Sexual Attitude Scale

1. Abstract

The Sexual Attitude Scale (SAS) is an established 25-item psychometric assessment instrument developed by Walter W. Hudson, Gerald J. Murphy, and Paula S. Nurius in 1983 to quantify individual orientations along a unidimensional continuum spanning liberal versus conservative attitudes toward human sexual expression. Constructed primarily for use in clinical social work, sexology, marriage and family therapy, and socio-behavioral research, the SAS measures an individual’s evaluative predispositions toward a broad spectrum of sexual behaviors, societal regulations, and educational practices. Administered as a paper-and-pencil or computerized self-report questionnaire, respondents evaluate statements using a 5-point category-partition Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). Two items (Items 21 and 22) are positively keyed toward personal autonomy and freedom of expression, requiring reverse-scoring to align with the scale’s directional scoring scheme.

The instrument generates a standardized total composite score calibrated between 0 and 100, where lower scores designate highly liberal, permissive, and egalitarian stances regarding human sexuality, and higher scores represent conservative, restrictive, traditional, and procreative orientations. The scale features an operational cut-score of 50, providing a clear boundary for differentiating predominantly liberal (< 50) from predominantly conservative (> 50) profiles. Extensive psychometric evaluations demonstrate excellent internal consistency reliability, with a reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .94 and a low Standard Error of Measurement (SEM = 4.20). Known-groups construct validation has established a robust point-biserial validity coefficient of .73 when contrasting criterion-defined liberal and conservative reference cohorts. With an estimated completion time of 5 to 7 minutes and an accessible readability profile (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 7), the SAS remains an influential measurement tool for assessing sexual ideology, monitoring therapeutic interventions, and examining socio-cultural determinants of sexual expression across adolescent and adult populations aged 12 years and older.

2. Keywords

Sexual Attitude Scale, SAS, sexual conservatism, sexual liberalism, Walter W. Hudson, psychometrics, sexology, human sexuality assessment, attitudes toward sex, WALMYR Assessment Scales, sexual permissiveness, social work evaluation

3. Authors

The Sexual Attitude Scale was conceived and psychometrically validated by a collaborative team of distinguished clinical researchers and psychometricians:

• Walter W. Hudson, Ph.D. (1934–1999): Formerly the Joyce M. F. Thomas Professor of Social Work at the Florida State University College of Social Work and founder of the WALMYR Publishing Company. Dr. Hudson was an internationally renowned scholar in clinical measurement, behavioral assessment, and single-system research designs in the human services. His development of the Clinical Measurement Package (CMP) revolutionized standardized assessment across clinical social work, marriage counseling, and family therapy.
• Gerald J. Murphy, Ph.D., LCSW: Clinical practitioner and researcher based in New Orleans, Louisiana, specializing in human sexuality, sex therapy, clinical evaluation, and behavioral interventions across diverse clinical populations.
• Paula S. Nurius, Ph.D., MSW: Co-author of the foundational 1983 validation study and frequent collaborator with Dr. Hudson. Dr. Nurius is an endowed professor (currently the Grace Beals-Ferguson Scholar and Professor of Social Work at the University of Washington School of Social Work), widely recognized for her scholarship in clinical cognitive assessment, stress processes, and human services informatics.

Institutional affiliations historically associated with the development and distribution of the SAS include the Florida State University School of Social Work (Tallahassee, Florida) and the WALMYR Publishing Company (PO Box 12217, Tallahassee, FL 32317-2217), which serves as the organizational repository for the WALMYR Assessment Scale library.

4. Purpose

The primary clinical and empirical purpose of the Sexual Attitude Scale (SAS) is to provide a rapid, psychometrically sound, short-form operationalization of an individual’s ideological and evaluative orientation toward human sexual expression. The scale was developed to overcome widespread measurement deficiencies that characterized sexological literature throughout the mid-to-late 20th century, which frequently relied on idiosyncratic, unstandardized questionnaires with untested reliability or excessive length that rendered them unsuitable for routine clinical practice.

