The effect of family and peer communication on college students' communication with dating partners about HIV and AIDS

As family and peers are primary socializing agents in the lives of young adults, a social learning based model of communication about HIV/AIDS among dating partners was developed and tested, examining the role of interactions with family and peers in this type of communication. Specifically, the model describes relationships between general communication, communication about sexuality, and communication about HIV/AIDS with parents, peers, and dating partners. Participants were 153 young adult couples who completed measures of their communication practices, as well as their communication with family and peers. Communication practices in the family of origin appear to influence both general communication and communication about HIV/AIDS with dating partners. Communication practices with peers influenced general communication, communication about sexuality, and communication about HIV/AIDS with dating partners. Participants and their dating partners exhibited relative agreement about their general communication practices and their communication about HIV/AIDS, but showed less agreement in reports of their communication about sexuality. Implications for understanding the role of family and peer interactions in communication about HIV/AIDS with dating partners are discussed.     

What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye: Intimate Relationships of Adolescents with Visual Impairment

We examined the development of intimate relationships in 180 adolescents with visual impairment (VI) and 533 sighted peers. Adolescents with VI reported a later age at the time of first falling in love, dating, and entering into a romantic relationship. However, between-group differences in the timing of first sexual intercourse were not significant. In addition, similar numbers of adolescents from both groups had experiences with falling in love and having romantic relations at the time of assessment. The two groups differed in the criteria for mate selection, and emotional maturity was more important for young people with VI than for their sighted peers while the reverse was found for physical attractiveness and material resources of potential partners. Finally, the two groups did not differ in the perceived quality of their present romantic relationship.     

Trust – that's a big one: intimate partnership values among urban Latino youth

Romantic relationships play a central role in young people's social development and sexual health. This paper examines romantic relationship ideals valued by urban Latino youth in San Francisco and their experiences in achieving their ideals in their current relationship. We draw on in-depth interviews with 33 young men and women aged 16–22 years in San Francisco, California. In spite of, or perhaps related to, the prevailing perception that their peers were unfaithful in their relationships, young people in this study identified trust as one of the most important characteristics of a romantic relationship. Trust was related not only to fidelity, but also vulnerability and emotional intimacy. Understanding valued relationship ideals and factors that facilitate and impede their attainment is critical in promoting healthy relationships.     

Are romantic partners a source of college students' weight concern?

This study explored the importance of weight in college students' dating relationships and the expression of weight-related concerns between dating romantic partners. In a survey of 554 undergraduates, we found that overweight women were less likely to be dating than their peers, and that weight was positively correlated with relationship satisfaction in men, but negatively correlated with satisfaction in women. We also found that over 30% of students in exclusive relationships had either been told by their partner (or had told their partner) to gain or lose weight. While male partners were typically told to gain weight, female partners were as likely to be told to lose as gain weight. Women's weight-loss attempts and self-esteem were not related to being the targets of these comments, but women told to lose weight reported lower relationship satisfaction; men's self-esteem was not related to being the targets of these comments, but men told to gain weight reported lower relationship satisfaction. Although our results support prior research suggesting that weight is differentially important for men and women in romantic relationships, they challenge the hypothesis that individual romantic partners are a primary source of students' body dissatisfaction and weight concerns.     

Our Grandmothers’ Legacy: Challenges Faced by Female Ancestors Leave Traces in Modern Women’s Same-Sex Relationships

