Sexual subjectivity is a central feature of healthy sexuality that is believed to shape and be shaped by relationship experiences. However, no studies have examined sexual subjectivity within a dyadic context. The current study examined partner similarity in sexual subjectivity within 75 heterosexual couples and associations with sexual relationship functioning using actor-partner interdependence models. Within couples, partners’ scores were significantly correlated on three of five elements of sexual subjectivity and showed similar mean levels on four of the five elements. Men's and women's sexual self-efficacy were positively associated with their own sexual communication. Other associations varied by gender. Men's sexual body esteem and entitlement to self-pleasure predicted their reports of sexual relationship functioning, and women's entitlement to pleasure from partners and sexual reflection predicted their reports of relationship functioning. Few partner effects were observed. Findings suggest that partners’ sexual subjectivity is relevant for dyadic functioning in emerging adulthood. Longitudinal research is needed to examine how experiences within and across relationships contribute to the development of sexual self-concepts and sexual functioning.

Satisfactory couple relationships are demonstrated to have a myriad of benefits. However, the ability to establish couple satisfaction is shown to be strongly and negatively impacted by insecure romantic attachment patterns (i.e., anxious and avoidant attachment). This study sought to gain an enhanced understanding of the aforementioned link by means of investigating a novel mediator model incorporating two facets of romantic commitment: approach commitment (the desire to maintain a relationship due to benefits inherent within this) and avoidance commitment (the desire to maintain a relationship to avoid potential losses resulting from relationship dissolution). Bootstrap analyses demonstrated that insecure attachments were differentially related to commitment goals, such that anxious attachment was related with higher approach and avoidance commitment. Conversely, while avoidant attachment was negatively linked with approach commitment goals, no relation was revealed with avoidance commitment goals. Additionally, results demonstrated that one's idiosyncratic commitment goals partially mediated the strongly established link between insecure attachment and couple satisfaction.

Many people experience a non-marital relationship breakup, which can lead to poor adjustment outcomes; however, relative to divorce, non-marital breakups have received less research attention, particularly on factors that may predict positive adjustment outcomes. We examined the adaptive role of finding benefits in a non-marital breakup in 140 participants who completed measures of benefit finding, the impact of the event, and adjustment. Regression analyses found that benefit finding related to positive adjustment outcomes and that the benefit finding-depression relationship was moderated by the impact of the event. This study provides empirical support for benefit finding in a non-marital relationship breakup.

This article discusses the role of culture in children's emotional development and learning. Cultural orientation regarding self and relationships with others shapes cultural models of emotion regulation and expression. While independent cultures support open expression of emotions, interdependent cultures value the modulation of emotions. Children learn culture-appropriate ways of emotion regulation through socialisation in the family, acquisition of language, exposure to cultural products (e.g., children's books), and school activities. This article offers recommendations on how to design culture-grounded socio-emotional programs that take into account cultural values, indigenous content, and emotion regulation strategies contingent with culture-specific adaptive goals.

Relational aggression is defined as behaviours intended to harm others by damaging their relationships. Drawing from two theoretical perspectives, the social process model and the peer socialisation model, we tested how relational aggression and victimisation could influence each other over time, and examined peer status and gender as moderators of these bidirectional associations. We hypothesised that aggression would lead to increasing victimisation and victimisation to increasing aggression, and that the association from aggression to later victimisation would be weaker for more popular and preferred youth, especially girls. Participants were 328 Australian early adolescents (172 boys, 156 girls) in Grades 5, 6 or 7, who nominated classmates who were aggressive, victimised, popular, and preferred. Results showed support for the role of status and gender in the bidirectional associations between aggression and victimisation. Relational aggression was associated with more T2 relational victimisation only among adolescents who were low in popularity and among girls with low social preference. Victimisation was associated with T2 aggressive behaviour among more popular girls. Relational victimisation was also associated with less T2 aggression among popular boys. Findings highlight the complexities introduced by gender and social status for the unfolding of early adolescent relational aggression and victimisation.

