did not appear to be the case with the women they interviewed. The qualitative data
from the WRAP study provides some insights into the process of negotiation; it also
emphasizes sex as an interaction. In addition, it provides a relationship context for
individual beliefs and cognitions. In line with the WRAP study, Debro et al. (1994)
examined the strategies use by 393 heterosexual college students to negotiate condom
use and concluded that they used reward, emotional coercion, risk information, decep-
tion, seduction and withholding sex. Noar et al. (2002) built upon Debro et al.’s work
and developed and validated a measure to quantify negotiation strategies called the
‘condom influence strategy questionnaire’ (CISQ). They conceptualized negotiation
in terms of six strategies: withholding sex, direct request, education, relationship
conceptualizing, risk information and deception and indicate that these factors account
to variance in a range of safer sex variable such as behavioural intentions and actual
condom use.
Therefore qualitative and quantitative research has emphasized the importance of
negotiation which seems to have been taken on board by Health Education Campaigns
with advertisements highlighting the problem of raising the issue of safer sex (e.g. When
would you mention condoms?). However, do interviews really access the interaction?
Can the interaction be accessed using the available (and ethical) methodologies? (It
would obviously be problematic to observe the interaction!) Are qualitative methods
actually accessing something different from quantitative methods? Are interviews
simply another method of finding out about people’s cognitions and beliefs? Debates
about methodology (quantitative versus qualitative) and the problem of behaviour as an
interaction are relevant to all forms of behaviour but are particularly apparent when
discussing sex.THE BROADER SOCIAL CONTEXT
Beliefs, attitudes and cognitions about sex, risk and condom use do not just exist within
individuals, or within the context of an interaction between two individuals, they exist
within a much broader social context. This social context takes many forms such as
the form and influence of sex education, the social meanings, expectations and social
norms developed and presented through the multiple forms of media, and created and
perpetuated by individual communities and the wider world of gender and inequality.
Psychological theory predominantly studies the individual. However, it is important to
have some acknowledgment and understanding of this broader world. The final part of
this chapter will examine this context in terms of sex education, power relations between
men and women, social norms of the gay community and discourses about sex, HIV and
illness.Sex education
Education about sex, pregnancy, HIV and contraception comes from a variety of different
sources, including government health education campaigns, school sex education pro-
grammes and from an individual’s social world. These three sources of information will
now be examined further.204 HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY