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Chapter Three: Theoretical Perspectives on Adolescent Relationships and Adult Development
The majority of research on intimate relationships among youths and adolescents begins and ends with description. By itself, this is no mean feat, because adolescents’ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors with respect to romantic relationships are often in flux and vaguely defined. Yet informing current policy and interventions requires moving beyond describing these experiences and toward explaining the role that they may play in the development of healthy adults and healthy adult marriages. That adolescents’ experiences with romantic relationships do play some role in adult development is a point of agreement among developmental psychologists. Sullivan (1953), for example, was one of the first to suggest that a major task of adolescence is to develop intimate relationships outside the family unit. Erikson (1968) elaborated on this idea, describing these first intimate relationships as the route through which the adolescent forms an independent identity. The implication of these ideas is that adolescents can be significantly altered by their romantic experiences in ways that have long-term implications for their subsequent romantic relationships during adulthood. Many others have echoed and elaborated upon this general theme (e.g., Feinstein and Ardon, 1973; Gray and Steinberg, 1999; Sullivan, 1953; Thorbecke and Grotevant, 1982; White et al., 1987; Zani, 1993).
Yet, beyond the broad assertion that adolescents’ romantic experiences are likely to affect their adult outcomes, there has been little theory that details how these effects may come about. In light of ongoing efforts to develop programs and curricula targeting adolescent romantic relationships, an analysis of the models available to guide these efforts seems especially timely. The effectiveness of current and future interventions is likely to depend heavily on the extent to which those interventions in fact address elements that theory suggests are important to the development of healthy relationships in adolescence and healthy marriages in adulthood.
Thus, the goal of the current chapter is to identify and integrate theoretical perspectives on how adolescents’ experiences affect their adult outcomes, with emphasis on the theories that have been most influential in guiding empirical research. After describing the most prominent perspectives, the chapter concludes by presenting an integrative framework that assembles elements from each perspective and may serve to identify priorities for future research and intervention in this area. At the outset, it is worth noting that this report cannot do justice to the richness and complexity of all the theoretical perspectives that have been applied toward understanding the role of adolescence in adult development. This chapter is of necessity selective, outlining only the central premises of each theory reviewed. More detailed discussions are cited where appropriate.
Attachment Theory
Summary of the Theory
Attachment theory, the perspective described and subsequently elaborated by Bowlby (1969; 1973; 1980), has been called “the most prominent theoretical position within the existing relationships literature” (Giordano, 2003, p. 259). The heart of the theory is Bowlby’s observation that the survival of human beings, in contrast to that of many other species, depends on a capacity to form close relationships. In particular, the survival of human infants requires a bond with a caregiver (usually the parent) strong enough to motivate considerable self-sacrifice on the caregiver’s part. So crucial is this bond for survival that Bowlby postulated an evolved attachment system designed to maintain and regulate close relationships across the lifespan.
Over the three volumes expanding on this perspective, Bowlby offered two premises with direct relevance for explaining the role of adolescent romantic experiences in adult development. First, infants and young children internalize their experiences with their primary caregivers to form enduring models of what intimacy and intimate relationships are generally like. Different experiences with caregiving are likely to result in different models, and Ainsworth and her students (e.g., Ainsworth, 1989) were instrumental in describing specific types of models that may arise. For example, to the extent that the primary caregiver (usually the mother) is attentive and available, the infant learns to expect care from others and trust that it will be provided, i.e., develops a secure model of attachment. In contrast, to the extent that the primary caregiver is unreliable or distant, the infant learns not to trust others and to rely on indirect techniques of soliciting attention, such as whining, crying, or withdrawal. These patterns have been described as reflecting an insecure model of attachment, which in turn has been divided into anxious/ambivalent or avoidant models (e.g., Ainsworth et al., 1978).
Second, an infant’s generalized models of relationships can be self-perpetuating. That is, beliefs and expectations about relationships with others affect an individual’s behavior toward others, who tend to respond in kind, validating the original beliefs and expectations. In this way, models of relationships developed in infancy and early childhood are played out and supported in relationships during adolescence, which in turn give rise to continuity between those relationships and relationships formed in adulthood (e.g., Hazan and Shaver, 1987; Waters et al., 2000).
