Current Romantic Relationship Research Articles

Development of Romantic Relationships and Sexual Activity in Young Adults With Cerebral Palsy: A Longitudinal Study

Wiegerink DJ, Stam HJ, Gorter JW, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Roebroeck ME, Transition Research Group Southwest Netherlands. Development of romantic relationships and sexual activity in young adults with cerebral palsy: a longitudinal study. Objectives To describe the development of romantic relationships and sexual activity of young adults with cerebral palsy (CP), to investigate whether this development is associated with demographic and physical characteristics, and to compare the sexual activity of this group with an age-appropriate Dutch reference population. Design Prospective longitudinal study with 3 biannual assessments. Setting Eight rehabilitation centers and departments in the southwestern regions of The Netherlands. Participants Young adults (N=103; 61 men, 42 women) with CP without cognitive disabilities (age range at first assessment, 16–20y; 82% Gross Motor Function Classification System level I or II). Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures Sexual interest, romantic relationships, and sexual activity. Results We observed a significant increase in dating in young adults with CP during the 4-year period; however, the experience in romantic relationships did not increase largely during this period. Young adults with a lower education level began dating later than those with higher levels. Significantly more women were in current romantic relationships than men. During the 4 years, participants' sexual experience increased significantly for all sexual milestones evaluated. Level of gross motor function was associated significantly with intercourse experience. Compared with an age-appropriate Dutch reference population, young adults with CP participated at a lower level in romantic relationships and sexual activities, but had equal sexual interest at the final assessment. Conclusions Young ambulatory adults with CP had similar sexual interests and had increasing experiences with romantic relationships and sexual activities during the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood. However, the percentage of young adults with CP in current romantic relationships was low, especially for men.

Importance of peers and dating in the development of romantic relationships and sexual activity of young adults with cerebral palsy

The aim of this study was to describe the peer group activities, romantic relationships, and sexual activity and their interrelations of young adults with cerebral palsy (CP). A cross-sectional study was performed in 87 participants (51 males, 36 females; mean age 20 y 4 mo, SD 1 y 3 mo range age 18-22 y) without cognitive disabilities. Ninety-four per cent had spastic CP and 49% unilateral CP, while 78% were classified at Gross Motor Function Classification System level I and 84% at Manual Ability Classification System level I. Peer group activities, dating, romantic relationships, and sexual activity were assessed with an interview and questionnaire. Associations were analysed using logistic regression analyses. The study cohort reported having friends and participating in activities with peers; 71% had experience of dating, 23% had a current romantic relationship, and 38% had experience of intercourse. Young adults with CP had less experience in romantic and sexual relationships than an age-appropriate Dutch reference population. Peer group activities and dating favoured development of romantic relationships and sexual activity. Older age was associated with greater sexual activity. Motor functioning, education level, and gender did not correlate with romantic relationships or sexual activity. Being involved in peer group activities and creating a context to arrange dates seems relevant for young adults with CP to develop romantic relationships and sexual activity.

Attachment styles of nursing students: A cross-sectional and a longitudinal study

This research included two consecutive studies, the first of which aimed to examine university nursing students' attachment styles and to study a set of variables that affect their attachment styles, while the second study aimed to identify the effect of nursing education on nursing students' attachment styles. This research was conducted as a cross-sectional survey with nursing students from a school of nursing in Turkey. The research also included a longitudinal follow-up of first year students, to evaluate the effect of nursing education on attachment styles. Data were collected by using a "Personal Information Form" and "Relationship Scales Questionnaire". Nursing students' personal characteristics of age, longest place of residence, and economic status; family characteristics of number of siblings and families' longest place of residence; and romantic characteristics of any current romantic relationships and the number of past romantic relationships were found to be the factors that were influential in attachment styles. In addition, the nursing students had a statistically significant decrease in their insecure attachment style mean scores at the end of nursing education. Assessing attachment styles may be a potentially useful way to understand and counsel nursing students.

A Stranger's Cold Shoulder Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Why Not Being Mimicked by a Stranger Enhances Longstanding Relationship Evaluations

Lack of mimicry in interpersonal interactions may thwart an individual’s sense of belonging. Nonmimicked individuals are hypothesized to compensate for this by upgrading their personal relationships. In line with this hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that nonmimicked participants enhanced their evaluation of their current romantic relationship, compared to both mimicked participants and those who had no prior interaction. Experiment 2 showed the impact of nonmimicry on a variety of close relationship evaluations using a pre- versus postmeasure design. Mediation analyses further revealed that the link between mimicry and relationship evaluations is mediated by increased belongingness needs, specifically for the nonmimicked participants. These studies show that after an interaction even with a perfect stranger, nonmimicry may frustrate one’s belongingness needs and therefore lead to strengthened bonds with one’s close others. Implications for (non)mimicry as a behavioral indicator of social exclusion and the presumed buffer function of close relationships are discussed.

