing mouse brain can exhibit primate-like features. In a paper publishing August 7th in the Open Access journal PLOS Biology, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) succeeded in mimicking the sustained expression of the transcription factor Pax6 as seen in the developing human brain, in mouse cortical progenitor cells. This altered the behavior of these cells to one that is akin to that of progenitors in the developing primate ...
The common baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is used to make bread, wine and beer, and is the laboratory workhorse for a substantial proportion of research into molecular and cell biology. It was also the first non-bacterial living thing to have its genome sequenced, back in 1996. However, when the sequence of that genome emerged it appeared that the scientists were seeing double - the organism seemed to have two very different versions of many of its genes. How could this have happened?
Researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) Barcelona, Spain, ...
Berkeley -- While the eyes may be a window into one's soul, new research led by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the pupils could also reveal whether one is a hunter or hunted.
An analysis of 214 species of land animals shows that a creature's ecological niche is a strong predictor of pupil shape. Species with pupils that are vertical slits are more likely to be ambush predators that are active both day and night. In contrast, those with horizontally elongated pupils are extremely likely to be plant-eating prey species with eyes on ...
This news release is available in French and German.
Every year, more than a million fish are used for toxicity testing and scientific research in the EU alone, and around 400 fish are needed for a single fish early-life stage test. Such toxicity tests are often required by regulatory authorities for new chemical substances, as fish are particularly sensitive to contaminants in water at early developmental stages. However, the increasing use of experimental animals is ethically questionable. In addition, conventional tests are complex, expensive and take ...
Coral Gables, FL (August 7, 2015)--Two new studies show that the tone of a candidate's voice can influence whether he or she wins office.
"Our analyses of both real-life elections and data from experiments show that candidates with lower-pitched voices are generally more successful at the polls," explains Casey Klofstad, associate professor of political science at the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, who is corresponding author on both studies.
The first study, published online in Political Psychology, shows that candidates who ran in the 2012 U.S. ...
CRG researchers have proposed a new theory to explain the origin of whole genome duplication at the beginning of the yeast lineage. Yeasts are single-celled fungi that originated over 100 million years ago. The ability of these organisms to ferment carbohydrates is widely used for food and drink fermentation. Yeasts are also one of the most commonly used model organisms in research. For example, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is used to make bread, wine and beer, was the first eukaryotic organism to be sequenced (in 1996) and is a key model organism for studying ...
Medulloblastoma, the most commonly occurring malignant brain tumor in children, can be classified into four subgroups--each with a different risk profile requiring subgroup-specific therapy. Currently, subgroup determination is done after surgical removal of the tumor. Investigators at Children's Hospital Los Angeles have now discovered that these subgroups can be determined non-invasively, using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). The paper will be published online by the journal Neuro-Oncology (Oxford Press) on August 7.
"By identification of the tumor subgroup ...
