This five-wave longitudinal study examines linkages between adolescents' perceptions of romantic relationship commitment and the development of adolescents' perceptions of commitment to parents and friends. A total of 218 early-to-middle adolescents (39.0 percent boys) and 185 middle-to-late adolescents (30.8 percent boys) participated.…

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP; Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991) aims to improve interpersonal relationships through skills intended to increase closeness and connection. The current trial assessed a brief mindfulness-based intervention informed by FAP, in which an interpersonal element was added to a traditional intrapersonal mindfulness…

Few studies have considered families' views about adolescents' sexual development. The authors compared attitudes and behaviors of mothers of young people with (n = 30) and without intellectual disability (n = 30). Both groups placed similar importance on dealing with their children's developing sexuality and were similarly confident in doing so.…

The focused discussions of adolescent girls were analyzed to explore the processes of managing healthy and unhealthy aspects of dating relationships. Grounded theory methods were used to generate an outline of these processes. The core category elicited from discussions with participants was "wrestling with gender expectations". This category…

In this article, the author explores what happens when a group of African American women came together to engage with popular culture narratives (PCNs) soon after 9/11. The author relies on Endarkened Feminist Epistemology to understand the development of raced and gendered meaning making and knowledge development within the inquiry. She also…

Research has demonstrated that adolescent peer group affiliations are consistent predictors of substance use initiation and maintenance; it is less clear how adolescent "romantic" relationships influence substance use behavior. Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Participants in the final dataset…

In this study with 236 Portuguese university students, we examined two competing models for understanding identity. In the first model, the direct independent effects of parental and romantic attachment on identity were tested. The second model examined the mediating role of romantic attachment representations in the link between parental…

Although scholars have articulated how whites institutionally, economically, and socially invest in their whiteness, they have paid little attention to white emotionality. By explicating a critical, more humanizing theory of love that accounts for the painful process of sharing in the burden of creating humanity, this psychoanalytic theoretical…

Problem Statement: The complex nature of romantic relationships, in general, makes the continuation of these relationships a challenge. This situation is even more problematic in traditional societies, as social norms for these relations are more strict and more disciplinarian. University students want to be in romantic relationships due to their…

Training professionals about intimate partner violence is a huge task requiring a theoretical framework that can address the complexity of the problem and highlight the need to be aware of power relationships and political dimensions of professional practice. This paper addresses the increasing recognition on the part of state agencies for…

The current study employs dominance analysis to assess the relative importance of three constructs--hostility, impulsiveness, and emotional dysregulation (difficulties managing one's emotions when experiencing negative emotion or distress)--in explaining psychological, physical, and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration by men…

For this study we explored relational aggression and victimization in a college sample (N = 307), examining potential gender and race differences, correlates, and the link between relational aggression and common emotional and behavioral problems, independent of relational victimization. Gender and race differences were observed on relational…

In this study, the authors examined the potential effects of type of writing task (loss/gain vs. general prompt) on the narrative content offered by college students (N = 41) who experienced romantic breakup. Qualitative analyses indicated differences based on type of writing task. Students who received the loss/gain prompt exhibited more…

Using a sample of 982 late adolescents and tracking them throughout young adulthood, this study investigated whether marital attitudes held during the last year of high school were predictive of union transitions to both cohabitation and marriage during young adulthood. Results using both logistic regression and discrete event history models found…

Research Findings: The aim of this study was to explore the relations between children's trust beliefs and social competence as well as social preference. In addition, this study examined how children with different trust belief profiles may differ in their peer interactive behaviors. A total of 47 children ages 5 to 6 participated in this study.…