From an applied clinical perspective, the SAS serves as a vital diagnostic and communicative baseline within couple therapy, psychosexual therapy, and family counseling. Divergent sexual values between intimate partners—such as conflicting moral standards regarding premarital sex, masturbation, visual erotica, or communicative transparency—are well-documented sources of marital discord, sexual dysfunction, and relational dissolution. By administering the SAS, clinicians can objectively identify specific areas of ideological friction, quantify the degree of value discrepancy between partners, and formulate targeted behavioral and cognitive interventions that facilitate mutual understanding and conflict resolution. Furthermore, because the instrument possesses a high degree of measurement sensitivity, it is exceptionally well-suited for repeated-measures paradigms, such as single-case designs (AB, ABAB), enabling therapists to monitor longitudinal shifts in sexual anxiety, cognitive rigidity, or guilt over the course of clinical treatment.

In academic and social-behavioral research, the SAS functions as an indispensable independent, dependent, or moderating variable across diverse domains:

• Epidemiological and Public Health Research: Evaluating the impact of sexual conservatism on sexual health outcomes, such as contraceptive adherence, condom negotiation, screening for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and engagement with reproductive healthcare services.
• Educational Evaluation: Assessing the cognitive and attitudinal outcomes of comprehensive sexuality education curricula in high schools, colleges, and medical training institutions, establishing whether instructional modules reduce stigmatizing attitudes toward non-traditional sexual expressions.
• Sociological and Political Science Inquiry: Investigating the structural correlates of sexual ideology, including religiosity, political affiliation, gender-role adherence, authoritarianism, and attitudes toward legal and civil rights (e.g., LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, and media censorship).

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the Sexual Attitude Scale is conceptualized as a unidimensional bipolar continuum anchored by Sexual Conservatism at the upper pole and Sexual Liberalism at the lower pole. In Hudson’s psychometric framework, sexual attitudes represent enduring cognitive and affective predispositions that organize how an individual evaluates, judges, and reacts to diverse manifestations of sexual behavior, both in private contexts and within the public sphere.

Sexual Conservatism (High Scores: 51–100)

Sexual conservatism, as operationalized within the SAS, reflects an evaluative orientation characterized by restrictive, traditional, normative, and proscriptive views of human sexuality. Individuals exhibiting elevated scores endorse beliefs that sexual expression must be strictly regulated by institutional authorities, such as the church, the legal apparatus, and the traditional marital family. The conservative pole is characterized by several core psychological and moral themes:

• Institutional and Marital Exclusivity: The conviction that sexual intercourse is morally permissible only within the legal and spiritual confines of heterosexual marriage (e.g., Item 13: “I think sex should be reserved for marriage”; Item 7: “Pre-marital sex may be a sign of a decaying social order”; Item 8: “Extra-marital sex is never excusable”).
• Procreative Primacy: The traditional belief that the primary, if not exclusive, legitimate purpose of sexual activity is biological reproduction rather than recreational intimacy, hedonistic pleasure, or self-actualization (e.g., Item 16: “Sex should be devoted to the business of procreation”; Item 12: “I think the only proper way to have sex is through intercourse”).
• Behavioral Restraint and Moral Prohibition: Disapproval of non-coital or self-directed sexual expressions, including solitary masturbation (Item 17: “People should not masturbate”) and heavy petting (Item 18).
• Societal and Legal Regulation: Strong support for structural censorship, institutional limits on sexuality education, and statutory prohibition of adult sexual behaviors (e.g., Item 4: “Sex education should be restricted to the home”; Item 25: “Pornography should be totally banned from our bookstores”; Item 21 reversed).
• Marginalization of Non-Normative Populations: Restrictive attitudes concerning who is entitled to sexual desire and agency, characterized by exclusionary views toward elderly individuals (Item 5), persons with disabilities (Item 20), and homosexual individuals (Item 15: “Too much social approval has been given to homosexuals”).