Claims that adult attachment differences across cultures are associated with individual differences in individualism and collectivism have seldom been evaluated. This study investigates how individualism and collectivism may relate to adult attachment orientations (anxiety and avoidance) and whether they moderate the attachment–psychological health link. In samples of young adults from Western (Australians, n = 143) and Eastern (Singaporeans, n = 146) locations, individual differences in individualism and collectivism were significantly associated with attachment avoidance but not anxiety. As predicted, attachment anxiety predicted worse negative symptoms more strongly among individuals higher in collectivism across cultures. However, individualism and collectivism did not moderate the relation between avoidance and negative symptoms. Results suggest there are other factors leading to the differential moderating effect of individualism and collectivism in the attachment–wellbeing link across cultures. The current study highlights the need to look beyond cultural stereotypes in clinical practice.

Theories concerning hatred in personal relationships lack empirical evidence. These two studies address the need to provide empirical information about how hate works in interpersonal, loving relationships. Effort justification theory (Aronson & Mills, 1959) suggests that past hate may have a beneficial function in relationships that remain together; however, if hate is a truly destructive motivation (Rempel & Burris, 2005), this hate may have a lasting irreconcilable impact on the quality of the relationship. By surveying people in both the United States and Norway about their personal loving relationships, we discovered that hatred leaves a lasting deleterious impression on interpersonal relationships. People are more likely to report less intimacy, satisfaction, and love with people they have previously hated. Furthermore, effort justification and cognitive dissonance, when measured as relationship length, was observed in the report of higher commitment to those previously hated. Future assessments of relationship quality should consider measuring hatred and length of relationship.

This systematic review explores the psychosocial wellbeing of neurotypical (NT) women in intimate relationship with persons with Asperger's Syndrome (AS), and intervention models for such relationships. Over 20 pertinent scholarly databases were searched in April 2011. The initial search yielded 1,736 unique items. Articles were eligible if they were a peer-reviewed journal article or a peer-reviewed thesis investigating adult couple relationships where only one partner had AS. Ten studies were agreed by both reviewers to have met these final inclusion criteria. Utilising the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines the body of evidence comprising the final 10 studies was assessed to be of an overall grade D or ‘weak’. None of the studies included for final analyses were intervention studies.

In this study, men and women were surveyed about their attitudes toward the use of white lies and other forms of benevolent deception in their romantic relationships. We predicted that people would be more accepting of telling lies than of having lies told to them. Furthermore, we predicted that women would be more accepting than men of benevolent deception in their romantic relationships. We found that people were more tolerant of telling benevolent lies than they were of being told such lies. However, we found that men, not women, were more accepting of benevolent deception in their relationships.

Romantic kissing is vastly understudied in scientific research, with only one study systematically examining romantic kissing motives and associated gender differences. The current study explored motives for romantic kissing in greater detail by examining whether gender, age, relationship status, sexual attitudes, and personality predicted variations in adults’ romantic kissing motives. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses (N = 461) revealed that those with more permissive sexual attitudes, higher levels of extraversion, those currently in committed relationships and those younger in age were most likely to endorse relational/sexual motives for romantic kissing. Goal attainment/insecurity motives were most frequently endorsed by men and those with more permissive sexual attitudes, higher levels of extraversion, lower levels of agreeableness, and lower levels of conscientiousness. Results emphasise the importance of a variety of variables in understanding motives for romantic kissing.

Positive associations between attachment insecurity and indicators of poorer patient-physician relationship quality have been found in samples of patients consulting with physicians for a variety of specific medical conditions or needs. The current study was the first to investigate associations between adult attachment characteristics and relationship quality with family physicians. University students (N = 239) completed measures assessing attachment and their relationships with their family physician. Attachment avoidance was associated with poor affective relationship quality and with greater communication difficulties. Attachment anxiety was associated with greater communication difficulties, but was unrelated to affective relationship quality. Those with insecure attachment, particularly those with high levels of avoidance, have poorer relationships with their family physicians than those with more secure attachment.

