Premarital sex and relationships

The Economist magazine recently published a summary of a study examining whether postponing sex until marriage improved such relationship qualities as: satisfaction with the relationship, perceived stability, communication and quality of sex, each on a scale of 1 to 5. Here is a plot of the results, ordered by the overall effect (assuming an equal number of men and women).

Insights (based solely on Economist article)

• All comparisons show a perceived improvement for waiting.
• The results aren't much different for men and women.
• The presumed "strength" of the effect is shown from greatest to least.
• The effects range from .4 to .7.

Original table

• The numbers are more difficult to compare than the "dots."
• The resolution of the numbers (1 part in 50) obscures the overall effect (about 1 in 7).
• The order of perceived value appears to be alphabetical rather than in terms of effect.
• The first column label should be "relationship factors".

Technique

The data were copied from the published table into an R script which did the following:

1. Generate a simple "data matrix" of values by factor, gender and timing.
2. Compute the overall effect (assuming equal numbers of gender).
3. Produce a "dotplot trellis graphic" ordered by the magnitude of the effect.
4. The appropriate datagraphic for these data would be a box-and-whisker plot, but this is probably too sophisticated even for the Economist's educated readership.