Sender–Recipient Perspectives of Honest but Hurtful Evaluative Messages in Romantic Relationships

Five hundred and fifteen participants assessed honest but hurtful (HBH) evaluative messages in their current romantic relationships from either the perspective of senders or recipients. Findings indicated a systematic self-serving bias. Participants were more likely to recall HBH messages in their current romantic relationships in the role of recipient than sender. Recipients, relative to senders, also rated messages as more hurtful, less honest, more intentional, and lower in enhancement motivation. In addition, recipients perceived less positive relational ramifications. Sex of the respondent was found to moderate the perspective-related difference on perceived intentionality of the message.

Height, Relationship Satisfaction, Jealousy, and Mate Retention

Male height is associated with high mate value. In particular, tall men are perceived as more attractive, dominant and of a higher status than shorter rivals, resulting in a greater lifetime reproductive success. Female infidelity and relationship dissolution may therefore present a greater risk to short men. It was predicted that tall men would report greater relationship satisfaction and lower jealousy and mate retention behavior than short men. Ninety eight heterosexual men in a current romantic relationship completed a questionnaire. Both linear and quadratic relationships were found between male height and relationship satisfaction, cognitive and behavioral jealousy. Tall men reported greater relationship satisfaction and lower levels of cognitive or behavioral jealousy than short men. In addition, linear and quadratic relationships were found between male height and a number of mate retention behaviors. Tall and short men engaged in different mate retention behaviors. These findings are consistent with previous research conducted in this area detailing the greater attractiveness of tall men.

Preferences for variation in masculinity in real male faces change across the menstrual cycle: Women prefer more masculine faces when they are more fertile

In women cyclical shifts in preference have been documented for odour and certain physical and behavioral male traits. For example, women prefer more masculinised male faces when at peak fertility than at other times in their menstrual cycle. In previous studies, the face images used have all been manipulated using computer graphic techniques. Here, we examine variation in preferences for perceived masculinity in unmanipulated real male faces to address consistency with findings using manipulated masculinity in faces. We show that women prefer greater masculinity in male faces at times when their fertility is likely to be highest (during the follicular phase of their cycle) if they are in a current romantic relationship. These results indicate that women’s preferences for perceived sexual dimorphism in real male faces follow a similar pattern as found for manipulated sexual dimorphism, suggesting that manipulated and real masculinity in male faces generate similar results in preference studies. Cyclical preferences could influence women to select a partner who possesses traits that may enhance her offspring’s quality via an attraction to increased masculinity at times when conception is most likely, or serve to improve partner investment via an attraction to reduced masculinity when investment is important.

Partner-specific investment strategies: Similarities and differences in couples and associations with sociosexual orientation and attachment dimensions

Partner-specific investment (PSI) was explored in a sample of 40 heterosexual couples (mean relationship length = 5.12 years). Analyses of the couples indicated dyad members were moderately accurate in the assessment of each other’s PSI. Differences in PSI were found between dyad members and between sexes with men generally investing significantly more in providing safety and trends towards greater provisioning and sexual access. Associations between PSI and sociosexual orientation and adult attachment were investigated in a larger sample of 107 women. Shorter-term sociosexual orientation was associated with being less future oriented, less expressive and nurturing, more honest and socially attentive and holding similar views about romantic partners’ PSI. Anxious attachment was associated with being less investing and viewing one’s partners as less investing across many strategies. Avoidant attachment moderated the predictive value of anxious attachment and emerged as a strong predictor of investing less in current romantic relationships. Findings are discussed within identified theoretical frameworks.

Features of borderline personality disorder, perceived childhood emotional invalidation, and dysfunction within current romantic relationships.

The mechanisms through which current romantic relationship dysfunction develops in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms are still unclear. One possible pathway may be childhood experiences of emotional invalidation by parents, which may result in the development of poor social problem-solving skills or cognitive responses such as splitting, which impair current romantic relationships. This study examines the relationship between features of BPD and current romantic relationship dysfunction, and demonstrates that perceived emotional invalidation by parents during childhood mediates the relationship between BPD features and current romantic relationship dysfunction. Structural equations modeling was used to test the hypothesized model in 758 young adults in an ethnically diverse community sample. The proposed model fit the data well; perceived childhood emotional invalidation partially mediated the relationship between features of BPD and romantic relationship dysfunction, even when controlling for the presence of a major depressive episode in the last year. The findings of this study suggest that individuals with features of BPD experience relationship dysfunction that cannot be accounted for by comorbid depression and that perceived childhood emotional invalidation may contribute to these problems.

