Symbols and investments as signals: Courtship behaviors in adolescent sexual relationships
Anthony Paik and
Vernon Woodley
Rationality and Society, 2012, vol. 24, issue 1, 3-36
Abstract:
Both structural and cultural arguments suggest that extensive relationship-building behaviors are a precursor to the onset of sexual intercourse. This research develops and tests a game-theoretic signaling framework, which suggests that the association between courtship behaviors and the onset of sexual intercourse should reflect selection effects. To test this framework empirically, this research utilized the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (1994–1996) and estimated probit and recursive bivariate probit models of sexual intercourse. The results showed support for the signaling framework. Extensive use of courtship behaviors was associated with sexual intercourse, but this association reflected the effects of selectivity. However, extensive courtship was more associated with sexual intercourse when adolescents did not know one another well prior to the start of their romantic relationships. These findings suggest that selectivity associated with signaling theory can complement models of cultural influence and structural effects.
Keywords: adolescence; investments; sexuality; signaling; symbols (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463111412719 (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:24:y:2012:i:1:p:3-36
DOI: 10.1177/1043463111412719
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Rationality and Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().