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A Revision of the Reiss Premarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale

1988; Wiley; Volume: 50; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/352650

1741-3737

Susan Sprecher, Kathleen McKinney, Robert H. Walsh, Carrie Anderson,

Gender Roles and Identity Studies

A new version of the Reiss (1964) Premarital Sexual Permissiveness scale is introduced in this research. Changes are made in the sexual behaviors and relationship stages included in the scale and experimental randomization is used to examine how standards vary for different categories of targets. The sexual behaviors in the Reiss PSP scale--kissing petting and full sexual relationships--are replaced by heavy petting (defined as touching of genitals) sexual intercourse and oral-genital sex. The other major change in the scale is in the specific levels of intimacy. Reisss 4 stages--no affection strong affection in love and engaged--are not mutually exclusive and are replaced in this research with 1st date casually dating seriously dating pre-engaged (informal commitment to marriage) and engagement (formal commitment to marriage). These labels mark the progression of a relationship. The gender of the hypothetical person referred to in the scale items was found not to affect the responses to the scale items. However the persons age had a significant effect on responses to the revised scale. Standards for a teenager were less permissive than standards for a young adult. Another finding of the study is that males had more sexually permissive standards than females. Suggestions are made for how the revised scale may be used in further research.