Derivations of the attachment perspective have focused heavily on the idea of continuity across different sorts of relationships throughout adolescence. For example, Furman and his colleagues (Furman and Flanagan, 1997; Furman and Wehner, 1994, 1997) have suggested that, in early childhood, children begin to form friendships that echo the themes and patterns they experienced in their family of origin. As the child begins to mature sexually during adolescence, supportive and companionate relationships with peers evolve into romantic attachments that continue the same themes and patterns. Collins and his colleagues (Collins, 1997; Collins and Sroufe, 1999; Collins and Van Dulmen, 2006) have offered a similar view on the continuity across this period. Their descriptions of adolescence explicitly refer to models and beliefs about relationships as mechanisms that preserve the individual’s habits of interacting across relationships with parents, peers, and romantic partners. Indeed, this sort of continuity and change has been supported by longitudinal research that follows infants through later adolescence (Carlson, Sroufe, and Egeland, 2004). Marital researchers have offered similar models to explain the role that early experiences with parents and friends may play in the outcomes of adult marriages (Story, Rothman, and Bradbury, 2002; Tallman, Burke, and Gecas, 1998).
Yet despite the prevailing emphasis on continuity, the attachment perspective acknowledges that models of relationships are responsive to experience, and so are susceptible to change (e.g., Waters et al., 2000). To the extent that romantic relationships represent a new variety of close relationship and one that fulfills new functions for the individual relative to relationships with parents and friends (Collins, 1997; Erikson, 1968), adolescence represents a unique period during which models of relationships formed in infancy may be reshaped by new experiences into models that will carry the individual through adulthood (Sroufe et al., 2005). Even the most secure models of intimacy can be shattered by a negative romantic experience, just as an anxious or avoidant model may be soothed by a positive experience. Thus, adolescent romantic relationships, although grounded in earlier experience, may nevertheless be viewed as playing an independent causal role in later adult development, and this is why developmental psychologists have begun to focus attention on adolescence to explain subsequent adult relationships (e.g., Collins and Sroufe, 1999; Collins and Van Dulmen, 2006; Furman and Simon, 1999; Tallman, Burke, and Gecas, 1998).
Evaluating the Theory
The broad influence of attachment theory has served to connect within a common framework research on infancy, childhood, and adult relationships that had previously been considered separate domains. Whereas the work of Sullivan (1953) and Erikson (1968) had predicted links between adolescence and adulthood, attachment theory offers mechanisms, e.g., individual models of relationships, that plausibly explain how those links might come about. The richness of this perspective connects it to biological, evolutionary, and developmental approaches to understanding human development, and justifies the enthusiastic interest that it has received from researchers and practitioners.
Yet attachment theory has not been without its critics, who have noted at least two ways that this perspective has yet to be elaborated (Giordano, 2003). First, by emphasizing continuity across relationships, attachment theory tends to underemphasize what may be unique about different types of relationships or what may be unique about different specific relationships experienced by an individual. For example, an individual may experience many romantic relationships over time, and recent evidence from young adults suggests that they develop distinct models for each relationship (La Guardia et al., 2000).
Second, by emphasizing individual cognitions and interpersonal interactions, research guided by attachment theory often overlooks broader social influences on experiences in relationships. Socioeconomic variables, characteristics of the partner, and the cultural context all seem likely to affect adolescents’ choices with respect to romantic relationships and thereby affect their adult outcomes. Research derived from attachment theory does not generally address these sources of influence.
Implications for Intervention
In general, by assuming that experiences during adolescence play a causal role in the development of adult models of romantic relationships, attachment theory justifies programs and interventions that target adolescent relationships as a way of improving subsequent outcomes for adults. More specifically, the theory suggests that addressing adolescents’ models of romantic relationships may be a way of altering the course of their romantic trajectories. In particular, it highlights three promising directions for promoting healthy romantic relationships in adolescence and healthy marriages in adulthood.
First, to the extent that adolescents’ behaviors in their romantic relationships are likely to be affected by their personal models of what relationships are like and what they can expect from them, adolescents may benefit from the opportunity to express and examine their models explicitly. Many adolescents may take for granted that their own expectations for romantic relationships are the same as those of their peers. Through free writing, or group discussions, adolescents might be encouraged to articulate their assumptions about relationships and compare their assumptions with each other.
Second, adolescents might be encouraged to examine the sources of their models of relationships. When asked to consider where their ideas about relationships come from, many adolescents may spontaneously look to their families of origin, or relationships with peers, or the media. Those who have already had experiences in romantic relationships may look to those. A facilitator might help adolescents to explore sources of continuity and discontinuity in their own lives and to identify patterns that they wish to continue and relationship habits they may wish to break.
Third, program facilitators can help adolescents understand how their beliefs and assumptions about romantic relationships may affect their behavior in their relationships. This need not be tied directly into dry presentations of research findings, nor must it necessarily involve self-disclosure. For example, a facilitator might use a series of vignettes that describe individuals with different styles of attachment (e.g., “Tasha has never felt she could trust her partners completely”; “Sanjay feels he can do pretty well on his own without romantic relationships”) and then ask participants to discuss how those different individuals might respond to common interpersonal scenarios (e.g., “A friend made a date to have lunch with you at noon, but was 30 minutes late”). By examining how general ideas about relationships might affect specific behaviors in these scenarios, adolescents may come to see how their own behavior in specific relationships, and possible continuities between their experiences of relationships in different contexts, might be affected by their own assumptions and beliefs.
