Family Influences on Hooking Up and Dating Among Emerging Adults

Abstract

Existing research posits that young adults navigate the developmental tasks of emerging adulthood, including sexual and romantic relationship formation, in context of geographic and social separation from families of origin. This assumption of independence reflects the ongoing focus on privileged samples to the exclusion of working class, racial/ethnic minority, and immigrant young adults, many of whom live with family through the emerging adult years. This exploratory analysis employs interview data from a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of 85 college attending emerging adults who live with or proximate to family to explore how families of origin shape interpersonal relationships. Findings show that family members impart both direct and indirect socialization messages that encourage career development over relationship formation. Families also engage in surveillance of emerging adults, applied disproportionately to women. Results are discussed in terms of differences and commonalities of experience across race/ethnicity, nativity, class, and gender, and the salience of family to these processes.

Young women’s sexual involvement in emerging adulthood

“…Perhaps it is not the perceived parental approval and norms or parent/guardian-child communication of sexual health/practice knowledge that matter, but the presence of parental supervision in the household. Even though their children may have grown, Allison (2016a) noted the important roles that families continue to play in shaping their young adult children’s interpersonal relationship development by conveying direct or indirect socialization messages and imposing surveillance, particularly on daughters.…”

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

“…In‐depth qualitative interviews were also used with some regularity. For example, interviews helped to increase understanding about friends with benefits relationships (Weaver, MacKeigan, & MacDonald, ) and hookups (Allison, ) and sexual expectations and fears (Anders & Olmstead, ). In addition, studies frequently used open‐ended questions embedded within surveys (typically online surveys) to content analyze responses to identify prominent themes and subthemes.…”

“…For commuter students, which Allison and Risman () found to be racially and socioeconomically diverse, found fewer opportunities to be involved in hookups due to work obligations, performing well in school to maintain academic responsibility, and having less time due to travel. In a later study, Allison () found in a racially and economically diverse sample of college students that family had an important influence on their opportunities to become involved in hooking up and dating. Many participants lived at home or traveled home regularly and were socialized, through family members' (i.e., parents and siblings) examples, or were more directly told to make school and career a priority over relationship formation.…”

Adolescent sexual norms and college sexual experiences: Do high school norms influence college behavior?

“…Although some research has been done on conflicting norms about sexuality in the transition to college (Sennott & Mollborn, 2011), this research did not specifically address how past social norms and experiences may be related to how one adapts to new social norms, such as hookup cultures on college campuses. Despite the call for research on sexuality using the LCP (Carpenter, 2010), and the focus of LCP on culturally shared norms, social norms researchers typically do not look at how norms from one stage of the life course may influence behavior is later stages, nor do they explicitly consider social norms as cumulative throughout the life course (for exceptions see Allison, 2016;Lyons, Manning, Longmore and Giordano, 2015…”

“…These scholars argue that cultures of casual sex are mentally and physically damaging to both young men and women -but especially to young women (Stepp, 2007), although recent work has argued that casual sex can be positive for both men and women (Snapp, Ryu, and Stepp, 2015). Despite the explosion of research on hookup cultures and casual sex among college students, scholars are just beginning to examine the degree to which young adults' earlier sexual experiences and adolescent normative environments may impact their college sexual strategies and behavior (see Allison, 2016;Lyons, Manning, Longmore and Giordano, 2015).…”