Casual sex is linked to lower self-esteem and weaker moral orientations in women but not men

A recent study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences provides evidence that a person’s willingness to engage in casual sex is linked to different psychological traits depending on their gender. For men, this trait is mostly unrelated to how they view themselves or their morals, but for women, it tends to be associated with lower self-esteem and weaker moral orientations.

Sociosexuality is a psychological concept describing a person’s willingness to engage in sexual activity outside of a committed romantic relationship. People with unrestricted sociosexuality are comfortable with casual sex and do not require love or emotional closeness before becoming physically intimate. On the other hand, people with restricted sociosexuality prefer to establish a strong emotional bond and commitment before having sex.

While men tend to report higher unrestricted sociosexuality on average, there is a massive amount of variation within each gender. This wide variation led scientists to wonder if sociosexuality carries different psychological associations for men than it does for women. Specifically, scientists wanted to know if an openness to casual sex relates differently to how men and women judge their own self-worth and moral character.

Some past evidence suggests that society judges women much more harshly than men for having multiple sexual partners. Because of these cultural pressures, scientists suspected that women who engage in casual sex might experience more negative feelings about themselves. They also wondered if these differing social expectations might cause sociosexuality to connect differently to moral and immoral tendencies in men and women.

“While it’s well established that men tend to score higher than women on sociosexuality (the willingness to engage in sex outside a committed relationship), within-sex variation is actually much larger than the average difference between sexes. That means there’s more differences in sociosexuality within men and women than between men versus women,” said study author Charlotte Kinrade, an assistant professor of psychology at Kennesaw State University.

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“What we noticed was a lack of research asking whether that within-sex variation means different things for men versus women, particularly when it comes to how people feel about themselves and how they orient toward moral or immoral behavior. A few studies had hinted at possible sex differences, but the evidence was scattered and inconclusive, so we wanted to address the question more comprehensively.”

The scientists recruited 295 adult participants from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample included 120 women and had an average age of about 37 years old. The participants completed a series of randomized questionnaires designed to measure their sexual attitudes, self-judgments, and moral orientations.

The scientists measured sociosexuality by asking participants about their past sexual behaviors, their attitudes toward casual sex, and their desire for short sexual encounters. To assess core self-judgments, the survey included questions about self-esteem, authenticity, and a general sense of purpose in life. Authenticity refers to how much a person feels their actions align with their true inner self, rather than feeling controlled by outside forces.

The scientists also measured several moral and immoral orientations using validated psychological scales. They evaluated moral orientations by asking about personal integrity, the frequency of recent helping behaviors, and altruistic reasons for volunteering. They assessed immoral orientations by measuring tendencies to lie, the justification of unethical behaviors, and moral disengagement, which is a cognitive habit of ignoring moral standards to excuse bad behavior.

When looking at the data, the scientists found distinct patterns for men and women. For the men in the sample, sociosexuality was largely unrelated to their self-esteem, their sense of authenticity, or their sense of purpose. A man’s willingness to engage in casual sex also had no significant relationship with his moral orientations, like personal integrity or a tendency to help others.

However, the men who reported higher sociosexuality did show a weak positive relationship with some immoral orientations. Specifically, these men tended to be slightly more prone to everyday lying and justifying immoral actions. Beyond this slight increase in certain dishonest behaviors, a man’s sexual strategy did not seem to heavily influence his broader psychological or moral profile.

For women, the relationships between sociosexuality and psychological traits were noticeably different. Women who reported higher levels of sociosexuality tended to have lower self-esteem, a reduced sense of authenticity, and a lower sense of purpose in life. These negative connections to self-judgments were mostly small to medium in size, but they were statistically significant.

In addition to lower self-judgments, higher sociosexuality in women was connected to weaker moral orientations. Women who were more open to casual sex reported lower levels of personal integrity and fewer recent helping behaviors. They also scored higher on measures of immoral orientations, meaning they showed stronger tendencies toward moral disengagement, everyday lying, and justifying bad behavior.

The scientists verified that these differences between men and women were statistically significant and not caused by restricted statistical ranges or low measurement reliability. They also confirmed that the differences were not simply due to the age of the participants or the specific ways the measurements were recorded. The data clearly provides evidence that sociosexuality holds a different psychological weight for women than it does for men.

“The correlations we found for women were generally small to medium in size, which is actually meaningful in personality research,” Kinrade told PsyPost. “The pattern mattered more than any single effect size: across many different measures of self-judgment, moral orientation, and immoral orientation, the direction was remarkably consistent for women and notably absent for men.”

“The main takeaway is that sociosexuality doesn’t seem to carry the same psychological associations for men and women. For men in our sample, higher sociosexuality was largely unrelated to how they felt about themselves or their moral orientations. For women, higher sociosexuality was associated with lower self-esteem, reduced sense of authenticity and purpose, weaker moral orientations (like integrity and prosocial behavior), and stronger tendencies toward things like moral disengagement and lying.”

While the data shows clear patterns, the scientists ask the public to avoid misinterpreting these findings as an attack on women. Because the study relies on self-reported surveys taken at a single point in time, the exact causal relationship remains unknown.

“We can’t say whether higher sociosexuality leads to lower self-regard in women or whether pre-existing lower self-regard predisposes women toward short-term mating as both pathways are theoretically plausible,” Kinrade said. “Importantly, we’re not saying women who are more sociosexual are worse people. The data reflect correlations, not causes, and one explanation is sociocultural: women face harsher social judgments for the same sexual behaviors, and those external pressures may get internalized.”

Moving forward, scientists suggest conducting longitudinal studies, which track the same people over a long period of time. This approach would help determine whether changes in self-esteem and moral orientations happen before or after a person engages in casual sex. Future research should also involve more diverse, global samples to see if these gender differences exist in cultures with more equal sexual standards.

“One direction we’re interested in is the role of autonomy: do women who feel genuinely self-directed in their sexual choices show the same patterns as those who feel socially pressured?” Kinrade explained. “Longitudinal work would help clarify the causal story.”

The study, “Sociosexuality in men and women: Considering core self-judgments and (im)moral orientations,” was authored by William Hart, Charlotte Kinrade, Braden T. Hall, and Danielle E. Wahlers.