Pledging has no negative consequences in terms of psychological well-being, even for teenagers who break their promises. We do find, however, an effect of pledging on the likelihood of using contraception at first intercourse. In this analysis, we look only at teens who had first intercourse between waves. We use a set of predictors similar to that used in our model of first intercourse. The estimated odds for contraceptive use for pledgers are about one third lower than for others.
Pledgers are less likely to be prepared for an experience that they have promised to forego.
It is hard not to imagine the dissonance that would arise if they were contraceptively prepared. This finding alone suggests that pledgers, like other adolescents, would benefit from knowledge about contraception and pregnancy risk, even if they think at the time that they do not need such knowledge. Pledgers may pledge, but they cannot determine the effect of the pledge all by themselves. The contextual effect we identify suggests interesting limits to the applicability of a universal pledge-based policy. Such a policy would be successful only if it failed.