Friendship and Romantic Relationship Qualities in Emerging Adulthood: Differential Associations with Identity Development and Achieved Adulthood Criteria

This study examined how emerging adults’ identity development and achievement of adulthood criteria were related to qualities of their friendships and romantic relationships. Participants included 710 emerging adults (ages 18–26). Results indicated that identity achievement was related positively to four romantic relationship qualities, but not to any friendship qualities. Several achieved adulthood criteria were related positively to romantic relationship qualities; however, achieved adulthood criteria were related negatively to friendship qualities. It appears that progress on salient developmental tasks of adulthood carries important implications for emerging adults’ social relationships, but in ways that are more differentiated than commonly assumed.     

Psychosocial Intimacy,Relationships with Parents,and Well-being among Emerging Adults

For emerging adults, the development of psychosocial intimacy may be a key developmental task shaped by past parenting. In this study, 232 emerging adult, college students completed a questionnaire about their intimacy development, identity development, self-efficacy in romantic relationships, parenting (i.e., attachment styles, parental caring and overprotection, and parental challenge), and well-being (i.e, depressive symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and self-esteem). Findings indicate that identity development, low attachment avoidance, and self-efficacy in romantic relationships predicted intimacy development. Furthermore, those individuals with high intimacy have less loneliness, greater self-esteem, and more happiness than those with low intimacy. Achieving psychosocial intimacy may have benefits for well-being.     

Centrality of Religiosity of Relationships for Affectionate and Sexual Behaviors Among Emerging Adults

Emerging adults’ religiosity has been consistently linked with less participation in sexual behaviors as supported by cognitive dissonance theory. However, this association may be different when examining centrality of religiosity of relationships (CRR), meaning participating in and discussing religiosity and spirituality with a current or anticipated romantic partner. The goal of this study is to examine the influence of CRR for emerging adults’ affectionate and sexual behaviors. Additionally, we test if the association between CRR and affectionate and sexual behaviors varies by gender, given males’ more positive attitudes towards sexual behaviors compared to females. Data for this study comes from 284 emerging adults, ages 18 to 29 (mean age = 20.9 years; 70.1% female) from an area in the Midwestern United States. Results illustrated that CRR is negatively associated with affectionate behaviors, intimate touching behaviors, oral sex behaviors, and sexual (vaginal) intercourse. Additionally, gender significantly moderated these relationships. Male participants reporting low levels of CRR conveyed significantly higher participation with these sexual behaviors compared to males reporting high levels of CRR, whereas CRR did not appear to significantly alter female participants’ engagement with these sexual behaviors. These findings provide some evidence that CRR contributes to males’ romantic development and that CRR may increase intimacy in females’ romantic relationships, which could promote sexual activity. Other implications for religious and sexual development are discussed.     

Romantic relationships and sexuality in adolescence and young adulthood: The role of parents,peers, and partners

The formation of romantic relationships and the engagement in sexual behaviours are considered normative and salient developmental tasks for adolescents and young adults. These developmental tasks are increasingly viewed from an ecological perspective, thus not only as individual processes, but also as strongly embedded in different social contexts, including the proximal social domains of parents, peers, and partners. This special issue brings together seven recent empirical studies on adolescents' and young adults' romantic relationships and sexuality in the context of relationships and interactions with parents, peers, and partners. In this editorial introduction, we describe two important recent changes in the theoretical perspectives on emerging romantic relationships and sexual activity: from risky behaviours to normative tasks, and from individual to contextualized processes. We then discuss recent advances in empirical research on romantic relationships and sexuality of adolescents and young adults. After that, we review the seven studies in this special issue, and discuss the contributions of these studies to the existing literature. Finally, we discuss directions for future research regarding how the interrelational perspective can be further incorporated into empirical research, and how the gap between the research fields on romantic relationships and sexuality may be bridged.     

The Unique Influences of Parental Divorce and Parental Conflict on Emerging Adults in Romantic Relationships

Parental divorce and parental conflict influence children across multiple domains, including risk of divorce in their own marriages. However, parental conflict and divorce, both separately and the interaction between the two, have not often been studied in premarital relationships, especially when considering possible mechanisms mediating these effects. In a large sample of emerging adults (N = 353), we show that when the most plausible mediating mechanisms are simultaneously considered, only relational commitment mediates the influence of parental conflict on outcomes. Parental conflict in the absence of divorce was associated with less commitment and, in turn, less relationship satisfaction and stability in emerging adult children’s romantic relationships, whereas parental conflict was unrelated to outcomes for children whose parents divorced. Implications for theory and preventive interventions are discussed.     

