Early adolescents’ “crushing”

Abstract

Bredow, Cate, and Huston hypothesize that individuals initiate romantic relationships by engaging in four stages—deciding whether another is attractive, whether to approach that person, how best to initiate contact, and how to build rapport once contact is made. It is unclear, however, whether this model applies to early adolescents’ pursuits of romantic relationships. It is equally unclear whether factors that are a large part of adolescents’ lives, specifically peers and electronic communication, play a role when early adolescents initiate romantic contact. To address these lacunas, we conducted same-sex and same-age focus groups with sixth and eighth graders. Using a grounded theory approach, our findings revealed that these youth made strategic choices to be noticed by potential partners; sixth graders engaged in play-like behaviors, eighth grade girls flirted, and eighth grade boys planned ways to cross paths with girls at school. These early adolescents also texted and used peers to see whether their romantic interests were reciprocated. In fact, peers played active roles by helping to evaluate potential partners. Further, friends of sixth graders were frequently a direct physical influence, pushing partners into hugging and holding hands, while friends of eighth graders were frequently a direct social influence, working to join two individuals even when those involved may not have wanted this. Our findings suggest a need to broaden Bredow et al.’s model to include social influences while also showing that early adolescents use peers and electronic messaging to reduce uncertainty when pursuing romantic interests.

A Decade Review of Sex and Partnering in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

“…However, a number of studies used qualitative approaches. For example, focus group methods were used to study the role of technology in relationship formation (Ouystel, Gool, Walrave, Ponnet, & Peeters, 2016), romantic experiences and practices (Christopher, McKenney, & Poulsen, 2016), and conceptualizing casual sex relationships (Wentland & Reissing, 2011). In-depth qualitative interviews were also used with some regularity.…”

“…That is, they are a means of relaying messages between romantic interests. In addition, relationship involvement is also a way of increasing social status among one's peers, and therefore adolescents also seek these relationships for peer approval (Christopher et al, 2016).…”

Early adolescents and “going out”

“…Adolescence is a life stage during which youth experiment with romantic pairings (Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009;Meir & Allen, 2009). This begins in early adolescence when many youth first pursue romantic interests and form romantic relationshipsrelationships that they characterize as special and different from other close relationships in their lives (Carver, Joyner, & Udry, 2003;Christopher, McKenney, & Poulsen, 2015). The emergence of these romantic interests coincides with a transition from adolescents spending the majority of their time in same-sex groups to spending more of their time in mixed-sex peer groups (Connolly, Craig, Goldberg, & Pepler, 2004).…”

“…The question of how early adolescents experience romantic pairings, therefore, is not well addressed. Finally, although researchers have begun to acknowledge developmental dimensions to adolescents' relational experiences (e.g., Christopher et al, 2015), the importance of adolescents' romantic role experiences, with their potential links to adolescents' developing self-identity, have not been a part of many investigations of adolescent relationships.…”

“…Youth's romantic pairings frequently emerge from their participation in mixed-sex groups either because they date other members of the group or friends from the group introduce them to potential partners outside of the group (Connolly et al, 2000(Connolly et al, , 2004. Further, early adolescents experience both peer pressure to enter into romantic relationships and an increase in status within their social group once in a relationship (Christopher et al, 2015). These findings demonstrate that early adolescents' peer groups support the existence of and encourage youth to enter into the role of romantic partner.…”