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Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples

For many young adults today dating is not taken as a path to marriage, but as a relationship to be considered on its own terms with a beginning, middle, and end. Yet, research has not kept pace as most studies that look at relationships over time focus on marriages. In the present study, we look at...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Freeman, Harry, Simons, Jeffrey, Benson, Nicholas F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9820285/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36613178
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010856
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author Freeman, Harry
Simons, Jeffrey
Benson, Nicholas F.
author_facet Freeman, Harry
Simons, Jeffrey
Benson, Nicholas F.
author_sort Freeman, Harry
collection PubMed
description For many young adults today dating is not taken as a path to marriage, but as a relationship to be considered on its own terms with a beginning, middle, and end. Yet, research has not kept pace as most studies that look at relationships over time focus on marriages. In the present study, we look at individual differences and normative patterns of dating relationship quality over time. We tested a path model of associations between relationship duration, attachment insecurity, and four relationship quality domains (sexual frequency, commitment, satisfaction, and companionship) among a large sample of dating young adults (N = 1345). Based on a conceptual model of romantic relationship development, results supported expectations that dating trajectories are curvilinear, with unique patterns of accent, peak, and decent for each relationship domain. Dating duration also moderated the relationship between dating quality and attachment insecurity with anxious attachment becoming a more salient predictor of lower satisfaction and lower commitment in long-term versus short-term relationships. A quadratic interaction with sexual frequency indicated that insecurity predicted less sexual activity in new relationships, more activity among relationships between two and four years, but then less again in longer-term relationships. Findings suggest patterns of stability and change in dating relationships during emerging adulthood that complement those observed from the marriage literature.
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spelling pubmed-98202852023-01-07 Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples Freeman, Harry Simons, Jeffrey Benson, Nicholas F. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article For many young adults today dating is not taken as a path to marriage, but as a relationship to be considered on its own terms with a beginning, middle, and end. Yet, research has not kept pace as most studies that look at relationships over time focus on marriages. In the present study, we look at individual differences and normative patterns of dating relationship quality over time. We tested a path model of associations between relationship duration, attachment insecurity, and four relationship quality domains (sexual frequency, commitment, satisfaction, and companionship) among a large sample of dating young adults (N = 1345). Based on a conceptual model of romantic relationship development, results supported expectations that dating trajectories are curvilinear, with unique patterns of accent, peak, and decent for each relationship domain. Dating duration also moderated the relationship between dating quality and attachment insecurity with anxious attachment becoming a more salient predictor of lower satisfaction and lower commitment in long-term versus short-term relationships. A quadratic interaction with sexual frequency indicated that insecurity predicted less sexual activity in new relationships, more activity among relationships between two and four years, but then less again in longer-term relationships. Findings suggest patterns of stability and change in dating relationships during emerging adulthood that complement those observed from the marriage literature. MDPI 2023-01-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9820285/ /pubmed/36613178 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010856 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Freeman, Harry
Simons, Jeffrey
Benson, Nicholas F.
Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples
title Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples
title_full Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples
title_fullStr Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples
title_full_unstemmed Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples
title_short Romantic Duration, Relationship Quality, and Attachment Insecurity among Dating Couples
title_sort romantic duration, relationship quality, and attachment insecurity among dating couples
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9820285/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36613178
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010856
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