Sexual Intelligence FAQs

Do the results of your study apply to people broadly?

Our sample for the study was drawn from individuals aged 18 to 64 who were taking classes at UMass/Boston. Since UMass/Boston is such an ethnically and socio-economically diverse campus, samples tend to be representative of the general population. This has been confirmed by two earlier published studies (Jussim, Milburn, and Nelson, 1991; and Milburn, Conrad, Sala, and Carberry, 1995). In each of the studies, one on emotional communication, and the other on the relationship of childhood experiences to political attitudes, we gave the same questionnaire to a sample of UMass/Boston students and to a telephone sample of a probability sample of people living in Eastern Massachusetts, and found comparable results. We have considerable confidence in the generality of our results, and past research backs us up.

In addition, many of the results that we found, for example, on the extent of sexual dysfunction among young people, or the number of sexual partners people reported, are comparable to findings in research done with national probability samples.