Everybody's Not Doing It: Misperceptions of College Students' Sexual Activity

The aim was to assess perceptions of campus norms for recent sexual activity and to determine whether personal behavior was related to these perceptions. Subjects included 725 students who completed a survey questionnaire which elicited information about estimations of the prevalence of sexual activity and self-reports of sexual activity. Males and females who estimated high levels of sexual activity among their peers were more likely to have had sexual intercourse in the past month than were those who made lower estimations of peer sexual activity. Students holding the perception that everybodys doing it were found to clearly be at higher risk of being sexually active themselves. (authors)