Less is more: The effects of sexual experience on judgments of men's and women's personality characteristics and relationship desirability

One method available to researchers for examining sexual attitudes is to solicit evaluations of others based on information about sexual experience. Differences in expectations about appropriate sexual behavior of men and women measure the so-called sexual double standard. To test the conditions under which a sexual double standard is endorsed, 110 male and 146 female college students (94% white, 3% black, 3% all other ethnicities) responded to vignettes depicting either a male or female target as having a low or high number of past sexual partners within committed or noncommitted relationships. In general, little support for the endorsement of a sexual double standard was found. However, participants consistently made differential judgments on the basis of sexual experience: Targets described as having more permissive sexual histories received more negative evaluations than did those described as having less permissive sexual histories. Results are discussed in terms of media exploitation of sexual information and support for a relational orientation toward sexual experience.The assistance of Nor Ostrowski, Julie Hale, and Kurt Trappenberg is greatly appreciated. I am also grateful for the funding provided by the Department of Psychology to conduct this study.