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TARS:
Youthful Relationships and Sexual Risk Taking
Peggy C. Giordano (PI)
Monica A. Longmore (CI)
Wendy D. Manning (CI)
This five year project, funded by the NICHD, builds on an in-depth study of adolescent heterosexual relationships, the Toledo
Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS). We emphasize the potentially important role of communication awkwardness, heightened
emotionality, various types of asymmetries as well as the critical but subjective element of "trust." A core theme is that
experiences associated with gender, social class position, and minority status influence the course of heterosexual dating
and romantic relationships. We identify the features of relationships that may influence variations in both the management
of sexual risk deriving from the partner's experiences/behaviors and ones own involvement in risky sexual behavior. Next,
we examine distinct individual trajectories of involvement in high-risk sexual behaviors. We are focusing attention on stability
and changes from a particular pattern. The findings from this project will lead to potential areas of social malleability
in relationship choices and behaviors that can be incorporated into the design of more effective HIV prevention/intervention
efforts.
Visit the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study on the web at http://www.bgsu.edu/tars
IDENTITY:
Social Relationships, Identity, and Sexual Risk Taking
Monica A. Longmore (PI)
Peggy C. Giordano (CI)
Wendy D. Manning (CI)
This two year project, funded by DHHS, builds on a four-wave longitudinal study of adolescents’ relationships with parents,
peers and romantic partners (the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study). Through the use of multiple methodologies, we will
develop a conceptual and descriptive portrait of specific adolescent identities associated with variations in heterosexual
sexual experience, from abstinence to repeated involvement in high risk sexual situations; assess how parents’, peers’, and
romantic partners’ "reflected appraisals" affect adolescents self-identities; determine how heightened emotionality associated
with romantic and other social relationships influences identity development, and, in turn, sexual behavior; and examine stability
and change in adolescents self-identities associated with premarital sexual behavior, particularly movement away from a risky
pattern.
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