Friendship and Romantic Stressors and Depression in Emerging Adulthood: Mediating and Moderating Roles of Attachment Representations

Although friendships and romantic relationships represent important social relationships during emerging adulthood, problems stemming from these relationships may also pose a threat to emerging adults’ psychological functioning (Collins and Madsen in Handbook of personal relationships. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 191–209, 2006; La Greca and Moore Harrison in J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 34(1): 49–61, 2005). Thus, investigating relational stressors in friendships and romantic relationships is an important step toward understanding emerging adults’ psychological adjustment. This study focused on examining the relationship between relational stressors and depression, and the mediating and moderating roles of relationship-general attachment representations between these constructs. Data were collected from 164 emerging adults attending a Midwestern university. In partial support of our hypotheses, emerging adults’ attachment anxiety mediated the relationship between experiences of friendship and romantic stressors and depression; this result, however, was not found for attachment avoidance. Furthermore, results showed that attachment avoidance and anxiety moderated the relationship between friendship stressors and depression in emerging adulthood. Supporting our hypothesis, friendship stressors were predictive of higher levels of depression only for emerging adults who were high in attachment avoidance or anxiety. Future research and practical implications are discussed.     

Family Influences on Hooking Up and Dating Among Emerging Adults

Existing research posits that young adults navigate the developmental tasks of emerging adulthood, including sexual and romantic relationship formation, in context of geographic and social separation from families of origin. This assumption of independence reflects the ongoing focus on privileged samples to the exclusion of working class, racial/ethnic minority, and immigrant young adults, many of whom live with family through the emerging adult years. This exploratory analysis employs interview data from a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of 85 college attending emerging adults who live with or proximate to family to explore how families of origin shape interpersonal relationships. Findings show that family members impart both direct and indirect socialization messages that encourage career development over relationship formation. Families also engage in surveillance of emerging adults, applied disproportionately to women. Results are discussed in terms of differences and commonalities of experience across race/ethnicity, nativity, class, and gender, and the salience of family to these processes.     

The effect of parental divorce on young adults' romantic relationship dissolution: What makes a difference?

It was proposed that parental divorce does not have a uniform effect on young adults' romantic relationships and that differential outcomes depend on how young adults perceive their parents' divorce. Using a sample of 571 young adults, structural equation modeling suggested that, compared with those from intact families, young adults whose parents divorced held a more favorable attitude toward divorce. A positive attitude toward divorce was associated with lower commitment to their romantic relationship, which in turn affected its dissolution. More importantly, young adults' perception of parental divorce varied depending on interparental conflict and parents' marital quality before the divorce. The variation in the perception of interparental divorce was linked to relationship dissolution via attitude toward divorce and relationship commitment.     

Recovering from conflict in romantic relationships: a developmental perspective

This study adopted a developmental perspective on recovery from conflict in romantic relationships. Participants were 73 young adults (target participants), studied since birth, and their romantic partners. A novel observational coding scheme was used to evaluate each participant's degree of conflict recovery, operationalized as the extent to which the participant disengaged from conflict during a 4-min "cool-down" task immediately following a 10-min conflict discussion. Conflict recovery was systematically associated with developmental and dyadic processes. Targets who were rated as securely attached more times in infancy recovered from conflict better, as did their romantic partners. Concurrently, having a romantic partner who displayed better recovery predicted more positive relationship emotions and greater relationship satisfaction. Prospectively, target participants' early attachment security and their partners' degree of conflict recovery interacted to predict relationship stability 2 years later, such that having a partner who recovered from conflict better buffered targets with insecure histories.     

Stayovers in emerging adulthood: Who stays over and why?

Emerging adulthood is an intense period of personal development and interpersonal exploration; most emerging adults engage in several romantic relationships of varying commitment levels throughout their late teens and early twenties. The current study explored whether one relationship behavior, staying over, is related to specific demographic characteristics, previous experiences, and personal beliefs and attitudes. A sample of 627 emerging adults were surveyed about their experiences with staying overnight with their romantic partners, their reasons for doing so, and their attitudes about full‐time cohabitation. Participants who were older, had cohabited at some point, lived independently from family, viewed religion as unimportant, and had positive attitudes about cohabitation were found to be more likely to stay over.     