But what will they say?

In this study, 72 women wrote eight emails over the course of a month discussing one of two topics: (a) non-emotional events (i.e., control condition), or (b) their thoughts and feelings regarding their current romantic relationship. Some of the latter group received feedback on what they had written, whereas others kept their narratives more private. Participants who wrote about their relationships differed from those in the control condition on a variety of dimensions; they used different words (e.g., words related to positive and negative emotions, cognitive mechanisms), they perceived their narratives differently (e.g., more self-disclosing) and they found the experience of participating in the study more valuable. Very few significant differences emerged between the narratives of those who received feedback vs. those who did not. Overall, whether a woman anticipates receiving feedback on her relationship narrative does not appear to have a substantial influence on its content, style or depth of emotional disclosure and processing.

The Effects of Shyness on Love Styles and Relationship Status

As prior research has indicated that shyness is associated with social anxiety, inhibition, and generally less fulfilling social relationships, this study examined the possible affect of shyness on one specific type of relationship, romantic love. Participants (N = 124) completed the Revised Cheek-Buss Shyness Scale and the Love Attitudes Scale, and provided basic information about themselves and their current romantic relationships. A chi-square test showed no significant association between high or low Shyness scores and whether participants were currently involved in a romantic relationship, but there were significant positive correlations between these scores and those on two of the six love styles, Storge and Mania. In interpreting the results, the effects of shyness on relationships, social expectations, and love attitudes are discussed.

Linking adolescent family and peer relationships to the quality of young adult romantic relationships: The mediating role of conflict tactics

This study examined the associations between the quality of adolescents' peer and family relationships and the quality of their young adult romantic relationships. Adolescents (N = 253) completed self-report measures of their family and peer relationships in grades 10–12; 7 years later, they reported on connectedness, discord, and the conflict tactics used by both partners in their current romantic relationships. Family relationship quality in adolescence predicted the levels of connectedness, discord, and specific conflict behaviors youth reported in their adult romantic relationships. The use of discussion to resolve conflict mediated the association between adolescent family relationships and the level of connectedness in adult romantic relationships. Moreover, use of discussion and physical conflict/threat each partially mediated the effect of family relationship quality on romantic discord. Possible mechanisms linking family of origin relationships to adult romantic relationships are discussed.

Adaptive attentional attunement: evidence for mating-related perceptual bias

Substantial evidence suggests that physical attractiveness plays an important role in shaping overt mating preferences, judgments, and choices. Relatively few studies, however, have investigated the hypothesis that perceivers are attuned to signs of attractiveness at early, lower-order stages of social perception. In the current research, a visual cueing task was used to assess biases in attentional disengagement—the extent to which people's attention becomes “stuck” on particular social stimuli. Findings indicate that, consistent with some evolutionary theories, perceivers of both sexes exhibited attentional attunement to attractive women, but not attractive men. Additional findings suggest that this bias was pronounced in sexually unrestricted men and in women who felt insecure about a current romantic relationship. This research provides novel evidence for adaptive, lower-order perceptual attunements in the domain of human mating.

Preliminary development and validation of a measure of relationship authenticity.

The authors describe the preliminary development and validation of the Authenticity in Relationships Scale. An initial pool of 37 items addressing various elements of the proposed definition of “relationship authenticity” was administered to 2 independent samples of undergraduates (N 487) who acknowledged being in a current romantic relationship. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that 2 interpretable factors (Unacceptability of Deception, Intimate Risk Taking) effectively represented the data in both samples. Retest data over a 3-month interval were also gathered from a separate independent sample of 121 participants. Subscale scores composed of factor-unique items demonstrated good reliability and test–retest stability, correlated in expected directions with scores on several measures used to establish construct validity, and made unique contributions to the prediction of relationship satisfaction after gender, self-esteem, commitment level, and adult attachment orientations were controlled.

Do Automatic Reactions Elicited by Thoughts of Romantic Partner, Mother, and Self Relate to Adult Romantic Attachment?

Three studies tested the expectation that automatic reactions elicited by the mental representation of one's current romantic partner, mother, and self relate to adult romantic attachment. Adult romantic attachment was assessed using multiple measures, and individual differences in automatic reactions were assessed by the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Studies 1 and 2 showed that automatic reactions elicited by thoughts of current romantic partner, but not by thoughts of self, were related to adult romantic attachment assessed at a specific (i.e., within one's current romantic relationship) and general level (i.e., across all romantic relationships). The pattern of results was stronger among individuals identified as attachment-schematic. Studies 2 and 3 showed that automatic reactions elicited by thoughts of one's mother were related to adult romantic attachment assessed at a general level. In all three studies, results did not differ depending on how adult romantic attachment was conceptualized (four styles vs. two dimensions).