Investigations of women’s same-sex relationships present a paradoxical pattern, with women generally disliking competition, yet also exhibiting signs of intrasexual rivalry. The current article leverages the historical challenges faced by female ancestors to understand modern women’s same-sex relationships. Across history, women were largely denied independent access to resources, often depending on male partners’ provisioning to support themselves and their children. Same-sex peers thus became women’s primary romantic rivals in competing to attract and retain relationships with the limited partners able and willing to invest. Modern women show signs of this competition, disliking and aggressing against those who threaten their romantic prospects, targeting especially physically attractive and sexually uninhibited peers. However, women also rely on one another for aid, information, and support. As most social groups were patrilocal across history, upon marriage, women left their families to reside with their husbands. Female ancestors likely used reciprocal altruism or mutualism to facilitate cooperative relationships with nearby unrelated women. To sustain these mutually beneficial cooperative exchange relationships, women may avoid competitive and status-striving peers, instead preferring kind, humble, and loyal allies. Ancestral women who managed to simultaneously compete for romantic partners while forming cooperative female friendships would have been especially successful. Women may therefore have developed strategies to achieve both competitive and cooperative goals, such as guising their intrasexual competition as prosociality or vulnerability. These historical challenges make sense of the seemingly paradoxical pattern of female aversion to competition, relational aggression, and valuation of loyal friends, offering insight into possible opportunities for intervention.

     

Are there “Better” and “Worse” Ways to be Consensually Non-Monogamous (CNM)?: CNM Types and CNM-Specific Predictors of Dyadic Adjustment

Research on consensual non-monogamy (CNM) has largely been restricted to comparisons between monogamous and CNM people, with researchers paying little attention to various CNM styles. The current research elucidated differences among three styles of CNM: open relationships, polyamory, and swinging. Across three studies, we demonstrated that people in polyamorous or swinger-style relationships have higher levels of relationship satisfaction and other relational outcomes (e.g., passionate love, trust) than those in open relationships. That is, people in open relationships consistently fared more poorly in their relational outcomes than those in other types of CNM relationships. In Studies 4 and 5, we isolated some of the reasons for these differences. We found that differences in relational outcomes between open-style and other styles of CNM dissipated when controlling for (a) couples’ approach to communication, (b) extrinsic versus intrinsic motivations for participating in CNM, (c) adherence to pro-monogamy beliefs and (d) degree of contact with one’s partner’s partners (“metamours”). Thus, CNM-specific relational dynamics are associated with dyadic adjustment in these relationships.

     

Romantic and Sexual Relationships with Adult Partners Among Pedohebephilic Men

This study examined reasons for romantic and sexual relationships with adult partners among men with pedohebephilic preferences (N?=?125). We also explored whether age sexual orientation impacted reasons for engaging in sex with adult partners. Pedohebephilic men endorsed both non-sexual and sexual reasons for engaging in adult-partnered relationships. The top reasons for sexual relationships with adult partners were pleasure, love and commitment, physical desirability, experience seeking, and practicality. The top reasons for romantic relationships with adult partners were to gain companionship, love toward romantic partner, to escape loneliness, to engage in sexual activities, and it seemed natural. The exclusivity of attraction to children was found to be significantly related to some of the factors. These findings support differential reasons for pedophilic men engaging in adult-partnered relationships. Professionals should seek to understand the nature of their clients’ relationships and age sexual orientation to determine whether such factors are relevant. Professionals can then support clients in their search for meaningful relationships.

     

Perceived Satisfaction and Inequity: A Survey of Potential Romantic Partners of People with a Disability

People with disabilities (PWD) may be stigmatized when dating. As suggested by previous research, people may avoid forming romantic relationships with PWD because they fear being stigmatized by association. We tested this explanation and proposed alternative reasons for the potential stigmatization of PWD. Specifically, we predicted that people may be less willing to date PWD because they stereotypically infer that such relationships may not be satisfying and may be inequitable, favoring the PWD more than themselves. To test these hypotheses, we surveyed 390 single people regarding their willingness to date a potential romantic partner with a physical, sensory, cognitive, psychological, or health disability. People were first presented with partners who had a general type of disability and later with partners who had a specific physical, sensory, cognitive, psychological, or health impairment. For each partner, we also measured the extent to which people (1) feared stigma by association, (2) perceived the relationship would not satisfy their physical and emotional needs, and (3) be inequitable. Fitting with our hypotheses, perceived relationship satisfaction positively predicted, and perceived inequity negatively predicted, willingness to date PWD. Stigma by association was unrelated to willingness to date PWD. Implications for stigma-reduction interventions and online dating programs are discussed.