Parental Divorce,Relationships with Fathers and Mothers,and Children’s Romantic Relationships in Young Adulthood

The current study examined parent–child relationships during adolescence as a moderator between earlier parental divorce and children’s romantic relationships in emerging adulthood. In addition, the study examined the potential different outcomes in children’s romantic relationships according to the gender of parents and children as well as to fathers’ different residence types. The data for this study came from a 22-year 9-wave investigated longitudinal study, Michigan Study of Life Transitions (MSALT), which began in 1983. The sample for the current study was 520 (female?=?311 and male?=?209) from ‘always-married’ and 154 (female?=?107 and male?=?47) from ‘divorced’ families. Some of main findings are that residential father–child relationships during adolescence were more critical for children’s satisfaction in their romantic relationships in emerging adulthood than non-residential divorced father–child relationships, and that relationships with fathers during adolescence mattered for daughters’ satisfaction in their romantic relationships in emerging adulthood, but not for the sons’ satisfaction. Possible explanations of the findings, limitations, and strengths in the current study are discussed, and future research directions are addressed.     

Parent–Daughter Communications and Emerging Adults’ Beliefs About Mate Selection

The current study explores the association between emerging adult females’ experiences discussing relationships with their parents during adolescence and their current constraining relationship beliefs about mate selection. Constraining beliefs about the need for complete assurance of personal and relational success were more strongly held, whereas beliefs that cohabitation improves later marital outcomes, successful relationships require little effort, and opposites attract were less likely to be endorsed. A broad range of topics on romantic relationships were discussed, most often with mothers, during adolescence. What these young adults recalled discussing and how they felt about those discussions were associated with some, but not all, of their current constraining beliefs. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Extended contact through cross‐group romantic relationships

Cross‐group romantic relationships are an extremely intimate and often maligned form of intergroup contact. Yet, according to intergroup contact theory, these relationships have the potential to improve the intergroup attitudes of others via extended contact. This study combines the interpersonal and intergroup literatures to examine the outcomes associated with knowing a partner in a cross‐group romantic relationship. Results suggest that cross‐group romantic partners encounter greater disapproval toward their relationships than same‐group partners and, as a result, their relationships are perceived more negatively. Nevertheless, extended contact with cross‐group partners, controlling for participants' cross‐group friendships and romantic relationships, predicts more positive attitudes toward cross‐group dating and positive intergroup attitudes in general, mediated by perceived ingroup norms toward cross‐group relationships.     

Testing the impact of sliding versus deciding in cyclical and noncyclical relationships

This study investigates longitudinally predictors and outcomes of sliding (a desire to avoid clarifying the status of a romantic relationship; measured as relationship talk avoidance) among emerging adults (N = 244) in cyclical (ending and renewing a relationship) and noncyclical romantic relationships. Avoidance of relationship talk was positively associated with relationship uncertainty 7 weeks earlier and negatively related to dedication and satisfaction 7 weeks later, through decreased relationship maintenance (measured by constructive communication). We hypothesized that sliding would both predict and be predicted by lower dedication. Dedication did not predict later sliding for cyclical partners, but was associated with lower sliding for noncyclical partners, suggesting dedication may buffer the negative impact of uncertainty for noncycling partners.     

Affection and Abuse: Technology Use in Adolescent Romantic Relationships

Communication technologies benefit romantic relationships in terms of connection, but can also bring potential harm. Positive relational outcomes of adolescent technology use (i.e., increased emotional connection) have been examined separately from negative outcomes (i.e., unwanted monitoring of whereabouts) in previous research. However, the current study utilized hierarchical multiple regression to explore whether variance in both positive and negative relational outcomes could be explained by time spent online. Results suggest that time spent online predicts both positive relationship quality and cyber dating abuse after controlling age and gender. Implications include a greater understanding of the intersection between technology and adolescent relationships.     