The Lifespan Development Perspective
Summary of the Theory
The question of how adolescent romantic relationships may affect adult outcomes is really a question of development over the lifespan of the individual. Theories of lifespan development therefore offer a number of insights into these issues. Although there have been many different theories within research on lifespan development (e.g., Baltes, 1987; Ceci and Hembrooke, 1995; Zoccolillo et al., 1992), in this chapter we review one perspective developed by Caspi, Elder, and their colleagues (e.g., Caspi, 1987; Elder, Pavalko, and Hastings, 1991) that has been especially prominent in research on adult relationships.
These researchers had access to longitudinal data sets that assessed individuals multiple times over the course of their entire lives, from shortly after birth or during childhood in the 1920s and 1930s, through their adulthoods during the 1940s and 1950s, on through later life at the end of the 20th century. By examining ratings of these individuals’ personalities across their lives, and by comparing these ratings with the experiences of these individuals at different stages of their lives, the researchers identified and described two distinct mechanisms to account for continuity and change in personalities across time (Caspi, Bem, and Elder, 1989). The first, echoing similar ideas in attachment theory, is interactional continuity—the idea that a child’s personality affects the way the child interacts with others, who respond in kind and tend to reinforce the child’s personality. Thus, bullies are reinforced for bullying, and shy children are reinforced for being shy, and as a result both types of children persist in their accustomed ways of interacting with others (Caspi, Elder, and Bem, 1987, 1988).
Attachment theory and interactional continuity both highlight the ways that experiences in specific interactions with specific individuals can have lasting consequences for the way a person subsequently interacts with other individuals. Whereas research guided by attachment theory has tended to focus on the cognitive aspects of this process, interactional continuity returns to Bowlby’s original focus on behavioral habits and tendencies as the source of links between relationships during infancy and later childhood. The two approaches make similar predictions about how relationship experiences at different stages of life are associated with each other.
A second mechanism described by the lifespan development perspective, and one that differs from anything described by attachment theory, is cumulative continuity. Cumulative continuity is the idea that behaviors and choices at different developmental stages have consequences that accumulate to shape and constrain an individual’s options at subsequent stages of life. Whereas interactional continuity focuses on interpersonal relationships and their consequences for the individual, cumulative continuity emphasizes the interaction between individuals and their social structures. For example, individuals who are aggressive and uncontrolled as children suffer academically and socially. As they progress through school, the consequences of their behavior accumulate, limiting their options for higher education and thereby their opportunities for adult employment. Thus constrained economically, their options for meeting potential romantic partners and forming a family are similarly limited (Caspi, Elder, and Bem, 1987).
Applied specifically to intimate relationships, the lifespan developmental perspective suggests that romantic relationships formed in adolescence may affect adult relationships in two ways: by supporting or altering the way an individual interacts with potential romantic partners and by giving rise to concrete outcomes (e.g., depression, pregnancy, STDs, educational attainment, marriage) that have implications for the choices available to the individual as an adult.
Evaluating the Theory
By offering two mechanisms to explain the continuity of relationships across different stages of development, the lifespan development perspective echoes and expands on themes raised by attachment theory. Whereas research derived from attachment theory has tended to focus on processes within and between individuals, the lifespan development perspective, as elaborated by Caspi, Bem, and Elder (1989), more directly acknowledges interactions between individuals and their environments. Thus, the lifespan perspective highlights not only the interpersonal consequences of adolescent romantic relationships but also the potential implications of these experiences for subsequent employment and educational opportunities. This directly ties thinking about adolescent romantic relationships to economic and sociological models.
Yet because this approach has been used mostly to describe links between young children’s experiences and their adult outcomes, it remains incompletely developed with regard to explaining adolescent romantic relationships directly. For example, the approach emphasizes continuity over the lifespan, and in so doing neglects potential sources of discontinuity. Romantic relationships in particular may be a particularly important source of discontinuity for some adolescents because characteristics of romantic partners (e.g., their levels of achievement versus their levels of delinquency) and events within relationships (e.g., violence, pregnancy) can affect individual opportunities independent of the individual’s personality.
Implications for Intervention
Interactional and cumulative continuity may be powerful concepts for program developers seeking to attune adolescents to the long-term implications of their romantic relationships. Each of them suggests specific exercises that could be employed in relationship education that targets adolescents.
For example, participants in these programs might be introduced to the idea of interactional continuity and encouraged to explore how it operates in their daily lives. This need not involve personal disclosure. For example, adolescents might be encouraged to adopt a persona and then role-play an interaction with someone who does not know the persona that they have adopted. How does the naïve participant interact with someone who has adopted a shy persona? How are the same person’s behaviors different when interacting with an aggressive persona? How do the reactions of the naïve participant reinforce the personas that adolescents have adopted? By examining these questions in a neutral environment, adolescents may gain a clearer understanding of the sources of interactional continuity in their own lives.
