Some Personality Correlates of Contraceptive Use Among Unmarried Female College Students

An investigation to identify personality correlates associated with use or nonuse of contraceptives was conducted on 600 single female students attending 5 small liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. Students completed a booklet containing Rotters Internalizer-Externalizer Scale Rokeachs Dogmatism Scale Rosenbergs Self-Esteem Scale and a questionnarie on sexual personal and demographic data. Of the respondents who reported being sexually active (47% of the sample) 45% indicated use of contraceptives. As hypothesized contraceptive users were significantly more internalizing and less dogmatic than the sexually active noncontraceptive users. Although not significant at the .01 level there was the hypothesized tendency for noncontraceptive users to report a higher degree of self-esteem than the contraceptive users.(Authors modified)