Relationship satisfaction and depressive symptoms in emerging adults: cross-sectional associations and moderating effects of relationship characteristics

Extending research that was based on married adults, we explored associations between romantic relationship satisfaction and depressive symptoms in a sample of 484 emerging adults (ages 18-25) in nonmarital dating relationships. In addition, we investigated whether the relationship characteristics of relationship length, interdependence (i.e., investment size and quality of alternatives) and commitment moderated these associations. Overall, there was a negative association between relationship quality and depressive symptoms that was stronger for emerging adult women than men, echoing findings from married adults. The extent to which relationship characteristics moderated this association generally differed by gender. For men, the negative association between satisfaction and depressive symptoms was moderate to strong in relationships of above-average interdependence, commitment, and length, but it was weak in shorter and less interdependent relationships and nonexistent in relatively uncommitted relationships. In contrast, for women, the association between relationship satisfaction and symptoms was moderate to strong at all levels of interdependence and commitment, although amplified at higher commitment levels. Interestingly, shorter relationship length was associated with a stronger association between satisfaction and depressive symptoms for women. In general, findings suggest the importance of romantic relationship quality to the emotional well being of emerging adults, particularly young women, and highlight gender differences in relationship processes during this life period.     

Attachment Anxiety, Conflict Behaviors, and Depressive Symptoms in Emerging Adults’ Romantic Relationships

The present study examined attachment anxiety, conflict behaviors (attacking and compromising), and depressive symptoms in a sample of 45 emerging adults ages 18–25?years (M?=?19.51). Emerging adults’ romantic partners also participated in the study. In order to assess the study variables, emerging adults and their romantic partners completed self-report questionnaires. Using hierarchical regression analyses, a statistical model was tested wherein emerging adults’ depressive symptoms were regressed on their own and their partner’s attributes. Emerging adults’ own attachment anxiety and attacking behaviors and their romantic partner’s attacking behaviors, each explained significant portions of the variance in emerging adults’ depressive symptoms. Findings highlight the importance of considering the role of emerging adults’ and their romantic partners’ attributes in their depressive symptoms and offer important targets for therapeutic intervention.     

Sweetheart, you really make me happy: romantic relationship quality and personality as predictors of happiness among emerging adults

Two studies investigated the predictive ability of romantic relationship quality in happiness above and beyond the influence of personality (Big Five) among emerging adults. Study 1 (n = 221) showed that global romantic relationship quality accounted for 3% of the variance in happiness while controlling for personality. Study 2 (n = 187) replicated this finding by assessing happiness and relationship quality with different scales. Second study also extended the first study in two ways. First, emotional security and companionship emerged as the strongest features of romantic relationship quality that predicted happiness. Second, identity formation moderated the relationship between relationship quality and happiness such that emerging adults were happier when they experienced high quality relationships at high levels of identity formation. Findings across the two studies were discussed in the light of the literature and suggestions for future research were made.     

Attachment and the experience and expression of emotions in romantic relationships: a developmental perspective

In this longitudinal study, the authors tested a developmental hypothesis derived from attachment theory and recent empirical findings. Target participants were 78 individuals who have been studied intensively from infancy into their mid-20s. When targets were 20-23 years old, the authors tested the way in which interpersonal experiences at 3 pivotal points in each target's earlier social development--infancy/early childhood, early elementary school, and adolescence--predicted the pattern of positive versus negative emotions experienced with his or her romantic partner. A double-mediation model revealed that targets classified as securely attached at 12 months old were rated as more socially competent during early elementary school by their teachers. Targets' social competence, in turn, forecasted their having more secure relationships with close friends at age 16, which in turn predicted more positive daily emotional experiences in their adult romantic relationships (both self- and partner-reported) and less negative affect in conflict resolution and collaborative tasks with their romantic partners (rated by observers). These results are discussed in terms of attachment theory and how antecedent life experiences may indirectly shape events in current relationships.     

Developmental and dyadic perspectives on commitment in adult romantic relationships

We tested hypotheses concerning the developmental roots of becoming the "weak-link" (less committed) partner in adult romantic relationships and the associations between partners' absolute and relative levels of commitment and dyadic outcomes. We examined 78 target 20- to 21-year-olds who were involved in a romantic relationship and who had been studied since birth. As predicted, people who received lower-quality support from caregivers in toddlerhood or who were less able to resolve conflicts with a best friend in midadolescence were more likely to become the weak-link partner in a romantic relationship at age 20 to 21. Furthermore, lower commitment on the part of the weak-link partner coupled with greater discrepancy in commitment between partners predicted a greater likelihood that the couple would display hostility (rated by observers) during a videotaped conflict-resolution task when they were 20 to 21 years old. These findings are discussed from developmental and dyadic perspectives.