Personality Traits, Self-Control, and Sexting Attitudes Among Young Adults

The present study investigated the relationship between personality traits, self-control, and sexting attitudes in young adults. Convenient sample of 254 young adults with an age range of 18-30 years (M = 22.28, SD = 2.70) were taken from different universities and professional fields in Pakistan. The self-constructed demographic sheet, Brief HEXACO Inventory (de Vries, 2013), Brief Self-Control Scale (Tangney et al., 2004), and Sexting Attitude Scale (Weiskkerch & Delevi, 2011) were used to assess the study variables. The results revealed that honesty-humility and self-control had a negative relationship with fun and carefree aspect of sexting attitude in young adults. Moreover, honesty-humility, conscientiousness and self-control had a positive, whereas emotionality had a negative relationship with perceived risk aspect of sexting attitude in young adults. Furthermore, honesty-humility and self-control also had a negative relationship with relational expectations aspect of sexting attitude. Results also indicated that self-control negatively predicted fun and carefree and positively predicted perceived risk domains of sexting attitudes; while, honesty-humility negatively predicted relational expectations in young adults. Results showed significant differences in working and non-working young adults in terms of personality traits, self-control, and sexting attitudes. The study providing an in-depth understanding of the widespread phenomenon of sexting highlighting some of the major mental health concerns associated with the sexting behavior among youth.