     

Men’s,but not Women’s,Sociosexual Orientation Predicts Couples’ Perceptions of Sexually Dimorphic Cues in Own-Sex Faces

Previous research suggests that people’s perceptions of own-sex individuals can change according to within-individual variation in their romantic partners’ sexual strategies. For example, men are more likely to perceive other men’s faces as looking particularly dominant during the fertile phase of their partner’s menstrual cycle, when women tend to be more open to uncommitted sexual relationships. By contrast, little is known about how relatively stable between-individuals differences in partners’ openness to uncommitted sexual relationships (i.e., their sociosexual orientation) predict perceptions of own-sex individuals. The revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R) assesses individuals’ openness to uncommitted sexual relationships and shows high test–retest reliability over long periods of time. Consequently, we tested whether the SOI-R scores of men and women in heterosexual romantic couples predicted their perceptions of own-sex faces displaying exaggerated sex-typical cues. Men’s, but not women’s, SOI-R was positively correlated with the extent to which both the man and woman within a couple ascribed high dominance and attractiveness to own-sex faces with exaggerated sex-typical cues. In other words, individuals in couples where the man reported being particularly open to uncommitted sexual relationships were more likely to ascribe dominance and attractiveness to own-sex individuals displaying a putative cue of good phenotypic condition. These findings suggest that both men’s and women’s perceptions of potential competitors for mates are sensitive to the male partner’s sexual strategy. Such individual differences in perceptions may benefit men’s ability to compete for extra-pair and/or replacement mates and benefit women’s mate guarding behaviors.     

Adolescent obesity,overt and relational peer victimization,and romantic relationships

OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between obesity and peer relations in adolescents, specifically testing the hypotheses that obese adolescents are more frequent victims of peer aggression and are less likely to develop romantic relationships. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Measures of overt and relational victimization, as well as dating status and satisfaction, were collected for a group of 416 ninth- through twelfth-grade students (51.7% girls). Body mass index was computed for each teen based on self-reported height and weight data. RESULTS: Results revealed that obese boys reported more overt victimization and obese girls reported more relational victimization compared with their average-weight peers. Obese girls were also less likely to date than their peers. However, both obese boys and girls reported being more dissatisfied with their dating status compared with average-weight peers. DISCUSSION: The results suggest that obese adolescents are at greater risk for mistreatment by peers and may have fewer opportunities to develop intimate romantic relationships; this may contribute to the psychological and health difficulties frequently associated with obesity.     

Addressing alcohol and other drug use among young people from migrant and ethnic minority backgrounds: Perspectives of service providers in Melbourne,Australia

Young people from migrant and ethnic minority backgrounds are recognised as emerging priority populations for reducing alcohol and other drug (AOD)-related harms in Australia. Limited research has investigated how service providers address AOD challenges in migrant communities. In this qualitative study, we interviewed 15 service providers from AOD, migrant support, community and other health services in a diverse region of Melbourne. Interviews explored the challenges that service providers faced and the strategies they implemented to engage with young migrants in relation to AOD use. Thematic analysis was used to generate four themes: stigma as a barrier to service delivery, intergenerational differences between young people and parents, the need for outreach and establishing trust and understanding over time. Service providers believed that stigma prevented many young people from migrant backgrounds having open conversations about their AOD use with family members and professionals. Participants perceived that some parents had less AOD-related knowledge and lower English language proficiency than their children creating challenges for effective communication. Service providers recognised the importance of engaging with young people in settings where they felt comfortable rather than expecting them to approach their service. Participants also acknowledged the need to invest time in establishing trust and understanding with young migrants so they could facilitate conversations about AOD use as relationships evolved. Although service providers had a strong understanding of young people's needs, they found it challenging to build relationships in the context of funding and time constraints. Our results indicate the need for long-term funding and timelines that enable service providers to build strong relationships with young migrants, their families and their broader cultural communities to facilitate access to AOD support.     

