This research considers how communication within college student social networks may encourage high-risk sexual relationships. Students (n = 274) described sexual scripts for hooking up and reported on peer communication, sexual behavior, and sexual attitudes. Students described varied hookup scripts, expressed ambivalent attitudes, and reported moderate participation in hookups overall. However, the most common hookup script, suggesting high-risk sexual activity (i.e., unplanned, inebriated sex), was featured in most accounts of students who themselves participated in hookups. Students overestimated how often others were hooking up, and these estimates were especially inflated by students who frequently talked about hooking up with friends. Among students with strong ties to peers, frequent peer communication about sex predicted participation in hookups and favorable attitudes about hooking up. Peer approval also predicted hookup behavior and attitudes.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 14. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 July 2026.
All research outputs
#3,371,880
of 34,156,109 outputs
Outputs from Health Communication
#295
of 1,998 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#15,618
of 170,333 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Health Communication
#3
of 18 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,156,109 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,998 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 170,333 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 18 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
