Premarital Sexual Permissiveness and Religious Orientation: A Preliminary Investigation

This investigation sought to clarify the relationship between the normative aspects of sexuality, specifically premarital sexual permissiveness, and religiousness as measured by the I, Ep, and E. subscales of Allport's Religious Orientation Scale (ROS). A sample of 204 undergraduate students was used. Partial correlations, with controls for the effects of age, gender, and ethnic affiliation, indicated 1) a replication of previous findings that the I subscale (but not E) was positively associated with church attendance and self-reported religiosity; 2) that E. was positively associated with church attendance; 3) that I was negatively related to permissiveness; and 4) the non-intuitive result that E subscale scores were positively related to permissiveness. These data suggest that future use ofan I/Ep/E. approach might provide valuable information on the development of normative aspects of premarital sexuality.