Making it Work: What’s Important in Romantic Relationships?

Poole, Abigail, P. (2021) Making it Work: What’s Important in Romantic Relationships? Memorial University of Newfoundland. (Unpublished)

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (830kB)

Abstract

Building healthy, strong, and long-term romantic relationships is important for many adults. Romantic relationships are unique to individuals based on factors that include parent-child attachment styles, communication skills, and conflict resolution skills. While the romantic relationship literature is extensive, much of the research focuses on identifying the independent effects of these core relationship characteristics. It is possible that restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have led to changes in relationship characteristics and relationship quality. The current study addressed these gaps in the literature to examine how attachment (e.g., anxious and avoidance), communication (e.g., face-to-face and online), and conflict styles are associated with adults’ romantic relationship commitment and satisfaction. Participants included 474 adults aged 18 to 69 (Mage = 24.04, SD = 6.14; 88.9% females) who completed self-reported surveys about their current romantic relationship. As expected, the use of technology, type of communication, conflict styles, and relationship quality changed for many participants since the pandemic. Results from hierarchical regression models indicate that greater face-to-face communication and reduced avoidance attachment were associated with greater relationship commitment and satisfaction. Conflict styles moderated associations between face-to-face communication and relationship commitment and satisfaction, demonstrating how conflict management and communication. Understanding what makes romantic relationships work, particularly during the pandemic is important for adults to improve their romantic relationships.

Actions (login required)

View Item