Understanding the implications of cumulative continuity might call for a different strategy. After the concept is defined, adolescents might be guided in thinking about all the potential outcomes of their decisions regarding romantic relationships, and about the sequence of consequences that might follow from those outcomes, on into adulthood. For example, a group of participants might consider the possible immediate consequences of deciding not to enter into a relationship at all, and then the consequences of different sorts of decisions within relationships. It would be important to include the broadest possible range of potential outcomes in this sort of discussion—both positive and negative—so that all participants might identify with the possible paths being outlined. By drawing out these sequences, adolescents may come to appreciate the range of effects that their decisions about romantic relationships can have on their lives.
A second implication of cumulative continuity for programs that target adolescents as a means of promoting healthy adult marriages is that it is possible to educate adolescents in ways that prevent or minimize the adverse cumulative consequences of negative events in their own lives. Programs that effectively prevent teen pregnancy, substance abuse, or truancy, for example, should have the cumulative effect of promoting more favorable trajectories into adulthood, and thus more favorable circumstances for eventual healthy marriages. Programs that support adolescents who have experienced negative events should have the same potential for long-term benefits. To the extent that adolescents who have experienced teen pregnancy, problems with criminal behavior, or substance abuse can be assisted in gaining access to opportunities for recovery and advancement, these adolescents may have a better chance of maintaining a healthy marriage in adulthood than they otherwise would have.
The Development of Early Adult Romantic Relationships (DEARR) Model
Summary of the Theory
The Development of Early Adult Romantic Relationships (DEARR) model is a framework developed by Bryant and Conger (Bryant and Conger, 2002; Bryant, 2006) to address the sources of relationship behaviors in early adulthood. In contrast to attachment theory and the lifespan development perspective, both of which are broad approaches to understanding human relationships and interactions, the DEARR model is specifically designed to address romantic relationships. Because it has been proposed only recently, there is at present very little empirical research that has examined the premises of the model directly. Yet it nevertheless warrants mention here because it highlights some links that are not emphasized in prior theories of romantic relationships over the lifespan.
The DEARR model initially echoes attachment theory by suggesting that early experiences in the family of origin shape an individual’s orientation toward romantic relationships. Whereas attachment theory identifies this influence as operating mostly through the individual’s interactions with others, the DEARR model takes a broader view, suggesting that early experiences affect the developing individual in three ways.
First, like attachment theory, the DEARR model suggests that the developing child learns through experiences in the family of origin what relationships are like, and these models go on to shape the individual’s expectations for relationships outside of the family. Thus, children accustomed to receiving support are likely to be more trusting that support will be provided by romantic partners when needed, whereas children raised in less supportive families will learn not to expect support in their romantic relationships.
Second, consistent with the idea of interactional continuity, the DEARR model explicitly suggests that patterns of interaction developed among family members give rise to similar patterns played out with romantic partners. Thus, children accustomed to hostility and manipulation in their families are likely to express hostility and engage in manipulative behavior in their own relationships as young adults, whereas children accustomed to warm and supportive interactions are more likely to possess the skills to behave in a warm and supportive way toward their own romantic partners.
Third, the model acknowledges the role that the social structure (e.g., socioeconomic status [SES], acute and chronic stressors, peer relationships) plays in romantic relationships, and suggests that the circumstances of the family of origin largely determine these features as well. In other words, individuals born into privileged families will have access to educational opportunities, resources, and social circles that individuals born into underprivileged families will lack. Those opportunities, resources, and social circles form the environment within which the individual’s early experiences in romantic relationships play out. To the extent that the environment is supportive, it facilitates successful relationships, and to the extent that the environment is demanding, it hinders successful relationships. Thus, the DEARR model draws attention to the links between the family of origin and the context of young adult relationships in a way that the other two perspectives reviewed here do not.
The final proposition of the DEARR model is that early experiences in the family of origin (e.g., ideas about relationships, behavioral habits, and environmental supports and demands) directly affect the individual’s thoughts and behaviors within young adult relationships and thus affect the success or failure of those relationships. In other words, the elements of the model are presumed to contribute to whether or not young adults are able to do such things as resolve conflict, provide support, and place trust in their romantic partners. These specific behaviors are then described as directly accounting for the outcomes of young adult relationships.
