Tribulation and triumph in romantic rivalries: How adolescent love triangles inform dislike and future romance

• In Event: 40807 - Advancing Mathematical and Computational Research in Social Psychology (Co-sponsored by Section on Social Psychology)

Abstract

Relationships defined by dislike and animosity are common in the social worlds of adolescents. To enhance our understanding of how, with whom, and why these negative connections develop, the current project focuses on adolescent romantic rivalries, or instances where multiple youth are romantically attracted to the same classmate. We adopt a social network approach to study the relational patterns of dislike, dating, and “crushes” among 1,919 Dutch adolescents who participated in multiple panels of the PEAR study. Results indicate that young people dislike their romantic rivals at higher rates than expected by chance. Adolescents who are romantically attracted to partnered classmates report particularly high probabilities of disliking their crushes’ recent dating partners, while youth who are currently dating dislike their partners’ ex-partners more frequently than expected. Further analyses evaluate whether disliking romantic rivals is associated with future success in the adolescent dating market. Within certain configurations, we find that disliking romantic rivals increases one’s likelihood of dating the common romantic interest at future time points. In other words, adolescents may engage in negative relationships of dislike for instrumental purposes by strategically targeting peers to gain status rewards, such as coveted dating relationships.

Authors

• Cassie McMillan, Northeastern University

• Jiaao Yu, Northeastern University

• René Veenstra, University of Groningen