Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether manipulated and biographical parental disengagement were associated with sexually risky attitudes and intentions. College women (N = 140) completed an online experiment in which they were asked to recall a time when one of their parents (father or mother) was either engaged or disengaged, and then completed a series of inventories measuring their sexual attitudes, sexual intentions, and biographical information. Experimental data were analyzed using a 2 (Parent: father or mother) x 2 (Parental Rapport Prime: engaged or disengaged) ANCOVA, with life history as the covariate. Experimental results showed a significant main effect for the parental rapport prime on sexually risky attitudes and intentions, F(1, 98) = 4.34, p = .04, 𝜂𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙2 = .04. Women who recalled a time when a parent was disengaged (M = 24.25; SD = 6.84), endorsed more sexually risky attitudes and intentions than those who recalled a time when a parent was engaged (M = 21.83; SD = 7.31). Consistent with these results, correlational analyses also revealed that past and present biographical parent disengagement were significantly associated with sexually risky attitudes and intentions. Results are discussed using Life History Theory.