Y. K. ZHOU ET AL.
OPEN ACCESS
Table 2.
Loadings of five first-hierarchy factors in two second-hierarchy factors.
F1 F2
of responsibility (f1) .819
(f3) .797
eing in love (f2) .811
(f5) .713
ity (f4) .604
2.919 1.423
36.490 17.789
values were as fol l o ws: Sense of Responsibility = 0.81; Being in
Love = 0.76; Sense of Ethics = 0.73; Chastity = 0.68; Fidelity
= 0.78. Internal consistency for the scale was 0.79. Spearman’s
correlation of test and retest data, indicated high levels of con-
sistency over t ime, with a significant relationship for the overall
scores obtained for two tests (r = .823, p < .01). Ten correla-
tions between the five factors were modest (ranging from 0.23
to 0.54).
Concurrent Validity
Strict Sexual-Moral Principles (F2) had strong negative cor-
relation with Permissiveness (r = −.81, p < .05) and Instru-
mentality (r = −.76, p < .05) dimensions, and correlated posi-
tively with Birth Control (r = .61, p < .05) and Communion (r
= .84, p < .05) dimension in The Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale
(Hendrick, 2006). Basic Sexual-Moral Principles (F1), sc ore of
which distributed with obvious negative skewness, had signifi-
cant positive correlation with Birth Control (r = .72, p < .05)
and didn’t have significant correlation with the other three di-
mensions.
Construct V al i di ty
Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the con-
struct validity. The one-hierarchy model with five factors had a
GFI of .95, AGFI of .92, CFI of .88, NFI of .87, RMSEA
of .094, and χ2/df = 12.85, and the two-hierarchy model with
five first-hierarchy factors and two second-hierarchy factors
had a GFI of .98, AGFI of .95, CFI of .96, NFI of .94, RMSEA
of .061 and χ2/df = 3.05. So the two-hierarchy model had better
psychometric properties than the one-hierarchy model.
Difference Analysis
The mean score for the 20 items in the SMAS was 66.24 (SD
= 6.51). There was no difference between male and female res-
ponses, but there was difference between college students who
have experienced sexual intercourse and those who have not
experienced sexual intercourse (t = −5.16, p < 0.01). There was
no difference between male and female responses to F1, but
There was difference between male and female responses to F2
(t = −2.31, p < 0.05). College students who have experienced
premarital sexual intercourse and those who have not expe-
rienced premarital sexual intercourse response to F2 differently
(t = −7.42, p < 0.01) but not differently to F1. There was no sig-
nificant difference in every dimension’s mean score of SMAS
between The homosexual sample and the heterosexual sample.
Discussions
In the present study, the 20-item Sexual-Moral Attitudes
Scale was developed to measure the moral aspects of sexual
attitudes of Chinese college students. Based on EFA and CFA,
a multi-hierarchy and multi-dimension model was confirmed.
Results from reliability and validity analysis indicated that the
scale emerged with good psychometric properties. It can be
concluded that contemporary Chinese college students has two
moral criteria systems to assess their sexual behaviors. The first
one is the Basic Sexual-Moral Principles, which includes two
first-hierarchy factors as Sense of Responsibility and Sense of
Ethics, no matter having experienced premarital sexual inter-
course or not, Chinese college students have strong agreement
on this moral criterion. The second one is Strict Sexual-Moral
Principles, which includes three first-hierarchy factors as Being
in Love, Chastity and Fidelity; they are strict moral criteria and
would be complied with just by those students who haven’t
experienced premarital sexual intercourse. In the case study,
some participants reported their anti-tradition sexual behaviors,
such as one-night stands and have sexual relationships with
several partners; some of them also wanted to protect the Strict
Sexual-Moral Principles, but seriously affected by the easy-
getting sexual information, their sexuality was out of control;
these participants inclined to emphasize the Instrumentality
(Hendrick, 2006) and choose to agree with the Basic Sexual-
Moral Principles as coping pattern to reduce the inner conflict.
This research has some limitations. First, participants were
university students; thus, the generalizability may be limited
and the scale’s utility to other age groups should be in caution.
In addition, the future study should provide more information
about the correlation between sexual-moral at ti tude s an d men tal
health. Now, the two mora l cri teri a sy st ems h a ve been shown in
the Chinese culture.
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