Sexual Attitudes, Cognitive Associative Networks, and Perceived Vulnerability to Unplanned Pregnancy

The current study was designed to examine the relation between cognitive associative networks, perceptions of vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy, and erotophobia. Two issues were addressed. The first was whether negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (i.e., erotophobia) is related to cognitive associations between sexual words and words with positive vs negative connotations (e.g., vagina and hug vs vagina and rejection). The second issue was whether erotophobia moderates the relation between cognitive associations and perceptions of vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy. Results indicated that erotophilics have stronger associations between positive and sexual words, whereas erotophobics have stronger associations between negative and sexual words. In addition, it was demonstrated that erotophobia–erotophilia moderates the relation between cognitive associations and perceived vulnerability, such that the link between cognitive associations and perceptions of risk is stronger for erotophilics than for erotophobics.