Adolescent romantic relationships : impacts and consequences.

• Main Authors: Chua, Celestine Yun Na., Theng, Li Yi., Yao, Valerie Sera Hui'en.
• Other Authors: Qiu Lin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51918
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Adolescent romantic relationships are significant relational contexts in adolescence. These relationships are voluntary connections and ongoing interactions, usually marked by passion, intimacy, and commitment. They are prevalent, developmentally normative and they bring about lasting impacts and consequences. These impacts and consequences can affect adolescents’ current functioning and future psychosocial development. In this review, the different types of impacts and consequences are examined. Adolescent romance is found to have an impact on adolescents’ development of self and existing friendships, although research in these areas is still limited. At the same time, adolescent romantic relationships can bring about consequences such as sexual behaviors, delinquency, eating problems, and depression. Some of these consequences are undesirable. Among the consequences, research on depression in relation to adolescent romance is the most extensive. And early and female adolescents have been identified to be more vulnerable to such consequences. Several limitations surround research studying impacts and consequences of adolescent romantic relationships. Future directions have also been proposed to resolve these limitations.