SOCIAL COMPARISONS OF ONES OWN WITH OTHERS ATTITUDES TOWARD CASUAL AND RESPONSIBLE SEX

College students perceive their risks for negative outcomes from sexua l behavior as lower than that of their peers. We examined whether simi lar biases would occur when undergraduates rated their own, their clos e friends', and the typical college student's attitudes regarding casu al sex and sexual responsibility. Participants rated their own attitud es relative to all others' as the least permissive and most sexually r esponsible. Close friends' attitudes were rated as less permissive and more responsible than the average college student's. Finally, individ uals with unrestricted sociosexual orientations and men attributed mor e permissive and less sexually responsible attitudes to both themselve s and close friends than did individuals with restricted sociosexual o rientations and women. These latter effects were absent when rating th e typical college student.