Adolescent love and well-being: the role of dating relationships for psychological adjustment

Abstract

Love has been identified as one of the most important aspects of interpersonal strength. During adolescence, the main social contexts in relation to love are friendships and dating relationships. The aim of this study was to measure the link between romantic relationship experience and personal adjustment, taking into account effects of age and sex, and to analyse the effect of adolescent dating relationship quality on personal adjustment. A total of 3258 Spanish adolescents were surveyed. The results indicated that dating status does not affect adolescent self-esteem, but has a significant effect on internalizing and externalizing behaviours and sexist beliefs. Regarding relationship quality, those adolescents who had a very good-quality relationship reported higher levels of psychological adjustment in terms of the variables measured. Results are discussed according to their utility for positive social development and its links to dating relationship quality during adolescence.

Keywords:

• adolescent well-being
• psychological adjustment
• dating relationships
• romantic relationships quality

Acknowledgements

This paper has been developed into the frame of the national project ‘Violencia Escolar y Juvenil: riesgos del Cortejo Violento, la Agresión Sexual y el Cyberbullying’ (I+D+i PS-2010-17246) and the project ‘Parejas y Redes de Iguales en la Adolescencia: un Programa de Prevención de la Violencia en las Relaciones Sentimentales’ (I+D+i PSI2013-45118-R) founded by Plan Nacional, España.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.