Relation of Sexual Behaviors, Values, and Conflicts to Avowed Happiness

Abstract

A questionnaire study of 101 college students related attitudes toward sexual intimacy to adjustment, measured by avowed happiness, and to religiosity. Religiosity correlated negatively with liberality and positively with happiness ( r = .33, p < .001). Other trends suggested a relation between unhappiness and several measures of liberality and conflict. The results support other studies in showing a small relationship between adjustment and adherence to traditional, conservative values. Data are discussed in terms of different theories of the role of value conflicts in the etiology of neurosis. Other findings show that in Hawaii Caucasians are more liberal than Orientals, males are more liberal than females, estimates of parental outlook are less liberal than S‘s ideal behavior, and S‘s own behavior is more liberal than his ideal (in boys only) and more conservative than what his peers are believed to accept (in girls only).