Associations between dimensions of security in romantic relationships and interpersonal competence among dating and non-dating high school adolescents

Document Type

Article

Department or Administrative Unit

Family and Consumer Sciences

Publication Date

3-23-2011

Abstract

The current study investigated the association between dimensions of security in romantic relationships, anxiety and avoidance, and general interpersonal competence among two groups of high school-aged adolescents: one currently in a dating relationship (daters) and one not currently involved (non-daters). Our findings show that daters were less anxious, less avoidant, and more competent than non-daters. A moderate negative association was found between avoidance and interpersonal competence for both daters and non-daters. A small positive association was found for anxiety and competence, but only for non-daters. More variance in interpersonal competence was explained in the model for daters than non-daters. The differences observed between the groups appeared to reflect the effects of current experience on self-assessed anxiety, avoidance, and interpersonal competence.

Comments

This article was originally published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download from ScholarWorks @ CWU.

Journal

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Rights

© The Author(s) 2011

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