Expected Impact of Sex-Related Events on Dating Relationships

Students at a midwest university were asked to indicate their expectations concerning how their commitment to and the stability of their dating relationship would change as a result of severa1 sex-related events occurring. Subjects were told to imagine that these events had happened either to the self or to the partner (randomly assigned). These events were: testing positive on the AIDS antibody test, getting a full case of AIDS, having an heterosexual extrarelational affair, having a homosexual extrarelational affair, being raped, contracting herpes, getting pregnant, and having an abortion (the latter two were always presented as happening to the female partner). Subjects expected that most of these events would negative1 affect their commitment to their dating relationship and the actual stability of the relationship. The results from an ANOVA indicated that how subjects responded to some of the events depended on their gender and/or on whether the events were presented as occurring to the self or to the partner. These differences are discussed and suggestions are made for further research.