This article explores the understudied yet prevalent phenomenon of on‐again/off‐again (on‐off) dating relationships. Study 1 (N= 445 U.S. college students) showed that almost two thirds of participants had experienced an on‐off relationship. Analyses of open‐ended responses about relationship experiences showed on‐off partners were less likely to report positives (e.g., love and understanding from partners) and more likely to report negatives (e.g., communication problems, uncertainty) than partners who had not broken up and renewed. Study 2 (N= 236), employing quantitative measures, substantiated these findings and further showed a greater number of renewals was associated with greater negatives and fewer positives. Results highlight the need for further investigation regarding on‐off relationships, and theories potentially useful in explaining these relationships are discussed.

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Abstract. In this study, we investigated how grit is related to the satisfaction of the basic needs and subjective well-being. Grit means dedication to long-term goals with enthusiasm, which is closely related to success in objective terms. Thus, we expected that grit would be positively related to satisfying the autonomy and competence needs, which would lead to greater subjective well-being (i.e., higher life satisfaction and lower depression). A survey of young adults (N = 455) revealed that grit is strongly related to both the autonomy and competence needs, and these needs mediated the effect of grit on subjective well-being. Grit, did not directly increase life satisfaction but weakly decreased depression. Further, the two basic needs played different roles in enhancing subjective well-being. Autonomy reduced depression, and competence increased life satisfaction.

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This study examined how cell-phone use is related to interpersonal motives for using cell phones, face-to-face communication, and loneliness. A survey of 232 college students who owned a cell phone revealed that affection and inclusion were relatively strong motivations for using voice calls and text messaging, and that interpersonal motives were positively related to the amount of cell-phone use, including calling and texting. The amount of face-to-face interaction was positively associated with the participants' cell-phone use and their interpersonal motives for using cell phones: the more the participants engaged in face-to-face interaction with other people, the higher their motives were and the more frequent cell-phone use was. Loneliness did not have a direct relation to cell-phone use. Instead, the participants with higher levels of loneliness were less likely to engage in face-to-face social interaction, which led them to use cell phones less and to be less motivated to use cell phones for interpersonal purposes.

This study developed a research model of mobile voice communication on the basis of the social skills deficit hypothesis. In the model, poor social skills were related to less face-to-face and mobile voice communication, which was linked to greater loneliness. Structural equation modeling analyses of survey responses from 374 adults supported the social skills deficit hypothesis in that poor social skills were related to less involvement in face-to-face communication and greater loneliness. Also, as expected, more face-to-face interactions were associated with lower levels of loneliness; however, more cell phone calling was associated with greater loneliness. Additional regression analyses revealed that the positive relationship between mobile voice communication and loneliness was more pronounced for those who have more friends than those who have fewer friends.

Building on research comparing on-again/off-again (on-off) relationships to other dating relationships, the current study focused on a unique feature of these relationships-renewals. A sample of 274 participants who had experienced an on-off relationship completed a survey about why they renewed their relationships, characteristics of their breakups and renewals, and what stressors and benefits they experienced. These characteristics were used to predict the occurrence of renewals, separately as well as in multivariate analyses. In addition to lingering feelings being a predominant reason for renewals, findings suggested uncertainty about what the preceding breakup indicated, not having dated others after breakups, and feeling the on-off nature improved the relationship were all related to an increased chance of renewals. Mutual initiations of breakups, as well as reporting uncertainty about the general nature of the relationship, were also related to a decreased chance of renewals.

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