| Abstract: | Investigated measures enabling one to assess general feelings about a relationship, social exchange behaviors, and the particularism and symbolism of resources given to and received from another by examining, longitudinally, 38 dating couples. At least 1 member of each pair was an undergraduate student. These variables were first measured shortly after a couple began to date and again 4 mo later. Findings show that in contrast to what might be expected from prevailing theories of relationship development, the later status of couples (still dating or not) could be predicted with a high degree of accuracy from the initial measures. This finding corroborates and extends previous work dealing with same-sex friendships. Couples who were still dating 4 mo later demonstrated greater love, more relationship-maintaining behaviors, more favorable evaluations of the dating relationship, and greater amounts of self-disclosure at the time of initial contact than did couples who broke up. Over time, these differences between couples who did and who did not continue dating intensified. In terms of the types of resources Ss gave and received from their dating partner, more particularistic and more symbolic resources were exchanged in continuing couples only later. Although both continuing and noncontinuing couples showed a decrease in the correlation between the love that members reported, this was offset in continuing daters by increasingly similar reports of reward, equity, and liking. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
