Mentor
Dr. Anthony Paik
Participation year
2004
Project title

Intimate Coupling Among Adolescents

Abstract

This study examines intimate relationships and their associations with subjective well being and delinquency among adolescents in the United States. We specify adolescent relationships by those that are socially and dyadically embedded. We also investigate how sex mediates these associations. These relationships were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N=6504). In our analysis, we found that adolescents' consider themselves to fall into three categorical relationship types: socially embedded, dyadically embedded, and sexual. This study showed that emotional and behavioral outcomes are not determined by the types of relationships adolescents are engaged in. Likewise, one intimate relationship type is not more suitable for adolescents than another. This study concluded that each relationship type, when sex was involved, increased the likelihood that depression and delinquent behavior would occur among adolescents.

Antoinette  Landor
Education
Grambling State University