Attachment style and sexual permissiveness: The moderating role of gender

•Gender was found to moderate the influence of attachment style on sexuality.•Men with a dismissive/avoidant attachment style were more sexually permissive.•For women, a secure attachment style was associated with lower sexual permissiveness.

An individual difference variable that has been found to predict variation in young adults’ sexual attitudes and behaviors is attachment orientation. Although it has been argued that the association between attachment orientation and sexuality may differ for males and females, only a few studies have explored this possibility, and the results have been inconsistent. With data collected from a large sample (N = 4246) of college students at a U.S. Midwestern University, it was examined how men and women with different attachment styles may vary in sociosexuality and attitudes toward casual sex. This study found evidence that among men, and as hypothesized, a dismissive-avoidant attachment orientation was associated with higher scores on Simpson and Gangestad’s (1991) Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (sociosexuality) and on a measure of approval of sex in casual dating relationships. Among women, however, there was no support found for the hypothesis that an anxious-preoccupied attachment style was associated with greater sexual permissiveness or with approval of casual sex. As hypothesized, however, securely attached women had a lower score on sociosexuality than did women with other attachment styles.