Has the American Public’s Interest in Information Related to Relationships Beyond “The Couple” Increased Over Time?

Abstract

Finding romance, love, and sexual intimacy is a central part of our life experience. Although people engage in romance in a variety of ways, alternatives to “the couple” are largely overlooked in relationship research. Scholars and the media have recently argued that the rules of romance are changing, suggesting that interest in consensual departures from monogamy may become popular as people navigate their long-term coupling. This study utilizes Google Trends to assess Americans’ interest in seeking out information related to consensual nonmonogamous relationships across a 10-year period (2006–2015). Using anonymous Web queries from hundreds of thousands of Google search engine users, results show that searches for words related to polyamory and open relationships (but not swinging) have significantly increased over time. Moreover, the magnitude of the correlation between consensual nonmonogamy Web queries and time was significantly higher than popular Web queries over the same time period, indicating this pattern of increased interest in polyamory and open relationships is unique. Future research avenues for incorporating consensual nonmonogamous relationships into relationship science are discussed.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my outstanding research assistants, Abby Dolan, Rachel Cultice, and Erin Fowler, for their assistance with this research. I would also like to thank my colleagues, Nicole Sorhagen, Patrick Markey, and Jes Matsick, for their helpful feedback.

Notes

¹ I selected the starting point of January 2006 because during this time period the Google search engine became a popular browser; this approach is consistent with previous work (e.g., Markey & Markey, 2013).

² As shown in Figure 1, a few RSVI scores were more than three standard deviations higher than the respective mean scores. To examine whether the pattern of results remained after outlier points were adjusted, I replaced outlier scores with the averaged RSVI score from the respective months before and after. The following RSVI scores were adjusted: July 2012 and August 2012 for the polyamory keyword set and August 2011 for the open relationship keyword set. None of the monthly RSVI scores for swingers was more than three standard deviations above or below the mean. The same pattern of results were found with the adjusted RSVI scores. Google searches for terms related to polyamory and open relationships increased from 2006 to 2015, r = .60, p < .001, and r = .69, p < .001, respectively. In addition, the correlations of Google searches for keywords related to both polyamory and open relationships with time were significantly higher than correlations of searches for control keywords with time, z = 3.75, p < .001, and z = 4.94, p < .001, respectively.