Sexual attitudes and contraceptive behavior revisited: Can there be too much of a good thing?

A longitudinal study was performed to explore a possible curvilinear relationship between sexual attitudes and contraceptive behavior. A community sample of 62 women recorded their sexual and contraceptive behavior for five consecutive weeks using daily diary reports. During an initial testing session, participants were asked to report their contraceptive behavior in the Last month and to predict their contraceptive behavior for the coming month. Women reported using less effective contraceptive methods during the five weeks than they had for the month prior to the study and than they had predicted for the month concurrent with the study. Both the consistency and effectiveness of women's contraceptive behavior over the five weeks was found to have a quadratic (inverted-U) relationship with their sexual attitude, as measured by the Sexual Opinion Survey. The results are discussed with respect to biases inherent in subjective retrospective data and the possible link between an extremely positive emotional orientation toward sexuality and willingness to engage in high-risk sexual behavior.