Evaluating the Theory
The DEARR model expands upon prior views of the precursors of healthy adult relationships and marriages in two important ways. First, the model acknowledges multiple and simultaneous sources of continuity between relationships across the lifespan, including enduring models of relationships, behavioral tendencies, and stable environments. Second, the model describes causal paths among these elements, drawing direct and indirect links between experiences in the family of origin, aspects of the broader social structure, and the success of romantic relationships in young adulthood. Especially innovative is the idea that families not only teach children how relationships operate but also place children in environments that constrain or facilitate how those lessons get expressed.
Yet, the DEARR model is new and still awaits development and elaboration. Most notably, the model does not mention adolescent relationships directly. Although adolescent experiences with romantic relationships would seem to be a crucial intermediate stage between childhood and early adulthood, the DEARR model skips over this stage, describing only direct associations between early experiences and young adult relationship processes and outcomes. This is an important oversight, leaving the DEARR model unable to acknowledge the possibility that adolescents may learn from their experiences with romantic relationships in ways that contribute independently to their young adult outcomes.
Implications for Intervention
Two elements of the DEARR model are especially noteworthy for programs and interventions targeting adolescent relationships. The first is the idea that what partners do in their relationships—how they express affection, how they communicate, how they resolve conflicts—is what directly accounts for the success or failure of their relationships. Thus, the DEARR model supports the idea of teaching relationship and interpersonal skills as a way of improving relationship outcomes among adolescents and adults. In particular, the DEARR model suggests that teaching relationship skills during adolescence may be a way of severing negative patterns that might otherwise persist from childhood through young adulthood.
The second is the idea that the nature of a couple’s environment affects how their relationship skills are expressed. This is a subtle idea that may not be immediately intuitive to adolescents. As extensive research in social psychology has demonstrated, a common tendency is to attribute other people’s behavior to their own skills and dispositions, underestimating the ways that the environment can change how people behave (e.g., Gilbert and Malone, 1995; Jones and Harris, 1967). Adolescents may appreciate the opportunity to consider ways that their own or a partner’s behavior might be changed or constrained in different kinds of environments. For example, adolescents might be asked to consider a couple trying to resolve a disagreement about money. Would it change the nature of their discussion if they were relatively affluent and discussing whether to remodel a room in the house, compared to if they were low-income and discussing how to pay the bills? Would it matter if the conversation took place on a weekday or a weekend? Whether or not young children are around? How would these scenarios play out differently in the context of a marriage versus other relationships? By drawing out the links between what happens inside relationships and what is going on outside relationships, adolescents may better appreciate the broader forces that affect their experiences within their own relationships.
By highlighting the interplay between processes within romantic relationships and the environment of the couple, the DEARR model also suggests ways of packaging and delivering relationship skills education that may make these programs more effective. To the extent that a supportive environment, i.e., an environment free from stress and rich in support and resources, facilitates the expression of relationship skills, programs that teach relationship skills may be most effective if they are provided in conjunction with or alongside programs that target adolescents’ environments directly. For example, relationship skills classes might be offered in connection with programs on job training or substance abuse prevention. Any efforts to provide adolescents with greater opportunities for healthy development may provide a suitable arena for promoting healthy relationships as well.
Integration: Assembling a Model of the Precursors of Adult Romantic Relationships
Thus far, we have reviewed and drawn out the practical implications of three existing theoretical perspectives relevant to understanding the role of adolescent romantic relationships in adult development. The key points of this review are summarized in Table 3.1.
As Table 3.1 makes clear, despite some overlap among the theories, each highlights different ideas, all of which appear to be crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the role adolescent relationships may play in adult development. The goal of the rest of this chapter is to integrate the key ideas of the existing theories into a single framework. Doing so offers several potential benefits for researchers and policymakers focused on adolescent relationships as precursors of healthy adult marriages (e.g., Bouchey and Furman, 2003; Kan and Cares, 2006). First, an integrative framework brings the insights of multiple perspectives together within a single source. Second, assembling the components of existing theories into a single structure may highlight important questions or avenues for intervention that have been underexamined over overlooked entirely. Third, to the extent that it is as broad and comprehensive as possible, an integrative framework should be a useful tool for organizing the existing research and practice literature in this area. The integrative framework is presented in Figure 3.1.
The integrative framework depicted in Figure 3.1 describes how aspects of adolescent experiences, and adolescents’ romantic relationships in particular, may account for outcomes, especially marital outcomes, during adulthood. To this end, the framework divides relevant variables into three broad groups represented by the three gray rectangles in the figure: antecedent conditions, adolescence, and adulthood. Each of these three categories helps to organize several broad constructs represented by the smaller white rectangles in the figure. Listed within each rectangle are examples of specific variables that might be measured to assess each construct. By grouping variables in this way, the framework suggests that those variables may have similar sorts of associations with variables grouped within other constructs. The specific variables listed are meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive.
