Discordant attitudes, desires, and behaviors: sexual cognitive dissonance in the transition to adulthood

Abstract We explore the empirical puzzle of how conflicting attitudes and desires evolve and exert competing behavioral influences, focusing on the socially contentious case of premarital sex among young women in the United States. Leveraging intensive panel data collected for up to 2.5 years among a large, population-based sample of unmarried women aged 18–22, we show that women’s sexual attitudes and desires often follow distinct trajectories that eventually come into conflict because, on aver