While successful goal pursuit is associated with well-being for individuals, new work has begun exploring the role of goals in satisfaction with romantic relationships. The present work examines the effects of spousal involvement in goal pursuit on personal and marital outcomes. One hundred twenty married couples completed measures of perceived spousal facilitation (i.e., perceiving one's spouse as being encouraging and helpful) and hindrance (i.e., perceiving one's spouse as hindering) of goals, individual well-being, and marital satisfaction over 3 points in time, starting as newlyweds. Mediation analyses tested various models in which enhanced goal progress mediates the influence of perceived spousal facilitation and hindrance of goals on personal and marital outcomes. Results showed some support for the idea that spousal involvement in goal pursuit can be related to concurrent as well as later personal and marital outcomes. Specifically, perceiving one's spouse as facilitating and hindering one's goals predicted personal and marital outcomes in both cross-sectional and longitudinal models, depending on whether the goals represented personal or relationship-focused aspirations. Furthermore, reports of goal progress mediated both within-individual and cross-partner effects in some longitudinal models. Findings from this study offer implications for further understanding the role of a spouse in goal pursuit and in personal as well as marital outcomes over time.

Secret Schemes is a collection of four short stories and three chapters of a novel; all the stories are humorous and deal with young women and their struggles in romantic relationships.

No description available.

Relationship satisfaction often declines after marriage or cohabitation and between 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. Furthermore, many couples who stay together report feeling unsatisfied in their relationships. Thus, it is important to examine factors that contribute to enduring and satisfying relationships. One factor that has been closely linked to relationship satisfaction is the sexual relationship of the couple. One aspect of the sexual relationship that has received little attention is masturbation. Although most psychologists hold positive views about masturbation, and recommend masturbation in many instances, the empirical data examining the association between masturbation and relationship satisfaction has mixed findings, with the majority of studies reporting a small negative relationship between these variables. The purpose of the present study was to further explore the association between masturbation and relationship satisfaction, focusing on possible moderators and mediators of this relationship including: masturbation guilt, openness with an individual's partner about masturbation, gender, object of arousal during masturbation, and reason for masturbating. Overall, masturbation frequency did not have a significant association with relationship satisfaction. However, the object of arousal during masturbation and openness about masturbation moderated the association between masturbation frequency and relationship satisfaction. Specifically, individuals who (a) used objects of arousal other than the partner when masturbating and (b) were less open about the masturbation reported a more negative association between masturbation frequency and relationship satisfaction.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of School of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / This study prospectively examined how parent-adolescent relationships influence romantic relationship quality of offspring, utilizing the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (ADD Health, n = 3,946). Further, this study investigated whether self-esteem and depression symptoms mediated these relationships, and if gender was a significant moderator. Adolescent girls who perceived their relationships with their mothers and fathers to be strong were more likely to have better quality romantic relationships as young adults. This relationship was found to be direct and indirect, through the effect of self-esteem. Adolescent boys who perceived their relationship with their father to be strong and whose mothers were more knowledgeable about them were less likely to experience depression symptoms as young adults, and in turn, to have better quality romantic relationships. Adolescent boys whose mothers perceived to have a strong relationship with them had higher self-esteem as young adults. Finally, there were significant differences between boys and girls in that the association between mother knowledge and depression symptoms was stronger for boys. Results support the stability of parent-adolescent relationships in influencing future relationships and highlight the importance of parent-adolescent relationships in predicting psychological wellbeing and romantic relationship quality.

