Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publication Title

Sexuality & Culture

Keywords

adolescents, romantic development, dating, well-being, positive youth development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to provide adolescent researchers and those who work with adolescents in applied contexts with a picture of contemporary adolescents’ romantic involvement. Data were from 354 adolescents (15 to 18 years-old), living in the United States. We conducted a latent profile analysis of nine romantic activities, identifying three patterns of romantic involvement: romantic explorers; abstainers; and digitally and dyadically experienced. Romantic explorers (41.5% of sample) primarily participated in low intensity, exploratory activities such as crushes, socializing, and talking. Abstainers (44.1% of sample) had not participated in most of the romantic activities. The digitally and dyadically experienced group (14.4% of sample) had engaged in each of the romantic activities a few times. Adolescents in the digitally and dyadically experienced group reported more internalizing, externalizing, and loneliness than adolescents in the other two groups. Adolescents in the digitally and dyadically experienced group also engaged in more extracurricular activities. Our findings add the larger body of research illustrating that romantic activity has meaningful connections to adolescent development and health.

Funding Source

This study was funded by discretionary research funds provided to the authors by West Virginia University. This article was published Open Access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Springer Nature.

DOI

10.1007/s12119-026-10557-y

Comments

First published in Sexuality & Culture (2026): https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-026-10557-y

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