Understanding sexual behavior as an interpersonal process: The influence of power on sexual risk-taking and condom use within intimate relationships

This study was designed to increase our psychological understanding of human behavior in sexually intimate relationships. It was divided into two phases each with separate but related purposes. The first phase examined the predominant view that gender is significantly related to sexual risk as it pertains to exposure to and contraction of HIV and questioned whether conceptualizations of risk based upon gender truly accounted for risk behavior in today's culture. It was predicted that power would be a significantly better predictor of sexual risk than gender. Interdependence Theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) was used as a framework for several hypotheses.; The study results showed that gender predicted sexual risk-taking, measured as the difference between individuals' desired safer sex behavior and their actual behavior, only when moderated by the male partner holding traditional gender role beliefs. Power level was directly related to sexual risk-taking; low-power individuals reported more sexual risk-taking than high-power individuals. Further, gender was unrelated to an individual's power level. The results extend the concept of willingness to sacrifice (Van Lange et al., 1997) to include potentially self-harming behaviors.; The second phase examined how the inclusion of relationship power affected the predictability of condom-use intentions and behavior utilizing the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985). Results indicate that the Theory of Planned Behavior provides the best prediction of condom-use intentions and behavior for high-power individuals whereas, a revised version of the Theory of Planned Behavior best predicted intentions and behavior in low-power individuals. Attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioral control predicted intentions for high-power individuals; partner norms and social norms predicted intentions for low-power individuals.; This study increases our understanding of sexual risk and interpersonal relationships. It provides strong support for including interpersonal characteristics in HIV-prevention research. Further, it suggests that researchers should exercise caution when using gender as a predictor of sexual risk and should, at least, include measures of power in their studies. Finally, separate interventions should be developed specifically for high- or low-power individuals.