The contributions of boundary dissolution and trust in the romantic partner to young mothers’ parenting representations

The aim of the current study was to explore the contributions of both boundary dissolution (i.e. guilt-psychological control, blurring boundaries, parentification, and triangulation) as experienced in childhood, and trust in the romantic partner to young mothers’ parental caregiving representations. The findings, based on a sample of 80 young Israeli first-time mothers, indicated negative correlations between types of dissolution and their representations. Trust in the romantic partner made a distinct contribution to the formation of mothers’ representations above and beyond mothers’ boundary dissolution. These results are suggestive of the important role of young mothers’ relational history with their own mothers as well as their relationship with their romantic partner in shaping their parenting representations.     

‘He’s not my pimp’: toward an understanding of intimate male partner involvement in female sex work at the Mexico–US border

Female sex work is often perceived as women being controlled by men. We used surveys and qualitative interviews with female sex workers and their intimate partners in two Northern Mexico cities to examine couples’ own perceptions of their relationships and male partners’ involvement in sex work. Among 214 couples, the median age was 34 and relationship duration was approximately 3 years. Only 10 women in the survey reported having a pimp, and the majority reported sole control over sex work decisions. Qualitative analyses revealed that while most men avoided direct involvement in sex work, they offered advice that was largely driven by concern for their partner’s well-being. Our discussion of these results considers the broader socio-political context surrounding these relationships and how changing gender roles, economic insecurity and stigma shape couples’ everyday social interactions. Assumptions that all sex workers’ relationships are coercive and commercial marginalises these couples while leaving their health concerns unaddressed.     

Social and Romantic Outcomes in Emerging Adulthood Among Survivors of Childhood Cancer

PurposeTo examine social and romantic outcomes among survivors of childhood cancer and comparison peers during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood.MethodsFamilies were recruited when the children with cancer were 8–15-years-old and on initial treatment for a malignancy that did not primarily affect the central nervous system (i.e., non-CNS). At that time, each child with cancer was matched to a classmate of similar age, gender, and race for inclusion in a comparison group. For the current follow-up (7.29 years post-diagnosis), 56 survivors, 60 comparison peers, and their parents completed questionnaires after the youth’s 18th birthday. Severity of treatment and late effects were rated by health care providers.ResultsSurvivors and comparison peers were similar on a variety of outcomes, including family background, social self-concept, social competence, family relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships. Mothers reported that survivors engaged in fewer activities than comparison peers. The proportion of participants who lived with their parents, were dating, and expressed plans to marry or have children was similar between groups. Initial treatment intensity, time since diagnosis, and severity of late effects were associated with some indices of social adjustment.ConclusionsThe social and romantic outcomes of survivors of non-CNS cancer were similar to comparison peers during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Disease and treatment factors had limited associations with outcomes. Clinical interventions to assist social development may not be necessary for all survivors, but additional research is needed to identify subgroups at risk for difficulties.     

Obstacles to condom use among secondary school students in Maputo city,Mozambique

This study explores how urban youth in Mozambique perceive their sexual behaviour and identifies the factors that hinder them from having safer sex in the context of HIV/AIDS, with special emphasis on the condom use. Data was collected form high school students in Maputo, Mozambique. Using a combination of focus group discussions, interviews and informal conversations, it was possible to identify that one major obstacle to the use of condoms was young people's belief that they did not have to use condoms in steady relationships built on love and trust. Trust and love provide a sense of immunity to infection. Such a perception is reinforced, it is argued, by previous HIV/AIDS campaigns in Mozambique that have advocated the use of condoms only with ‘occasional sexual partners'. Students' understandings of pleasure, lack of accurate information, lack of sex education at home and at school, and gender inequalities further contribute to making condom use a difficult issue. There should be a change in focus in condom campaigns. Efforts should also be made to encourage young people to ‘emotionally invest’ in their health by using condoms.     

