This document reviews research concerning the factors affecting premarital sexual attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and young adults. Trends in the literature prior to 1980 are discussed briefly together with summaries of literature reviews from the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Studies from 1980 to the present are reviewed in some detail, emphasizing the following determinants of premarital sex in adolescents and young people: parental influence; peer influence; personality and self-perception; religiosity; affective components; educational and cultural factors; and gender differences. It is concluded that: (1) there has been an overall increase in the permissiveness in premarital sexual behavior, as well as a steady decline in the age of first intercourse; (2) there is a strong suspicion that the rise in sexual permissiveness among adolescents and young adults may be due increasingly to a split between personal attitudes or beliefs and actual behavior; and (3) gender alone is no longer a distinguishing factor in premarital sexual behavior, although women appear to endorse more traditional attitudes than men. It is concluded that these results point to the importance of sex education both at the behavioral and attitudinal levels. Finally, it is recommended that there is a need for children to be given explicit training concerning development of healthy attitudes toward sexual behavior. (BHK)