Psychosocial correlates and antecedents of abortion: An exploratory study

Longitudinal data are used to examine the relation between young adult women's abortion experience and a variety of antecedent and subsequent personality, perceived environment, and behavior variables. About one-quarter of the women in two separate samples reported that they had had an abortion. Bivariate analyses show that young adult women who have had an abortion are characterized by greater psychosocial unconventionality than women who have not had an abortion. Similar differences along an underlying dimension of conventionality-unconventionality distinguish, antecedent to the abortion experience, women who would later have an abortion from those who would not. The findings are consistent with the expectations of Problem-Behavior Theory (Jessor & Jessor, 1977).This paper is a report from the Young Adult Follow-Up Study (R. Jessor, princial investigator) supported by Grant No. AA-03745 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.We are grateful to Dr. Lee Jessor for her contribution to the overall longitudinal project and to several of the measures employed in this report.