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What different between science and social study?

Sexual partners' divorce risk is often used by social conservatives as an argument for abstinence prior to marriage. How compelling is the science behind the study and the assertions drawn from it?

  • This graphic is often used to promote abstinence. It's from a study performed by Jay Teachman.  People that reference this study tend to drawn causative correlations from it. How real are they? How informative is this study? What does it really imply? How clear are the data and assertions made from the study?

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    I first became aware of this thanks to . She and I discussed it in my commends to her post, here: I have no iron in the fire. I'm an atheist, so I certainly have no Christian agenda to convince people to stay pure until marriage. On the other hand, I would not be shocked beyond belief if it turned out there's a connection between early sex and divorce. (I also wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't a connection. It's not something I had thought much about either way. To be honest, I don't care much either way.) What upsets me is spin. I hate ALL spin. What the study showed was a CORRELATION between early-loss-of-virginity and divorce. Apparently, there is one. Interesting. I thank Toni for alerting me to this! But as I hope we all know, correlation is not causation. When I hear someone cite this study and claim it shows loss-of-virginity LEADS TO divorce (as people seem to be doing all over the Internet), I want to go postal. I am offended on behalf of all rational thinkers -- theist and atheist alike. Let's all keep our strong views; let's (politely) argue with each other; but let's rise above spin. "Spin" is a polite word for lies. The article says "The most salient finding from this analysis is that women whose intimate premarital relationships are limited to their husbands—either premarital sex alone or premarital cohabitation—do not experience an increased risk of divorce." THAT is correlation. A similar article says: "After a variety of observable characteristics affecting the likelihood of divorce, the differential is no longer statistically significant. These results suggest that the positive relationship between premarital sex and the risk of divorce can be attributed to prior unobserved differences (e.g willingness to break traditional norms) rather than to a direct causal effect." http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/352992?uid=3739560&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=55939854263 That is ALSO correlation. I want to be very clear about something: if you think -- even for a second -- that I'm suggesting premarital sex does NOT lead to divorce, you're wrong. I am not suggesting that it does or doesn't. And from what I can tell, there's no research that suggests it does or doesn't, either. The jury is out. If you think the above research suggests anything of the sort, then you have failed to grasp that correlation does not suggest causation. There's no shame in that. It's a common mistake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation If you DO understand how correlation and causation are different from each other, and yet you say things like, "This study shows that premarital sex leads to divorce," then SHAME ON YOU! Shame on you even if you are doing it for what you believe is a good cause. Wage your wars and win your battles, but do it without lying. Incidentally, if you want to learn the latest Science about human sexuality, I urge you to read the entertaining, challenging and brilliant book, "Sex and Dawn." Check out the reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stray-Modern-Relationships/dp/0061707813/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332639984&sr=1-1

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As with many statistical studies, the main flaw is in the assumptions. The assumption in this study is that divorce is evil. Well, it is, especially when kids are involved. Yet in most of the cases I know, it was the lesser evil than continuing the dysfunctional marriage. It presumes that if people didn't divorce, they are a happy family. Well, there are things worse than divorce - domestic homicide, child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse that results in suicides and lifetimes of depression, spousal physical abuse (sometimes used to prevent divorces), unhealthy communication within the family, you name it. You can also suggest common causation, arguing  that people abstaining from sex before marriage did that because of positive role models, and the same factor creates stable families. That does nothing to prove that young people without such role models can equally benefit from propaganda of abstinence. Better study would be to analyse the effect of propaganda of abstinence rather than abstinence as such (to remove common causation), and then include other factors that would indicate health of the families.

Alex Jouravlev

A more thorough exploration of this topic is given in: Paik, A. (2011). Adolescent sexuality and the risk of marital dissolution.Journal of Marriage and Family, 73(2), 472-485. http://www.unav.es/matrimonioyfamilia/b/top/2011/Paik_JMM73_Adolescent-sexuality.pdf Contra Teachman, he shows a surprising 1.57 hazard ratio for women having sex only with their future husband as compared to no premarital sex at all, as compared to a 1.91 hazard ratio for multiple partners. The author also laments the lack of causal evidence for these associations. However, recent studies are getting at the specific behavior alternatives to abstinence, which is an interesting contrast. One such is: Sassler, S., Addo, F. R. and Lichter, D. T. (2012), The Tempo of Sexual Activity and Later Relationship Quality. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74: 708–725. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00996.x http://twileshare.com/uploads/The_Tempo_of_Sexual_Activity.pdf This research compares ratings of marital satisfaction for categories based on the answer to this survey question: How long did you and your [spouse/partner] date prior to having sex for the first time? (a) less than a week (b) more than a week but less than a month (c) 1 or 2 months (d) 3 to 6 months (e) more than 6 months but less than 1 year (f) 1 year or more To summarize, longer duration made a significant difference to women's satisfaction ratings but not to men's. Finally, a sibling-comparison study has pointed out that environmental factors are unlikely to have a significant impact on this effect: http://www.utexas.edu/news/2012/10/18/does-true-love-wait-age-of-first-sexual-experience-predicts-romantic-outcomes-in-adulthood/ So there is some movement in this area, but as of yet, there is nothing substantial about causation.

Anonymous

I'm annoyed that I can't blow up the picture to see it better.  Meh.

Lynn Wright

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