Being a young individual engaged in a romantic relationship holds significant sway over both one’s life and mental well-being. Regrettably, the global instability brought about by the pandemic and its subsequent upheaval has triggered a surge in divorces and relationship breakdowns. This pattern has spurred researchers to delve extensively into the myriad factors influencing relationships. In a recent study, researchers aimed to uncover the intricate links between aspects like violence, intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and jealousy within the context of young couples.
The researchers sampled 834 individuals aged 18-38 from Peru, 77 percent of which was female. The individuals were in relationships for at least 3 months at the time of completing the measures. The participants were asked to fill out surveys that assessed their jealousy, relationship satisfaction, relationship violence, intimacy and other measures related to their relationships.
Analysis of the responses showed that relationship satisfaction, intimacy and commitment were all linked. Those factors had strong positive correlations with each other. Intimacy and satisfaction had negative correlations with violence, unsurprisingly. Lastly, jealousy was significantly and positively correlated with passion and violence. The most important element found, was that satisfaction was interconnected to all other important elements, playing a critical role in relationships.
Other results of the study showed that only men showed a positive correlation between passion and violence and that men showed a relationship between commitment and jealousy. Men also showed a stronger correlation between intimacy and satisfaction.
Like all research, this one too comes with some limitations. One of these limitations is the sample contained a disproportionate number of female participants. Another such limitation was that all of the respondents were from Peru, limiting the generalizability of the results.
Original Article: https://www.psypost.org/2023/08/examining-the-interactions-between-love-relationship-satisfaction-jealousy-and-violence-in-young-couples-167545
Study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285555
