Psychological topics, Vol. 15 No. 1, 2006.
Original scientific paper
Relations of Personality Traits and Attachment Styles with Different Aspects of Sexuality in Men and Women
Igor Kardum
Asmir Gračanin
Jasna Hudek-Knežević
Abstract
The present study explores the relations of the five-factor personality dimensions and attachment styles (secure, dismissive, preoccupied and fearful) with various aspects of sexuality (sociosexuality, sexual attractiveness, sexual exclusiveness, gender orientation, erotophilia, sexual orientation, sexual indiscretion and sexual constraint) which are saturated by two higher order factors named sexual drive and sexual commitment. These relations were examined on samples of 297 male and 316 female participants ranging in age from 17 to 36 years.
The results show that attachment styles could not be subsumed under the broad five-factor personality traits, but they could be rather seen as two independent domains. Furthermore, personality traits proved to be better predictors of the various aspects of sexuality both in the sample of men and women. Also, personality traits better predict aspects of sexuality related to sexual drive than those related to sexual commitment in the samples of men and women. The most important factor is extraversion, which is the strongest predictor of almost all aspects of sexual drive in both sexes. When attachment styles are concerned, the results show that lower dismissive attachment style is the most consistent predictor of various aspects of sexuality and especially sexual commitment in both sexes. Secure attachment is a positive predictor of erotophilia and sexual drive, but only in the sample of men, while preoccupied and fearful attachment are weakly and
inconsistently related to different aspects of sexuality.
No consistent differences in attachment styles as predictors of various aspects of sexuality have been obtained between men and women. Considering personality traits, openness to experience has proved to be an important predictor of various
aspects of sexuality in men than in women, while in the sample of women conscientiousness plays more important role, especially in the prediction of some aspects of sexual commitment.
The results of multidimensional scaling, analyzing the relations between all variables examined have shown that personality traits, attachment styles and sexuality dimensions are distributed in an Euclidean space along two axes that could be interpreted in the context of the fundamental interpersonal dimensions.
Keywords
personality traits; attachment styles; sociosexuality; sexual drive; sexual commitment
Hrčak ID:
11834
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2006.
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