Predictors of young adults' representations of and behavior in their current romantic relationship: Prospective tests of the prototype hypothesis

Although attachment theory suggests that childhood experiences with caregivers serve as a prototype for adult love relationships, few explicit tests of this hypothesis exist in the literature. Drawing on data from a longitudinal cohort followed from birth to young adulthood, this paper examined correlates and antecedents of young adults' representations of and behavior in their current romantic relationship. Young adults who experienced a secure relationship with their primary caregiver in infancy as assessed in the Strange Situation were more likely to (a) produce coherent discourse regarding their current romantic partnership in the context of the Current Relationship Interview (CRI) and (b) have a higher quality romantic relationship as observed in standard conflict and collaboration tasks. Infant security accounted for variation in CRI security above and beyond the observed quality of participants' current romantic relationship. In contrast, the association between infant and romantic security was partially mediated by individuals' self-reports about their romantic experiences, suggesting that one plausible mechanism by which early experiences with caregivers shape young adults' representations of their attachments with romantic partners is through adults' expectations for and perceptions of love relationships.

Adult attachment, intimacy and psychological distress in a clinical and community sample

Attachment theory predicts that early experiences with caregivers affect the quality of individuals' later (romantic) relationships and, consequently, their mental health. The present study examined the role of intimacy in the current romantic relationship as a possible mediator of the relationship between adult attachment and psychological distress in a clinical and community sample. Results indicated that attachment security was positively, whereas attachment insecurity was negatively, related to intimacy in the current romantic relationship. Furthermore, security of attachment was negatively related to loneliness and depression and positively to satisfaction with life. The reverse held for attachment insecurity. Mediational analyses revealed that intimacy in the current relationship only partially mediated the relationship between attachment and psychological distress. Although near perfect mediation was found for fearful attachment in the clinical sample and for preoccupied attachment in the community sample, the findings with regard to the other attachment styles were less clear-cut. Apart from the hypothesized indirect effect of attachment on psychological distress through intimacy, a direct effect of attachment on psychological distress remains. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Perceptions of Parents and Partners and Men’s Depressive Symptoms

Recent years have shown a marked growth in the literature examining the interpersonal context of depression. However, relatively little is known about the relational correlates of depression in men. The present study examined the relationships among men’s recollections of childhood rejection by parents, their adult attachment security in current romantic relationships, and self-reported depressive symptoms. A mediational model of the associations between the childhood and adulthood variables was evaluated in a community sample of men. This model hypothesized that childhood rejection is linked to depressive symptoms through an impact on adult attachment security. Perceived parental rejection, childhood physical abuse, and insecure adult attachment were all correlated with depressive symptoms at the zero-order level, and path analysis supported the mediational model. Adult attachment insecurity fully mediated the link between perceived maternal rejection and higher levels of depression. In addition, paternal rejection was directly associated with adult depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the importance of the interpersonal context in understanding men’s emotional functioning.

Acceptance and Need for Approval as Moderators of Self-Esteem and Satisfaction With a Romantic Relationship or Closest Friendship

According to predictions of self-esteem theorists, the association between self-esteem and satisfaction with a relationship will be negative under perceptions of high acceptance and positive under perceptions of low acceptance; consistency theorists make the opposite prediction. The author primarily sought to test those predictions. By completing 4 measures, 88 female and 62 male students described their main current romantic relationship (defined as being in love and physically intimate), and 54 female and 32 male students described their relationship with their closest friend. Results supported only the self-esteem predictions for the romantic relationship. Contrary to this perspective, need for approval did not mediate this effect. In addition, self-esteem was significantly and positively correlated with satisfaction with the romantic relationship under high but not low need for approval.

Variety Versus Timing

This study examined whether the relationship between exposure to sexually oriented television and sexual expectations differed by gender, controlling for several key variables including characteristics of past or current romantic relationship, perceived reality of television, and the motivation to watch television to learn about the world. The results of a questionnaire completed by 202 (96 males, 106 females) college undergraduates revealed that exposure to sexually oriented television was related in males to an expectation of a broad range of sexual activities in relationships, and in females to the expectation of earlier sex in relationships, even after controlling for key variables. Also, the viewing-television-to-learn motive predicted an expectation of a variety of sexual activities to occur in a relationship for males.