Sexual Liberalism (Low Scores: 0–49)

At the opposite end of the spectrum, sexual liberalism reflects an autonomous, permissive, pluralistic, and rights-based orientation toward human sexuality. Individuals scoring in this domain prioritize personal agency, mutual consent, egalitarian communication, and bodily self-determination over institutional dogma. Key cognitive elements include:

• Consensual Adult Autonomy: The belief that consensual sexual interactions between adults are private matters that should remain entirely free from state intervention or penal prosecution (e.g., Item 21: “There should be no laws prohibiting sexual acts between consenting adults”; Item 22: “What two consenting adults do together sexually is their own business”).
• Pluralistic Legitimacy: Acceptance of a broad continuum of sexual practices, relationship configurations, and orientations as healthy, legitimate avenues for human expression, pleasure, and emotional bonding.
• Information Transparency: Strong endorsement of public, empirical sexuality education for adolescents and adults, alongside rejection of media censorship and bookstore bans on erotica.
• Universal Sexual Agency: Recognition that sexual rights, desires, and subjective well-being are intrinsic to all human beings across the lifespan, including aging adults and individuals with physical or intellectual disabilities.

6. Theoretical Framework

The construction and validation of the Sexual Attitude Scale are rooted in several interconnected psychological and sociological theoretical traditions:

Attitude Structure and Social Judgment Theory

The instrument is grounded in classical attitude theory originating from social psychology, notably the tripartite model of attitudes comprising affective, cognitive, and behavioral evaluative components (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). In the SAS, items systematically elicit cognitive evaluations regarding sexual norms, accompanied by strong affective overtones (e.g., feelings of moral decay, social degradation, or perceived threat to the nuclear family). Hudson and colleagues drew upon Muzafer Sherif’s Social Judgment Theory, postulating that individuals evaluate social issues around an internal reference anchor. Those with entrenched conservative anchors maintain narrow “latitudes of acceptance” for diverse sexual behaviors and expansive “latitudes of rejection,” interpreting departures from traditional norms as societal crises.

Reiss’s Sociological Premarital Permissiveness Theory

The foundational socio-historical framework for conceptualizing sexual liberalism versus conservatism was formulated by Ira L. Reiss (1964, 1967) in his pioneering sociology of sexual permissiveness. Reiss theorized that sexual attitudes are shaped by macro-sociological structures, including institutional religion, family systems, and gender roles. Reiss identified a fundamental transition in modern industrial societies from an “abstinence/double-standard” ethos toward “permissiveness with affection” and eventual “permissiveness without affection.” Hudson and colleagues expanded Reiss’s focus on premarital permissiveness by integrating diverse dimensions—such as masturbation, media depictions, homosexuality, sex education, and elderly sexuality—into a comprehensive operational measure of general sexual conservatism.

Cognitive Consistency and Social Learning Models

The SAS also aligns with cognitive consistency models (e.g., Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory) and Bandura’s social learning theory. Ideological stances regarding sexuality are internalized via continuous reinforcement, cultural modeling, and religious socialization. When individuals are socialized in highly dogmatic environments, they acquire interconnected schema that view sexual restraint as synonymous with moral integrity and social stability. Hudson’s measurement approach assumes that these schema operate cohesively, allowing a single unidimensional scale to capture attitudes across diverse domains such as institutional censorship, teen sexuality, and procreative intent.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Sexual Attitude Scale has been extensively evaluated across multiple empirical investigations, confirming its construct, criterion, and content validity:

Known-Groups Construct Validity

In the primary psychometric validation study conducted by Hudson, Murphy, and Nurius (1983), the SAS was subjected to rigorous known-groups criterion validation. The authors selected two distinct reference cohorts with historically and sociologically established divergent sexual ideologies:

• A cohort expected to hold strongly conservative values, consisting of active members of traditional, fundamentalist religious organizations and conservative community advocacy groups.
• A cohort expected to hold liberal values, consisting of members of progressive civil rights organizations, liberal campus student coalitions, and humanist organizations.