Impact of a Romantic Relationships Counseling Group Project on Deaf Male Adolescents in a Deaf School

To date, limited research has been conducted on and few educational tools exist regarding the romantic relationships of deaf adolescents. Although deaf male adolescents are supposed to pursue partners according to social norms, they are often afraid of expressing their feelings and being rejected. In particular, deaf male adolescents at deaf schools are accustomed to following their superiors and suppressing their autonomy. This study established a group counseling project to discuss the romantic relationships of deaf male adolescents in a deaf school, and understand the impacts of the counseling to later refine the project. The group was facilitated by three leaders who were assisted by a sign language interpreter, and ran for a total of 25 h over 12 sessions. Eight male adolescents joined the group. A mixed-method design, which emphasizes a qualitative approach, was adopted to collect and examine the data. Interviews with the group members and the teachers of members were conducted for qualitative content analysis, supplemented with score changes in the members’ satisfaction between the midterm and final group counseling sessions. The results indicated that joining the group helped the deaf male adolescents learn new ways to care for their partners, improved their interactions with partners, peers, and teachers, and enhanced their esteem for themselves and other people. Finally, suggestions of themes to explore in the group, and the leadership skills required for romantic relationship group counseling targeted at deaf male adolescents, are provided.     

Love,power, resilience and vulnerability: relationship dynamics between female sex workers in Ghana and their intimate partners

Little is known about female sex workers’ daily lives or emotional relationships. Using relational-cultural theory, this study explored the relationship dynamics between sex workers and their intimate partners in Kumasi, Ghana. We collected qualitative data from 37 male intimate partners through 24 in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions (FGDs) with 13 male partners. We also conducted three FGDs with 20 women involved in sex work. Relationships between sex workers and their intimate partners were mutual, reciprocal and transactional. Male partners provided protection for financial support, a place to sleep and intimacy. Both men and women described their relationships in terms of friendship, love and a hopeful future. Women were reluctant to quit sex work because they depended on it for income. Most respondents did not use condoms in these romantic relationships, citing trust, love, faithfulness and commitment. Both men and women described high levels of violence in their relationships. The context of sex work heightens vulnerability but also appears to facilitate resilience and creative coping strategies. The relational dynamics between sex workers and their intimate partners in Ghana merit further exploration to examine the extent to which women involved in sex work hold and exert power within these relationships.     

Attributions about sexuality and romantic involvement of physically disabled college students: An empirical study

Attributions of able-bodied college students concerning sexuality and romantic involvement of physically disabled and able-bodied college students were compared in this study. Ninety-nine able-bodied college students provided information on their previous contacts with disabled people, rated their degree of comfort with both physically disabled and able-bodied peers, and predicted the responses of physically disabled (wheelchair user) and able-bodied male and female college students on a variety of measures. These dealt with: social anxiety, gender role stereotyping, romantic relationships, sexual attitudes and sexual interest and behavior. Results indicate that physically disabled students were perceived as more socially anxious, less gender role stereotyped and less likely to be dating. Males, unlike females, attributed greater interest in sexual activities to disabled than to able-bodied students. Results also indicate that comfort with disabled students was significantly lower than with able-bodied students. Previous close contact with physically disabled people was only marginally related to comfort with wheelchair user students and was unrelated to attributions concerning their sexuality and romantic involvements. The implications of the findings for future research and for the integration of physically disabled students into college life are discussed.     

Perceptual Accuracy for Sexual Rejection in Romantic Relationships

In the current research, we investigated perceptual accuracy in romantic partners’ detection of sexual rejection. In two daily diary studies of predominantly cisgender heterosexual couples, we examined patterns of accuracy and bias concerning both the degree of sexual disinterest (Study 1; N?=?98 couples) and occurrence of sexual rejection (Study 2; N?=?115 couples), as well as how these perceptions were associated with satisfaction. Using a multi-method approach to capture both continuous and categorical operationalizations of sexual rejection (Study 1: truth and bias; Study 2: quasi-signal detection), we found that people were both accurate and biased in their perceptions of partner rejection. Across studies, results showed that people demonstrated general tracking accuracy in detecting a partner’s sexual rejection, but they also overestimated the degree and occurrence of this rejection. Additionally, this overestimation bias was associated with lower daily relationship and sexual satisfaction. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of dyadic perceptions of sexual rejection in shaping daily relationship and sexual functioning.