Young Adult Relationship Values at the Intersection of Gender and Sexuality

Abstract

Recent decades have brought significant social changes in the industrialized West that may influence young adults’ attitudes about intimate relationships, including changes in gender expectations and behaviors and changes in sexual attitudes and practices. We used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (N=14,121) to compare men to women, and sexual minorities to heterosexuals, on ratings of the importance of love, faithfulness, commitment, financial security, and racial homogamy for successful relationships. We found that nearly all young adults adhere to dominant relationship values inherent in the romantic love ideology; however, we found modest but significant differences by gender and sexual identity in relationship values. Significant interactions demonstrated that gender and sexual identity intersect to uniquely influence relationship views.

From Love at First Sight to Soul Mate: The Influence of Romantic Ideals in Popular Films on Young People's Beliefs about Relationships

“…Female characters more often expressed challenges, whereas male characters more often expressed ideals. Research indicates that young women rate faithfulness, love, and lifelong commitment as more important than do young men (e.g., Meier et al, 2009). However, women may believe that maintaining these relational components does not magically happen, which represents a challenge-like view.…”

“…In real life, one survey of young women indicates that they believe more strongly than young men that faithfulness, lifelong commitment, and love are important components of relationships (Meier, Hull, & Ortyl, 2009). However, other survey research indicates that men tend to endorse the ideals we investigate in our study (e.g., love conquers all) more strongly than women do (Sprecher & Metts, 1989).…”

Relationship Formation and Stability in Emerging Adulthood: Do Sex Ratios Matter?

“…Dating, like cohabitation, are stages in these processes—what Guzzo (2006) calls the “relationship spectrum.” The formation of intimate relationships is an important life course process and a key developmental task during emerging adulthood (Meier, Hull, and Ortyl 2009; Arnett 2004; Amato and Booth 1997). …”

College Students, Sexualities Identities, and Participation in Political Marches

“…Some works also contend that white LGBs have fewer racial biases (Beran et al 1992;Kleiman et al 2015) and are more open to interracial dating (Meier et al 2009) than white heterosexuals. However, other studies suggest that a sexual minority status does not modify the general racial practices of white Americans (Lundquist and Lin 2015;Tsunokai et al 2009).…”