The goal of this research was (1) to identify the patterns or pattern pieces of
development for heterosexual, dyadic, romantic relationships that emerge from
mixed-sex, friendship groups and (2) to compare and contrast those patterns or
pattern pieces to patterns in existing stage theories. To address these goals, data
were collected from students at a mid-sized, northwestern, land-grant university.
Grounded theory was selected to analyze the data to allow the potential emergence
of new perspectives and patterns.
Two conclusions about relationship development emerged from the
collected data. First, some participants did not identify the friendship and the
romance as two distinct relationships. On the other hand, a second set of
participants indicated the friendship and romance were, in fact, two distinctly
different relationships. Differences in conclusions drawn by these two groups
generated six possible revisions to existing relationship development stage theories. / Graduation date: 2003
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/32035 |
| Date | 11 February 2003 |
| Creators | Cordova, Angela J. |
| Contributors | Bowker, Judith K. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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