A new measure, Partner Behaviours as Social Context (PBSC), was developed and tested in two studies (N = 215, N = 316) and tested as a correlate of psychological wellbeing in a third (N = 157). Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and related research has suggested that there are six important dimensions of partner behaviours, which should be associated with individual psychological need fulfilment, wellbeing and development. Three of these dimensions are positive, including warmth, or provision of love/affection; autonomy support, or supporting a partner's decisions; and structure, or being consistent and reliable. Three of these dimensions are negative, namely rejection, or ignoring/being hostile to a partner; coercion, or being controlling/demanding; and chaos, or unpredictability. Factor analysis supported the six-dimensional construct. The six PBSC dimensions, positive and negative subscales and total score had good distributional properties, high internal consistency, related as expected to other relationship quality measures, and diverged from most personality constructs. All PBSC scales were related to wellbeing, with some behaviours more related than others. For example, coercion was strongly associated with compromised wellbeing, while warmth showed weak, positive associations with positive functioning. The PBSC is expected to have utility in both research and clinical settings.

The pervasive emotional and cognitive experience of loneliness has been linked to rejection experiences and emotional sensitivity, such as rejection sensitivity (RS), defined as the tendency to anxiously expect and overreact to rejection. Moreover, RS is founded on attachment theory and has been described as a correlate of anxiety and avoidance of intimacy in close relationships. The aims of this study of 639 preadolescents (Grades 5 to 7) were to test whether the association between relationship stressors and loneliness is indirect due to the mediational role of RS, and whether the association between RS and loneliness is indirect via anxiety and avoidance of peer intimacy. As expected, regression results showed that adolescents who reported heightened perceptions of parental rejection and victimisation by peers had greater RS, which in turn was associated with adolescents’ greater feelings of loneliness. Also, as predicted, adolescents with heightened RS reported more avoidance and anxiety about peer intimacy. Although anxiety about intimacy mediated the association between RS and loneliness for both boys and girls, avoidance mediated between girls’, but not boys’, RS and loneliness. The findings highlight the interrelations between multiple forms of emotional sensitivities, and the importance of parent-child relationships, peer victimisation, and emotional sensitivity for explaining loneliness.

The associations between Chinese adolescents’ family (maternal, paternal, and sibling) relationship qualities and their adjustment were examined among 540 Chinese families over a one-year period. Path analysis revealed that father-offspring positivity was associated with lower levels of internalising problems, whereas mother-offspring conflict predicted youths’ depressive symptoms and loneliness. Controlling for parent-offspring relationships, sibling intimacy inversely predicted youths’ internalising and externalising problems, whereas sibling conflict predicted youths’ loneliness. Multigroup comparisons revealed that youth gender moderated the associations between maternal conflict and youths’ depressive symptoms, as well as sibling intimacy and youths’ loneliness. Overall, results highlight the importance of family systems for Chinese youths’ mental health and the need to study sibling relationships in future studies of Chinese families.

The goal of this qualitative study was to explore how adolescents with diagnosed depression describe their social relationships with peers, parents and teachers. Several previous findings have revealed the dual role of interpersonal relationships — as a stressor and contributor to different mental disorders, and also as a source of social support for mental health. Previous studies confirmed the value of a qualitative approach in exploring the self-perceived experiences of adolescents. The research group consisted of 28 adolescents, aged 13–17, with a diagnosis of depression. Individual semistructured interviews (Children's Depression Rating Scale Revised; CDRS-R) were applied in this study, which were analysed using thematic analysis. The results have both scientific and practical value, as well as relevance for the development of preventive interventions targeted at well-being and mental health of adolescents.