[D] |
| Theory | Main Premises | Evaluation | Implications for Intervention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attachment Theory | Infants develop general models of relationships based on their experiences with their primary caregivers. | Provides a mechanism (i.e., models of relationships) to explain continuity in relationships across the lifespan. | Identify the models that adolescents use to understand their own relationships. |
| These models shape expectations and behaviors in subsequent relationships, and are thus reinforced. | Highlights first romantic experiences as a potential source of change in these models. | Examine sources of relationship models. | |
| Understand how models of relationships affect behavior in relationships. | |||
| Lifespan Development Perspective | Interactions with others tend to reinforce a child’s personality (interactional continuity). | Acknowledges ways that the social structure (e.g., resources, employment, social networks) affects relationships. | Explore how personality can be reinforced through interactions with others. |
| Choices and behaviors early in life have consequences that shape options available later in life (cumulative continuity). | Explains multiple ways that adolescent relationships can affect adult outcomes, including marriage. | Trace the cumulative consequences of different decisions about romantic relationships. | |
| Learn to prevent or minimize negative outcomes that may have cumulative consequences for adolescents. | |||
| DEARR Model | Early experiences in family of origin affect capacity for successful relationships in three ways. | Explains that behaviors within relationships directly account for the success and failure of those relationships. | Teach adolescents skills for effective relationships maintenance. |
| Child develops models from observing family. | Suggests how environments may facilitate or constrain effective processes within relationships. | Explain how specific environments (e.g., stress vs. support) may affect the expression and practice of relationship skills. | |
| Child develops habits from interacting with family. | Associate relationship education with programs that improve environments for adolescents directly. | ||
| Family shapes the environments where the child forms subsequent relationships. |
Antecedent Conditions
Many variables that existing theories suggest are important for understanding relationships across the lifespan are essentially in place before adolescence begins—certainly before adolescents experience their first romantic relationships. The integrative framework presented here describes these variables as antecedent conditions. Within this grouping, the framework further subdivides these variables into three broad constructs. Most removed from the individual are elements of the distal context (e.g., ethnicity/race, SES, the media environment, and the neighborhood environment) that shape the environments within which individuals grow up and within which their initial ideas about romantic relationships are formed. In general, these variables are stable, or at least more stable than other elements of the model, so the arrows describing paths of influence from these variables to other elements in the model are depicted as unidirectional.
Consistent with the DEARR model, the framework suggests that elements of the distal context affect adolescent and adult romantic relationships only indirectly, through their direct effects on the more proximal conditions of adolescence. One of these is the immediate context of the adolescent, including family structure, relations with family members and peers, the school environment, and the experience of chronic and acute stress. The second of these are the individual differences that adolescents bring to their first romantic experiences (e.g., self-esteem, substance use, academic achievement).
Both of these sets of conditions are shaped by the distal context of the individual. For example, substance use (an individual difference) and family structure (an element of the immediate context) both vary significantly with socioeconomic status (an element of the distal context). The immediate context and individual differences also affect each other. For example, peer groups affect the likelihood of substance abuse, and relationships with parents and peers affect self-esteem. Together, elements of the distal context, the immediate context, and the individual interact to provide the foundation from which the individual’s first experiences with romantic relationships arise.
Adolescence
Regarding experiences with romantic relationships during adolescence, the framework describes two sets of variables as directly affected by antecedent conditions. The first of these are the adolescent’s attitudes and beliefs about romantic relationships, sex, and marriage. Included here are the individual’s models of what intimate relationships are like, presumably developed through early interactions with parents, as attachment theory suggests. Yet the framework also accounts for the possibility that other factors, such as the media or interactions with peers, may also contribute to relationship-relevant attitudes and beliefs during adolescence.
The second set of variables that can be examined during adolescence is relationship behaviors, i.e., the individual’s specific choices and experiences in romantic relationships during this stage of life. This set of variables includes partner choice and so accounts for characteristics of the partner as well as of the individual. It also includes the timing of entry into the first romantic relationship and so allows the framework to be applied to those who enter romantic relationships early, late, or not at all. These variables also include specific outcomes of relationship behaviors, such as STDs and pregnancy, that may have long-term implications for individual development. Relationship behaviors and attitudes and beliefs are portrayed as influencing each other: Attitudes and beliefs presumably affect the choices that adolescents make with regard to their romantic relationships; at the same time, their experiences in those relationships may reinforce or alter their attitudes and beliefs.
Adulthood
The framework presented here brings together antecedent conditions and adolescent experiences to account for individual outcomes experienced during adulthood. Because this framework has been designed as a tool for promoting healthy marriages in particular, the framework gives special emphasis to variables relevant to understanding adult relationships. These include not only marital status and marital quality but also the quality and stability of other types of relationships, the individual’s relationship history (many relationships or few, longer relationships or shorter), and whether the individual has become a parent.
