Understanding sexting behaviors, sexting expectancies, and the role of impulsivity in sexting behaviors

Abstract

Sexting, defined as the exchange of sexually explicit materials via the Internet or mobile phones, is an increasingly common risky behavior; however, little is known about why people sext. The goals of the study were to (1) review the sparse literature on sexting, (2) identify key information yet to be answered by the current literature, (3) describe how personality and social learning might influence the risk for sexting, (4) empirically examine the factor structure of the newly developed Sextpectancies Measure, and (5) empirically examine how sensation seeking and sexual arousal-related expectancies might interact to predict sexting. Participants: Participants were undergraduate students at a large, public US, mid-western university (N = 611). The mean age was 21.2 (SD = 5.4) and the sample was 77.3% female. Design: A series of correlational, reliability, and hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine relationships between sensation seeking, sexting frequency, and sexual arousal sexting expectancies. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted based on two proposed models of the Sextpectancies Measure. Findings: Sensation seeking significantly predicted sexting frequency (β = .215, p < .001). Sexual arousal sexting expectancies significantly predicted sexting frequency (β = .428, p < .001), and sexual arousal expectancies partially mediated the relationship between sensation seeking and sexting frequency, showing a significant indirect effect (β = .085, p < .001). Although the initially proposed model for the Sextpectancies Measure examining two overarching sending and receiving domains did not fit the data well, an alternative model which identified overall positive and negative expectancies, fit the model relatively well (RMSEA = .085; CFI = .926). Conclusions: This study is the first step towards understanding the sexting risk process and how specific personality traits and social learning may increase the risk for sexting. Additionally this study provides some insight into common expectancies of sexting.