Caught in a Bad Romance: Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Mental Health
Abstract
Integrating insights from cultural sociology and identity theory, I explore the mental health consequences of adolescent romantic relationship inauthenticity--incongruence between thoughts/feelings and actions within romantic contexts. Applying sequence analysis to National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data, I measure relationship inauthenticity by quantifying the extent to which the ordering of events of actual romantic relationships (e.g., holding hands, saying "I love you") diverges from the sequence of events within idealized relationship scripts among 5,316 adolescents. I then test its association with severe depression, suicide ideation, and suicide attempt. I find that romantic relationship inauthenticity is positively associated with the risk of all three markers of poor mental health, but only for girls. This study highlights the importance of gender and culture in determining how early romantic involvement influences psychological well-being.
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A low SOC, a lack of authenticity, or the presence of violence in relationships are harmful to adolescents.
“A low SOC, a lack of authenticity, or the presence of violence in relationships [37,48,49,59,78,83,108,122,142], are harmful to adolescents”
From Well-Being and Romantic Relationships: A Systematic Review in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood (2019) · cites this paper as [37]
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Multiple Imputation of Missing Values
Royston, P. (2004) · The Stata Journal: Promoting communications on statistics and Stata · doi:10.1177/1536867x0400400301 · Cited by 2,340 · see citing works
Is there an epidemic of child or adolescent depression?
Jane Costello, E., Erkanli, A., & Angold, A. (2006) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2006.01682.x · Cited by 983 · see citing works
Longitudinal associations between teen dating violence victimization and adverse health outcomes
Exner-Cortens, D., Eckenrode, J., & Rothman, E. (2013) · Pediatrics · doi:10.1542/peds.2012-1029 · Cited by 837 · see citing works
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Well-Being and Romantic Relationships: A Systematic Review in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood
Gómez-López, M., Viejo, C., & Ortega-Ruiz, R. (2019) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph16132415 · Cited by 322 · see citing works
Castellví, P., Miranda‐Mendizábal, A., Parés‐Badell, O., Almenara, J., Alonso, I., Blasco, M. J., Cebrià, A., Gabilondo, A., Gili, M., Lagares, C., et al. (2017) · Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica · doi:10.1111/acps.12679 · Cited by 207 · see citing works
Kazan, D., Calear, A. L., & Batterham, P. J. (2016) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jad.2015.11.003 · Cited by 142 · see citing works
Young love: Romantic concerns and associated mental health issues among adolescent help-seekers
Price, M., Hides, L., Cockshaw, W., Staneva, A., & Stoyanov, S. (2016) · Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.3390/bs6020009 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
- Authors
- Soller, B.
- Affiliations
- University of New Mexico (US)
- Corresponding author
- Soller, Brian
- ORCID
- Soller, Brian
- Venue
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-02-26
- Volume
- 55
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 56-72
- ISSN
- 0022-1465 (ISSN-L)
- 2150-6000
- OpenAlex
- W2130290967
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 55 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 10.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2014-09-12)
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Keywords
- adolescent romantic relationships, mental health, depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, gender differences, sociology of culture, identity theory
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adolescent Behavior, Courtship, Depressive Disorder, Major, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Longitudinal Studies, Love, Male, Mental Health, Sexual Behavior, Sex Factors, Suicide, Attempted, Suicidal Ideation
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