Romantic (versus other) events and momentary affect: Immediate and lagged within-person associations among college students.

Abstract

Given that affect is highly responsive to experiences representing current goals and values, and young adulthood reflects a period in which romantic relationships become increasingly important, this study explored the links between everyday romantic relationship events and momentary affect among young adult college students. Romantic events were then directly compared to academic and family events-two other salient life domains for these students-as predictors of current and subsequent momentary affect. Drawn from an ecological momentary sampling study designed to assess substance use, participants in dating relationships (N = 130) completed four reports per day for 28 days (totaling 10,318 reports). Multilevel models tested within-person associations between positive and negative romantic events (broadly defined) as predictors of positive (e.g., happy, excited) and negative (e.g., sad, lonely) affect in the moment and beyond. Analyses included both event occurrence and event intensity models, facilitating event comparison. Models accounted for day-level effects and several relevant individual and relationship controls. Results indicated that positive romantic events were associated with immediate and lasting increases in positive affect and immediate (but not always lasting) decreases in negative affect, whereas negative romantic events were associated with immediate and lasting changes in both positive and negative affect. When significant, direct comparisons indicated that romantic events were associated with larger changes in concurrent and subsequent affect than academic or family events. Findings highlight the powerful role that young adults' romantic relationships play in their emotional well-being, particularly in comparison to other developmentally and environmentally salient life domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).