This study examined the effectiveness of an intervention designed to increase self forgiveness for women who have recently experienced a romantic relationship breakup. Of particular interest were the interactions between adult attachment style, treatment condition, and time. The current study examined how the following variables differ between attachment style groups and how they change over time with respect to treatment condition: aspects of the former relationship, emotional responses to personal transgressions within the relationship, general negative and positive affect, dispositional forgivingness, positive and negative attitudes toward self, feelings of unforgiveness toward self and ex-partner, and feelings of forgiveness of self and ex-partner. Data were collected over a period of four weeks from 74 undergraduate women who had experienced a breakup within the two months prior to beginning the study. Results found that there were some initial differences in dependent variables between attachment style categories, which were controlled for when examining interaction effects between attachment, treatment condition, and time. Results indicated that attachment did not affect participants’ responses to the self-forgiveness intervention. However, there were significant interactions between treatment condition and time. Results are discussed in terms of previous research. Limitations of the current study are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the direct, purposeful self-infliction of injury, which results in tissue damage, is performed without conscious suicidal intent and through methods that are not socially sanctioned (Nixon & Heath, 2009). The phenomenon of self-injurious behaviours is alarming, especially among adolescents and young adults (Muehlenkamp, 2005). In fact, it is estimated that lifetime prevalence of NSSI in young adults within the general population is around 12% to 38% (for reviews, see Heath, Schaub, Holly, & Nixon, 2009; Jacobson & Gould, 2007; Rodham & Hawton, 2009). While this proportion declines when assessing recent NSSI (i.e., usually performed in the past six months or in the past year), the numbers are still disturbing with 2.5% to 12.5% of young adults reporting current NSSI (for reviews, see Heath et al., 2009; Jacobson & Gould, 2007; Rodham & Hawton, 2009). The goal of this thesis is to investigate the associations between romantic relationships and NSSI in young adults and to address two major limitations that emerge from the literature, namely: a) several theoretical hypotheses have yet to be validated despite considerable advances in the scientific study of NSSI; and b) with the exception of one study, the few studies available relating romantic relationships and NSSI solely focused on the individual level of analysis instead of including both partners in the model. This goal will be addressed through three articles, each targeting specific objectives. For the sake of methodological rigor and for adequate evaluation of the constructs under study, the purpose of the first study was to validate the factorial structure of the English version of the Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI; Bodenmann, 2008). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) corroborated the measurement theory of the DCI by revealing the presence of five coping factors (i.e., stress communication, supportive dyadic coping, delegated dyadic coping, negative dyadic coping, common dyadic coping) and two target factors (i.e., one’s own dyadic coping and partner’s dyadic coping). The English DCI also demonstrated good internal reliability and yielded preliminary evidence of concurrent validity. All together, these findings lead to the conclusion that the English DCI is an accurate and reliable measure of dyadic coping, and that researchers can use the English DCI confidently in their research to evaluate dyadic coping processes. The established factorial structure of the English DCI was then used in subsequent studies of this thesis. The purpose of the second study was to investigate direct and indirect associations between insecure romantic attachment, difficulties in emotion regulation and common dyadic coping strategies, and endorsement of NSSI behaviours. From an empirical standpoint, this study is the first to explore these specific relationships in one comprehensive model, targeting both interpersonal and intrapersonal strategies to deal with stressful experiences and the role it might have on one’s NSSI behaviours. Overall, the results revealed that difficulties in emotion regulation mediated the relationships between romantic attachment insecurity (i.e., attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) and NSSI, whereas no such effects were found for common dyadic coping strategies. Findings from this study suggest that intrapersonal strategies (i.e., emotion regulation) might be more influential on one’s NSSI behaviours than behavioural strategies (i.e., common dyadic coping). This study also offers a first step towards the understanding of the romantic relational context of individuals struggling with NSSI behaviours. The next step remains to explore the couple as the unit of analysis rather than focusing on only one member of the relationship, giving way to the third study of this thesis. The primary aim of the third study was to generate a general portrait of young women’s romantic relationship functioning, distinguishing women who recently self-injured from those who have never self-injured. This study was designed to permit the exploration of not only the individual-level effects, but also potential effects from the romantic partner. Through a series of nonparametric Mann-Whitney U tests, results revealed that women who engage in NSSI behaviours are more likely to report subjective distress in the form of attachment anxiety and distrust compared to women who do not engage in NSSI behaviours. They also reported good, but slightly lower levels of, relationship satisfaction and adaptive dyadic coping strategies compared to women who have never engaged in NSSI. Findings also showed that partners of women who engage in NSSI behaviour reported more attachment anxiety than partners of women who do not engage in NSSI behaviours. The women and their partner’s reports about their romantic relationship experiences provide unique insight into the similarities and differences of individuals who self-injure and those who do not. Furthermore, a cursory exploration of the partners’ NSSI behaviours revealed that nearly one-third of the partners in a relationship with women who self-injured also reported having recently engaged in NSSI behaviours. These findings add some depth to the understanding of the relational context of those who are struggling with NSSI and provide future directions in research.

<p>Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures, the current study examines how jealousy is experienced and expressed in close peer relationships during emerging adulthood. 193 college student participants (94 males, 99 females) described actual jealousy experiences, answered questions from a newly developed jealousy questionnaire, and completed questionnaires assessing individual characteristics. To better understand the phenomenon of jealousy, descriptive data are presented regarding a variety of jealousy features. An interest in the role of gender and relationship context prompted an examination of the association between gender, relationship context, and jealousy variables. Additionally, a number of hypotheses are tested regarding factors that affect jealousy intensity and frequency. Results suggest jealousy experiences during college are normative and similarly experienced by males and females. However, friendship jealousy has qualities that differ markedly from romantic relationship jealousy. Implications of these findings are discussed. Study limitations and ideas for future research are also addressed.</p> / Dissertation

This longitudinal study investigates whether the timing of sexual debut (early, on-time, or late, compared to one’s peers) is associated with young adult romantic relationship quality (i.e., overt and relational victimization, relational aggression, dating worries, and positive dating experiences) either directly or indirectly by moderating the relationship between trajectories of individual factors (internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and alcohol use) young adult romantic relationship quality. Participants were from a large, six-wave longitudinal study (N = 662, 48% males, M age at T1 = 15.5 years, SD = 1.9 years). I use multi-step regression models to estimate how sexual debut group moderates the association between individual factors and young adult romantic relationship experiences by estimating slopes and intercepts for individual factors and creating interaction terms to test the moderating effect of timing of sexual debut on the slopes and intercepts of individual factors. Gender differences are also investigated. Results indicate that early sexual debut is associated with higher baseline levels of individual factors and directly predicts negative relationship experiences in young adulthood. Early sexual debut moderates the relationship between baseline internalizing symptoms and negative dating experiences and dating worries in young adulthood. Findings also show that early sexual debut moderates the relationship between steeper increases in externalizing symptoms and negative dating experiences and dating worries. The results provide a better understanding of the longitudinal impacts of adolescent experiences on young adult relationship outcomes. / Graduate

No description available.