I am satisfied with my sweetheart, therefore I am satisfied with my life (and vice versa): a cross-lagged autoregressive panel model

Abstract

Forming, maintaining, and ending romantic relationship is a crucial developmental task in emerging adulthood and highly correlated with psychosocial well-being. Although the direction of associations between relational and individual processes has been investigated in married couples, the longitudinal links between relationship satisfaction and life satisfaction has not yet been explored in premarital relationships of emerging adults. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore whether there is a top-down, bottom-up, or bidirectional effect between these two variables. Emerging adults (n = 182; 155 females, 27 males; M_age = 21.23, SD_age = 1.62) from a public university responded self-report measures of the Couples Satisfaction Index and the Satisfaction with Life Scale at two time points over a 14-week interval. A cross-lagged autoregressive panel model analysis indicated that there was a bidirectional association between satisfaction in relationship domain and overall life satisfaction in premarital romantic relationships of emerging adults. The present findings importantly contribute to close relationships and well-being literatures. Study strengths, limitations, and implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Emerging adults
• life satisfaction
• longitudinal cross-lagged analysis
• premarital relationships
• relationship satisfaction

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (Aydın Adnan Menderes University Educational Research Ethics Board) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.