Having highlighted adult relationship and marital outcomes, the framework groups all other outcomes as adult circumstances, analogous to the immediate context of adolescent relationships. Although employment, mental health, and educational attainment may all be affected by an individual’s experiences in early life and in adolescence, these outcomes also form the context for the adult relationships that are the particular focus of this framework. The framework groups these outcomes together to reflect this emphasis.
In arranging the three broad groupings of variables in this way, the framework adopts a straightforward logic. Specifically, it suggests, consistent with existing models of adult development, that conditions in infancy and early adolescence set the stage for romantic experiences in adolescence and that these experiences may in turn affect romantic relationships and marital outcomes in adulthood. Integrating prior theoretical approaches, the model offers several paths through which adolescent experiences may affect adult outcomes.
Consistent with attachment theory, one path operates through cognitions (i.e., relationship behaviors→attitudes and beliefs→adult relationships). The idea here is that experiences in romantic relationships may affect an adolescent’s ideas about romantic attachments and attitudes toward marriage, which in turn affect choices and behaviors in adulthood. Thus, secure, trusting relationships in adolescence may make the prospect of adult marriage more appealing and attainable, whereas unstable or violent relationships in adolescence may lead to reluctance to risk deeper emotional connections.
An alternative path operates through the concrete consequences of adolescent relationships (i.e., relationship behaviors→adult circumstances→adult relationships). For example, teen parenthood, one of the most severe potential consequences of adolescent romantic relationships, has been shown to interfere with subsequent educational attainment and identity development (Coley and Chase-Lansdale, 1998; Furstenberg, 1980), limiting the available options for forming and maintaining healthy marriages and relationships in adulthood. In general, the current framework suggests that, by facilitating or impeding development during adolescence, experiences in adolescent romantic relationships may contribute to more or less favorable conditions for romantic relationships in adulthood.
At the same time, the model acknowledges that the antecedent conditions that shape adolescent relationships may continue to have direct implications for adult relationships (i.e., direct paths of influence between antecedent conditions and adult outcomes). That is, conditions such as socioeconomic status or family structure may affect romantic relationships in adolescence and adulthood, whether or not adolescent experiences in relationships exert any independent causal influence on adult outcomes.
Research on the effects of early entry into romantic relationships has raised this possibility directly. For example, a number of studies have noted that, especially for girls, early entry into romantic relationships is associated with greater risk for later substance abuse and delinquency (Aro and Taipale, 1987; Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, and Chase-Lansdale, 1989; Grinder, 1966; Pawlby, Mills, and Quinton, 1997). These studies have also noted that early entry into romantic relationships is itself predicted by other risk factors (e.g., Connolly, Furman, and Konarski, 2000), leaving the independent effects of the relationship behaviors unclear. These findings raise the possibility that adolescent relationships are expressions of antecedent conditions and, as such, are precursors of adult relationship outcomes but may not be independent causes. Support for this view would not imply that adolescent relationships are unimportant, only that they may be better treated as markers of risk than as targets of intervention themselves.
Evaluating the Model
To explain the development of healthy adult marriages and relationships, the integrative framework presented here assembles and elaborates upon the theoretical perspectives that have preceded it. Like attachment theory, the model assigns a prominent place to early experiences and beliefs about relationships. Like the lifespan developmental perspective, the model acknowledges that the concrete consequences of early relationship experiences may impact subsequent adult outcomes. Like Bryant and Conger’s (2002) DEARR model, the current model draws both direct and indirect paths between individuals’ early environment and their adult outcomes.
What the current framework adds to the existing work is the idea that adolescent romantic relationships in particular represent a potential turning point in development, a stage of life during which patterns established in the family of origin may be reinforced or substantially altered, depending upon specific choices, behaviors, and experiences. Furthermore, the framework draws paths that help explain the role that socioeconomic status may play in the development of healthy adult relationships. Specifically, the framework suggests that socioeconomic status directly affects the immediate context of adolescent relationships and the circumstances of adult relationships. From this perspective, the task for understanding the development of healthy adult relationships in low-income populations involves understanding how a low-income environment limits the options that an individual encounters at different stages of development.
Yet, although the framework brings together a wide range of thinking, it nevertheless leaves several important questions about the role of adolescent experiences in adult outcomes awaiting further specification. First, because it focuses on individual development, the framework underemphasizes dyadic processes. Those processes are recognized in the model (as part of relationship behaviors and adult relationships), but the specific role that interactions between partners may play in adult development deserves further elaboration. Second, the framework does not address gender differences directly, although it is likely that specific paths in the model differ for males and females. Third, the framework fails to distinguish among what are likely to be very different sorts of relationship outcomes in adulthood. For example, the precursors of parenthood, enduring marriages, and satisfying relationships (marital or not), may each be distinct, so that different early experiences lead to different patterns of adult outcomes. Drawing these distinctions remains a task for future research and theory.