The point-biserial correlation between known-group classification (liberal vs. conservative) and respondents’ SAS scores was calculated at r_pb = .73 (p < .001). This massive effect size demonstrates that the instrument effectively discriminates between distinct philosophical and political cohorts, providing powerful empirical verification of its construct validity.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Subsequent validation studies published in the WALMYR Assessment Scale Scoring Manual and independent academic investigations have established robust convergent associations with collateral constructs:

• Religiosity and Church Attendance: Demonstrates strong positive correlations (typically ranging from r = .50 to .65) with measures of intrinsic religiosity, religious orthodoxy, and frequency of devotional service attendance.
• Authoritarianism and Dogmatism: Positively correlated with Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scales and the Altemeyer Authoritarianism scale, confirming that sexual conservatism shares cognitive variance with conventionalism, authoritarian submission, and general social rigidity.
• Erotophobia vs. Erotophilia: Demonstrates strong negative correlations with Fisher, Byrne, and White’s Sexual Opinion Survey (SOS), indicating that individuals with high SAS conservatism scores display elevated erotophobic reactions (heightened guilt, negative affective evaluations of sexual imagery, and discomfort with anatomical discussions).
• Discriminant Independence: SAS scores correlate weakly or non-significantly with generalized self-esteem (Hudson’s Index of Self-Esteem), generalized contentment/depression (Hudson’s Generalized Contentment Scale), and basic cognitive intelligence, proving that the scale captures ideological sexual values rather than global psychological distress or general cognitive capability.

8. Reliability

The Sexual Attitude Scale exhibits exceptionally high internal consistency and operational measurement precision, fulfilling established standards for both group-level research and individual clinical decision-making:

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the primary normative and validation samples reported by Hudson, Murphy, and Nurius (1983), the SAS demonstrated an overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .94. Subsequent replications across diverse collegiate, community, and clinical cohorts have systematically documented alpha coefficients ranging between .91 and .95, confirming that the 25 items reflect a cohesive construct.

Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)

The Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) for the SAS is reported at 4.20 on the 0–100 standardized metric. This small error margin provides clinicians and researchers with clear confidence intervals when interpreting individual scores:

• A 95% confidence interval corresponds to approximately ± 8.23 points around an observed score ($1.96 \times 4.20$).
• This level of measurement precision ensures that an individual scoring 65 can be distinguished from an individual scoring 45, minimizing the risk of misclassifying clients near the clinical cutting score of 50.

Stability and Test-Retest Characteristics

While the original 1983 manual did not include longitudinal test-retest coefficients due to the cross-sectional design of the initial psychometric validation samples, subsequent field testing within educational intervention studies has demonstrated solid temporal stability across short test-retest intervals (2 to 4 weeks) in non-treatment control conditions (coefficients exceeding r = .85), alongside meaningful sensitivity to educational interventions designed to foster sex-positive attitudes.

9. Factor Analysis

Throughout the psychometric development of the WALMYR measurement scales, Walter W. Hudson emphasized classical test theory principles, utilizing exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis primarily as tools for ensuring scale unidimensionality.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal component analyses and exploratory common factor analyses conducted during instrument development consistently revealed a dominant primary factor that accounted for the vast majority of the common item variance. The first unrotated general factor accounted for over 45% of the total variance, with an eigenvalue exceeding 10.0, dwarfing secondary and tertiary factors (which exhibited eigenvalues substantially below 1.5). All 25 items demonstrated substantial primary factor loadings:

• The majority of items (e.g., Items 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 13, and 16) exhibited primary pattern loadings ranging from .55 to .78 on this general sexual conservatism factor.
• The two reverse-scored items (Item 21: “There should be no laws prohibiting sexual acts between consenting adults”; Item 22: “What two consenting adults do together sexually is their own business”) exhibited robust negative loadings (approximately -.60 to -.70) prior to inversion, validating their directional alignment with personal autonomy.

