Suchergebnisse

Many studies of the adolescent period have focused on peer interactions and relationships, but less is known about the character of adolescents' early dating experiences. Researchers have recently explored girls' views of romance and sexuality, but studies of boys' perspectives are noticeably lacking. Theorizing in this area leads to the expectation that as adolescents cross over into heterosexual territory, boys will do so, on average, with greater confidence, while being relatively less engaged emotionally (i.e., the notion that boys want sex, girls want romance), and ultimately emerging as the more powerful actors within the relationship. This article develops a symbolic interactionist perspective to examine the experiences of adolescent boys and girls in the context of the romantic dyad. It focuses on the nature of communication, emotion, and influence within adolescent dating relationships. Findings based on structured interviews with over 1,300 adolescents provide a strong contrast to existing portraits: among those adolescents who had begun dating (n = 957), boys report significantly lower levels of confidence navigating various aspects of their romantic relationships, similar levels of emotional engagement as girls, and greater power and influence on the part of their romantic partners. In-depth relationship-history narratives, elicited from a subset (n = 100) of these respondents, provide additional support for the quantitative findings and are useful in the process of reconciling our perspective and results with the emphases of prior research.

Hirschi (1969) argued that delinquent youth tend to form relatively "cold and brittle" relationships with peers, depicting these youths as deficient in their attachments to others. The current analysis explores connections between delinquency and the character of adolescent romantic ties, drawing primarily on the first wave of the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study and focusing on 957 teens with dating experience. We examine multiple relationship qualities/dynamics to explore both the "cold" and the "brittle" dimensions of Hirschi's hypothesis. Regarding the "cold" assumption, results suggest that delinquency is not related to the perceived importance of the romantic relationship, level of intimate self‐disclosure, or feelings of romantic love, and more delinquent youth actually report more frequent contact with their romantic partners. Analyses focused on two dimensions tapping the "brittle" description, which indicate that although durations of a focal relationship do not differ according to the level of respondent delinquency, more delinquent youths report higher levels of verbal conflict.

Family researchers have considered the presence of marriage plans to distinguish between non-marital cohabiting unions. We assess, in the context of emerging adulthood, whether marriage plans differentiate between cohabitors in terms of psychological well-being. Analyzing data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), we examined associations for depressive and anxiety symptoms in a sample of 300 emerging adult cohabitors. We also compared cohabitors with 216 married emerging adults (total N = 516). We also assessed relationship quality and economic security as possible confounding factors. Results suggested that cohabitors without marriage plans experienced more frequent anxiety and depressive symptoms. However, significant associations did not remain in multivariable models, particularly when considering economic security. Findings indicate that marriage plans may be inadequate for differentiating between cohabitors' well-being. We find that economic security and discrete relationship quality measures better explain differences than marriage plans. These findings add to burgeoning research on cohabitation in emerging adulthood.

Background: The health belief model suggests that individuals' beliefs affect behaviors associated with health. This study examined whether Ohioans' pre-existing medical health diagnoses affected their belief about personal health risk and their compliance with social distancing during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Prior research examining physical and mental diagnoses and social distancing compliance is nearly nonexistent. We examined whether physical and mental health diagnoses influenced individuals' beliefs that their health is at risk and their adherence with social distancing guidelines. Methods: The study used longitudinal cohort data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) (n = 790), which surveyed Ohioans prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dependent variables included belief that an individual's own health was at risk and social distancing compliance. Independent variables included physical and mental health diagnoses, pandemic-related factors (fear of COVID-19, political beliefs about the pandemic, friends social distance, family social distance, COVID-19 exposure), and sociodemographic variables (age, gender, race/ethnicity, educational level). Results: Individuals who had a pre-existing physical health diagnosis were more likely to believe that their personal health was at risk during the pandemic but were not more likely to comply with social distancing guidelines. In contrast, individuals who had a pre-existing mental health diagnosis were more compliant with social distancing guidelines but were not more likely to believe their personal health was at risk. Individuals who expressed greater fear of COVID-19 believed their health is more at risk than those who expressed lower levels of fear. Conclusion: Health considerations are important to account for in assessments of responses to the pandemic, beliefs about personal health risk, and social distancing behavior. Additional research is needed to understand the divergence in the findings regarding physical health, beliefs about personal health risk, and social distancing compliance. Further, research is needed to understand how mental health issues impact decision-making related to social distancing compliance.