Infidelity represents a major threat to relationships, often resulting in dissolution of couples. The process from infidelity to potential breakup was studied in 92 couples using questionnaires concerning hypothetical scenarios of sexual and emotional infidelity. Structural equation model analyses using couple data for both infidelity types suggest that the level of perceived threat to the relationship was the main predictor of likelihood of breakup for men and women. Following each type of imagined infidelity, this effect was partly mediated by forgiveness. For emotional infidelity, level of blame was associated with forgiveness and breakup. The effect of blame on breakup was fully mediated by keeping less distance. The mechanisms involved in these processes were highly similar for women and men.

Factors associated with chronic exposure to warning-sign behaviour (WSB) in girls' romantic relationships need to be understood in order to develop responsive prevention programs. Data was provided by 152 Australian adolescent girls (M = 14.7 years, range = 13 to 17), 66 of whom reported recent relationship experience and exposure to at least one WSB. Guided by the dyadic slippery-slope model of chronic partner abuse, relationships were tested between frequency of WSB exposure, perceived WSB risk, confidence in self-agency, and assertive tendency in romantic relationships. Girls who reported more assertive responses to WSBs reported less frequent exposure to WSBs in the past 3 months. Risk sensitivity, while weakly related to assertiveness in non-WSB-exposed girls, was unrelated to assertive tendency in WSB-exposed girls. Girls with greater WSB exposure had lower perceived self-agency, and lower perceived self-agency was associated with less assertiveness in response to Dominance and Possessiveness WSBs. These results are discussed in relation to dyadic slippery-slope theory, and point to the potential importance of strategically timed, empowerment-oriented programming in partner abuse prevention.

Sociosexuality refers to the propensity to engage in sexual relations without closeness or commitment, varying from a restricted to an unrestricted orientation. The aim of this research was to scrutinise the psychometric properties of a Portuguese version of the revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R; Penke & Asendorpf, 2008). The study included 549 persons (50% women) aged 18–75 years (M = 38.73; SD = 17.77). The psychometric properties of the SOI-R were analysed by means of confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency, and validity. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the expected three-factor structure of the measure. The SOI-R presented adequate internal consistency. Women were less unrestricted than men in all facets of sociosexuality. This Portuguese version of the SOI-R seems to be reliable and valid for evaluating sociosexuality in a Portuguese-speaking population, and can be utilised for experimental and applied works. The significance and limitations of the results are discussed.

The interpersonal nature of childhood abuse has led researchers to examine how abuse in childhood is associated with the quality of adult women's romantic relationships. Depression is one pathway by which childhood abuse may be associated with relationship quality. The current study considers whether childhood abuse is linked to positive and negative relationship quality through depressive symptoms. Data were obtained from women participating in the Longitudinal Study of Childhood Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN; N = 544) and were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results indicate a significant indirect effect from childhood abuse to both positive and negative quality through women's depressive symptoms. The indirect effect from abuse to negative relationship quality through depression was significantly larger than positive relationship quality. These results suggest that childhood abuse and subsequent depressive symptoms has a twofold effect on women's romantic relationships.

Mate poaching occurs when a person attracts another, whom he or she knows is already in an exclusive relationship, into a sexual or romantic relationship. Mate poaching is involved in the evolution of many relationships. Yet, little is known about the quality of these relationships. We examined relationship quality between individuals whose relationships were formed via mate poaching versus not (i.e., a relationship formed serially without overlap with another relationship). We compared ratings of quality from the perspectives of poachers, poached, and co-poached individuals. Adult participants (n = 660) in a romantic relationship responded to questions assessing relationship quality. Those in relationships formed from poaching rated their relationships as lower in relationship satisfaction, commitment and trust, and higher in jealousy, and had higher rates of romantic and sexuality infidelity in their current relationship compared to individuals in non-poached relationships. Those who were poached from an existing relationship rated their current relationship as lower in commitment than did those who poached their current partner into a relationship. The study also provides first insights regarding relationship quality for those who identify as co-poached. We discuss these findings in terms of implications for understanding how relationships are formed and the qualities of those that endure.