Structural Dimensionality and Second-Order Considerations

Although certain independent investigators utilizing oblique rotations (e.g., Promax or Oblimin) have extracted correlated sub-dimensions—such as Societal Censorship & Media (Items 23, 24, 25), Marital/Procreative Exclusivity (Items 7, 8, 12, 13, 16), and Adolescent/Youth Sexuality (Items 3, 4, 6, 9, 10)—these sub-facets demonstrate intense inter-factor correlations (typically r > .60). Consequently, Hudson and colleagues argued against scoring multidimensional subscales, concluding that decomposing the instrument weakens its clinical utility and reliability. A single, higher-order latent construct of general sexual conservatism best explains the covariance among all 25 items.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Sexual Attitude Scale (SAS)
• Authors: Walter W. Hudson, Gerald J. Murphy, and Paula S. Nurius
• Publication Date: 1983
• Publisher / Repository: WALMYR Publishing Company
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults aged 12 years and older; suitable for all English-speaking populations.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized questionnaire.
• Administration Time: Typically completed in 5 to 7 minutes.
• Readability Metrics:
  • Flesch Reading Ease: 63
  • Gunning’s Fog Index: 10
  • Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7
• Item Count: 25 items (23 positively keyed toward conservatism, 2 negatively keyed/reverse scored).
• Response Scale: 5-point category partition Likert-type scale:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly agree
• Scoring Protocol and Mathematical Formulation:
  • Step 1 (Item Reversals): Reverse-score Items 21 and 22 using the standard formula:
    
    $$X_{\text{reversed}} = (K + 1) – X$$
    
    where $K = 5$ (the number of response categories). Thus, a response of 1 becomes 5, 2 becomes 4, 3 remains 3, 4 becomes 2, and 5 becomes 1.
  • Step 2 (Composite Standardized Calculation): After properly recoding Items 21 and 22, calculate the total score ($S$) using Hudson’s standardized formula:
    
    $$S = \frac{\left(\sum X_i – N\right) \times 100}{(K – 1) \times N}$$
    
    where $\sum X_i$ represents the sum of the scored responses, $K = 5$ is the number of response options (making $K – 1 = 4$), and $N$ is the number of items successfully completed by the respondent.
  • Handling of Missing Data: The scoring formula automatically replaces omitted items with the respondent’s observed mean item score. Total scores remain psychometrically valid provided the respondent has completed at least 80% of the instrument ($N ge 20$). If more than 5 items are missing, the administration must be invalidated.
  • Score Range: Standardized from 0 to 100. A score of 0 represents the extreme liberal pole, while a score of 100 represents the extreme conservative pole.
  • Clinical Cutting Score: 50. Scores strictly greater than 50 denote a conservative orientation toward human sexual expression. Scores strictly below 50 denote a liberal orientation.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Sexual Attitude Scale was originally published in 1983 by Walter W. Hudson, Gerald J. Murphy, and Paula S. Nurius in The Journal of Sex Research. Formal commercial distribution, copyright management, and technical manual dissemination were historically administered by WALMYR Publishing Company (founded by Walter W. Hudson) as part of the WALMYR Assessment Scale package.

The scale was engineered for use by qualified human service professionals, including licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, and sexologists, as well as academic scholars. The publisher explicitly stated that the scale is not intended for unsupervised use by untrained individuals. For non-funded academic research and thesis work, researchers may reference published items under standard fair-use guidelines, while clinical practitioners and funded researchers must verify licensing protocols through WALMYR Publishing Company or designated distributors of Hudson’s clinical scales.

12. References

• Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
• Fisher, W. A., Byrne, D., White, L. A., & Kelley, K. (1988). Erotophobia-erotophilia as a dimension of personality. The Journal of Sex Research, 25(1), 123–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498809551448
• Hudson, W. W. (1982). The Clinical Measurement Package: A field manual. Dorsey Press.
• Hudson, W. W. (1992). The WALMYR Assessment Scales Scoring Manual. WALMYR Publishing Co.
• Hudson, W. W., Murphy, G. J., & Nurius, P. S. (1983). A short-form scale to measure liberal vs. conservative orientations toward human sexual expression. The Journal of Sex Research, 19(3), 258–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498309551187
• Nurius, P. S., & Hudson, W. W. (1993). Human services practice, evaluation, and computers. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
• Reiss, I. L. (1964). The scaling of premarital sexual permissiveness. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 26(2), 188–198. https://doi.org/10.2307/349723
• Reiss, I. L. (1967). The social context of premarital sexual permissiveness. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Sherif, M., & Hovland, C. I. (1961). Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude change. Yale University Press.

13. Items of the Scale