Dishonest About the Past

The mind is a tricky thing:

People’s memories of their behavior are consistent with their beliefs rather than their actual behavior,” author Janet Rosenbaum, of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts told Reuters Health. She goes on to say that some people seem to feel like the answer which is strictly true may not represent themselves accurately.”

Background-

Rosenbaum evaluated retractions of virginity pledges and reports of sexual histories among a nationally representative sample of seventh- through twelfth-grade students who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

The students were first interviewed in 1995 and followed-up in 1996. The first survey included responses from 79 percent of 20,745 students. The second survey included responses from 88 percent of 14,736 students from the first group.

Results-

In the initial survey, about 13 percent of adolescents reported that they had taken a pledge of virginity. Just one year later, however, more than half of this group said they had never taken such a pledge, Rosenbaum reports in the American Journal of Public Health.

In addition, more than 1 in 10 students who reported being sexually active in 1995 said that they were virgins in 1996. Students who reported they were sexually active in second survey were more than three times as likely as their peers to deny they had taken a pledge of virginity.

Findings-

Teenagers who take pledges to remain virgins until marriage are likely to deny having taken the pledge if they later become sexually active. Conversely, those who were sexual active before taking the pledge frequency deny their sexual history, according to new study findings.

Interesting Notes-

Research shows that survey respondents tend to answer questions about sexual activity according to their current beliefs, particularly if their current attitudes conflict with their past behaviors

Denials of virginity pledges and sexual histories were associated with changes in their sexual and religious identities -
For example, adolescents who abandoned a born-again Christian identity were more than twice as likely as their peers to say they had never taken a virginity pledge.

28 percent of nonvirgins who later took a virginity pledge retracted their sexual histories during the 1996 survey. The same was true of 18 percent of nonvirgins who later adopted a born-again Christian identity

Sexually active teens who later took virginity pledges were four times as likely to deny previous reports of sexual activity than were those who had not taken virginity pledges.


(from NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Thursday, June 1, 2006 By Charnicia Huggins)

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3 Responses to “Dishonest About the Past”

  1. Mary Says:
    June 24th, 2006 at 3:13 pm

    I love statistics they are so fun to play with. I am taking a “biostatistics and epidimology” class and the variables or sample groups that can skew the outcomes are enormous. Carl has a book called “lying with statistics” and it is so funny because it is so true. Someone else who wanted to show a different slant could very easily do so. You just decide what you want to prove and go from there. I do like the “epidemiology” portion since I deal with diagnosis all the time and can “play” with those statistics.

    One of my favorites on statistics are the new ads out for HPV and how it leads to cervical cancer and Yikes a virus can cause cancer!!!! It is all over the news. They warn women to tell other women about this. Of course they never mention that the virus is spread by an STD and you must be in a high risk group to even get HPV. I am writing a 7 page report on this for my class, because it is such a misuse of statistics.

    I love you Theresa, but it sure seems you spend a great deal of time looking for ways to put down Christianity.It is sad that you feel such bitterness and I am sorry that you met with such disappointment in something that is so precious and beautiful in many peoples lives. God has been the only good and constant relationship in my entire life and many others feel that way too.

    Look into any group or religion and there will be people there who are there for their own agenda’s. I am glad I never let it stop me from living a life of peace, no matter what experience was going on the outside. I know that you prefer to see us as narrow minded but for me that is not true, I have been very open minded and seen much and most of it is ugly and not to be trusted. But that is me.

    I have met committed and wonderful people of all and no religions. I am friends with many, yes they are petty at times, thier religions have flaws, the believers have many more but something is always better than nothing. I will just skip the anti christian portions and drop by and say “howdy” on others (I think I was in Wyoming toooooo long) I am back home and glad to be here.

    Lots of love
    Mary

  2. Theresa Says:
    June 25th, 2006 at 11:54 am

    Hey Mary - Glad you are home safe and sound. I agree: statistics are funny things, well, not the statistics so much but what one can do with them. I would love to read Carl’s book.

    Thanks for having these conversations with me. You are one of my Christian friends who can give and take without getting defensive and I appreciate that. I am not on the lookout for ways to put down Christianity, it’s just where I’ve been versus where I am now. I’m not trying to convince anyone one way or the other, just opening up opportunities to think and explore. I come across ideas and say wow, I never thought of that before. Or maybe I ‘thunk’ it but never put it into words so succinctly.

    Like I told Grandma Louise once - you are never going to convince me to becaome a Jehovah’s Witness and I am never going to convince you to become a Christian so let’s just leave it at that. After that we had some interesting conversations about the way we did things in our own churches. Until then I never pictured JW’s having a church service where they sang worship songs just like we did.

    I went to a Mormon church a few months back for a funeral and I was surprised at how “Chrisitian” it was. They used the word ‘testify’ a lot where we would normally use ‘witness’ and of course they had the Book of Mormon verses, but it seemed like there were more Bible verses than BoM.

    Good luck with your surgery - make sure Carl keeps us posted like last time and let us know when you are ready for a phone call.

    Love you!

  3. mary Says:
    June 25th, 2006 at 3:01 pm

    Sounds good to me, Though of course I will always pray for you to change around. How could I live with myself now or later :) if I didn’t. I heard an interesting sermon by Pastor Tom. The Bible is not true because we believe it, we (who choose) to believe it believe it because it is true. He also said Americans are believer in truth, if something happens once and works it is true. I it doesn’t work at first than it isn’t the truth. Verrrry Interesting if you ask me.

    If you ever need material to make fun of me on trips for a speech, just let us tell you about our summer vacation (chevy chase would have had fun)

    Do you get a discount at work? Do you carry those cool leather portfolio things that hold your PDA and stuff?

    Lots of love,

    Mary

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