Adolescent Attitudes Regarding Dating Relationships Female Version (Davidson, 2005)

• Populations: Adolescents, Young Adults
• Age ranges: 14-19
• Languages: English
• Countries: United States

Items

Subscales:

• Precursors to Coercion, 12 Items
• Peer and Social Pressure, 10 Items 
• Support for Healthy Attitudes, 5 Items

Items by Subscale

Precursors to Coercion

• When a boyfriend is jealous, it means he cares about the relationship. 
• When a guy gets jealous when his girlfriend is talking to another guy, it shows he really likes her. 
• It is a sign of caring when a guy insists on knowing where his girlfriend is at every moment. 
• If a guy really likes you, he will always want to be touching you. 
• It is OK for a girl to ask her friends to keep tabs (keep track of, keep an eye out) on her boyfriend. 
• It is normal for a girl’s boyfriend to want to know where she is at all times. 
• It is OK for a guy to ask his friends to keep tabs (keep track of, keep an eye out) on his girlfriend. 
• If a girl really likes a guy, she will always want to be touching him. 
• If my boyfriend really loved me, he would want to spend all of his time with me. 
• It is OK for a boy’s girlfriend to tell him which girls he can and cannot talk to. 
• Guys getting a little physically rough with girls is just a normal part of dating relationships. 
• Wanting to know your boyfriend’s class and work schedules is a normal part of relationships.

Peer and Social Pressure

• It seems like everywhere I look, I am being given messages to have sex. 
• Music videos show girls wanting to be forced into sex
• The lyrics of today’s songs make me feel like everyone is sexually active. 
• Guys pressure their guy friends into being sexually active. 
• Guys threaten to break up with girls if girls don’t do sexual things with them.
• Scoring with as many girls as possible makes guys more popular. 
• The peer pressure to not be a virgin is very strong. 
• In movies, girls are shown as wanting to be forced into sex. 
• The old double standard still exists—guys who have sex are seen as studs, girls who have sex are seen as sluts.
• Girls hook up with guys so they won’t get teased by guys. 

Support for Healthy Attitudes

• My family has instilled values in me about dating relationships and sexual behavior. 
• My teachers have taught me to respect myself and my body. 
• Most parents have talked to their teenagers about healthy dating relationships. 
• Most teens think about what their parents have taught them when in a sexual situation. 
• When I hang out with my friends, we often talk about sexual things like making out, hooking up, having sex, etc.

Responses

Items use a six-point response format (1 = Strongly Agree to 6 = Strongly Disagree) without a midpoint.

Scoring

“In terms of scoring procedures, negatively worded items were reversed scored and then all item scores were summed. Higher scores indicate more positive attitudes (anti-coercion) regarding dating relationships” (Davidson, 2005)

Citations

Davidson, M. M. (2005). Adolescent Attitudes Regarding Dating Relationships: the Construction of Sex-Specific Scales [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia]. ProQuest Dissertation Publishing.

Team comments

This scale was developed alongside Adolescent Attitudes Regarding Dating Relationships Male Version (Davidson, 2005)