Despite these limitations, however, the framework as described here may be useful for organizing the existing literature on the role of adolescent romantic experiences in adult development. By locating existing research within the model, it should be possible to identify propositions that have been investigated and supported, those that have failed to receive support, and those that have yet to be examined empirically. The next chapter adopts this approach to review and evaluate the existing empirical research on these issues.
Implications for Intervention
In addition to providing an organization for empirical research, the framework presented here may be used to organize intervention strategies aimed at promoting healthy marriages as well. Different activities supported by the Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) may be viewed as targeting different specific elements of the framework. For example, many programs supported by HMI directly address adult relationships without regard to possible precursors of those relationships. Other programs, such as those currently being evaluated by the Supporting Healthy Marriage and Building Strong Families projects, target adult relationships but also aim to improve adult circumstances through referrals to needed services. The framework presented here supports programs that adopt this broader approach, suggesting that any efforts to improve adult circumstances should facilitate healthier adult marriages as well.
The programs of central interest to the current report, those aimed at adolescents and their relationships, target experiences and choices believed to be precursors of adult marriages. The framework suggests the range of content that these programs might include. For example, curricula developed for younger adolescents may emphasize attitudes and beliefs more than relationship behaviors because younger adolescents may have fewer experiences with romantic relationships from which to draw. Curricula targeting older teens may be broader, including instruction in specific behaviors that have been associated with effective conflict resolution. Broader still would be programs that include material to address consequences of romantic experiences, such as pregnancy and STDs. The framework presented here serves to describe the dimensions along which different curricula might vary and to specify how different elements within each program might enhance each other.
The framework also highlights potential targets of intervention that may not be considered central to adolescent romantic relationships per se but might nevertheless be important for setting the stage for healthy adult marriages. For example, the framework suggests that programs targeting adolescents should address the sources of their attitudes and beliefs about romantic relationships and marriage. The framework invites program developers to consider how distal factors, such as culture and race, as well as more proximal factors, such as neighborhoods and peer groups, affect adolescents’ experiences. It seems likely that a broad-based approach to intervention and education will be most effective in providing adolescents with a foundation for healthy marriages in adulthood. The integrative framework identifies the elements that might be included in such an approach and suggests how they might be organized. Chapter Five of this report draws upon this framework to structure a review and analysis of current curricula targeting adolescents and to identify possible gaps in the content currently being offered.
In addition to providing a way for thinking broadly about interventions and programs, the framework described here also raises important questions for policymakers and program developers to consider. As the framework makes clear, there are several different ways to consider the role of adolescent romantic relationships in the development of healthy marriages. To the extent that the way adolescents conduct their romantic relationships independently accounts for the outcomes of their adult marriages, these relationships are an appropriate target for interventions. Evidence to this effect would justify developing and supporting programs that target adolescent relationships in order to improve adult outcomes. However, to the extent that adolescents’ experiences in their romantic relationships are symptoms of broader risk factors rather than risk factors in themselves, relationship experiences may be viewed as markers of vulnerability and resilience rather than as causes. Evidence supporting this view would suggest allocating additional resources toward programs that directly target such antecedent conditions as socioeconomic status and family structure. The framework presented here recognizes that these perspectives on the role of adolescent romantic relationships in adult development are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the framework describes these alternative paths of influence as operating simultaneously.
Summary
Efforts at promoting healthy adult marriages through programs targeting adolescents are likely to be most effective to the extent that they are guided by clear theories of the role that adolescents’ experiences in romantic relationships play in adult development. This chapter reviewed three established theoretical perspectives that address this issue: attachment theory, the life-span development perspective, and the DEARR model. As summarized in Table 3.1, each of these perspectives highlights different elements of adolescent experience that appear crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the role that these experiences may play in the development of healthy marriages.
To facilitate efforts to draw upon theory in developing new research and new programs, components from each of the three perspectives were assembled within the integrative framework presented in Figure 3.1. As depicted by the figure, the precursors of healthy adult marriages may be grouped roughly into three broad categories: antecedent conditions (i.e., relatively stable elements of adolescents’ lives that may be in place before they experience romantic relationships); attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors during adolescence; and circumstances and relationship outcomes during adulthood. Placing adolescence in the center of the framework suggests that adolescence may be a key turning point, a time when patterns established in early childhood may be reinforced or permanently altered. Yet the framework also acknowledges that such antecedent conditions as family history and SES may have direct affects on adult marital outcomes, leaving the precise causal role of adolescent relationships in adult development unclear.
Assembling this integrative framework offers a structure for organizing research on adolescent romantic relationships and programs that target these relationships as precursors of healthy marriages. The next two chapters draw upon the framework to structure reviews of each of these domains.
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