RESUMEN
There has been a longstanding debate about what constitutes hooking up. To date, little research has analyzed how hookups are being defined such that the field can foster consistency across definitions. To inform this debate, we conducted a content analysis of 122 empirical articles across disciplines (e.g., human sexuality, public health) from 2000 to 2019 by systematically coding conceptual definitions of hooking up contained in the articles using five commonly discussed dimensions of hooking up (behaviors, nature of partner relationship, span of hookup interaction, frequency of hookup behavior, and level of romantic commitment expectation). Unspecified sexual intercourse (52.5%) was the most frequently identified behavior in definitions. The majority of hookup definitions did not mention the nature of partner relationship (e.g., acquaintance, friend), the duration of the hookup interaction, or the frequency of hookup behavior. Additionally, most conceptual definitions (82.0%) mentioned that the relationship was uncommitted, but only half discussed the level of romantic commitment expectations. Overall, most conceptual definitions relied on behaviors rather than all five dimensions, resulting in broad and non-descript definitions of hookups. We suggest that future hookup definitions explicitly reference behaviors, nature of partner relationship, span of hookup interaction, frequency of hookup behavior, and level of romantic commitment expectation to provide clarity, comparability, and validity across future research.
Asunto(s)
Coito , Conducta Sexual , Amigos , Humanos , Parejas Sexuales , Sexualidad , UniversidadesRESUMEN
Stepfamily relationships remain important over the life course to both children and parents. Unfortunately, limitations in availability of longitudinal data that include useful measures of stepfamily relations remain, thereby scholars must rely mostly on cross-sectional examinations. As a way to more rigorously test some of the mixed cross-sectional findings related to the links among stepcouple stability and parent-adult child relationships (closeness, involvement) for three parent-child subsystems (mother-child, father-child, stepparent-child), we used an alternative modeling strategy to test three plausible models. Multiple group analyses also were used to compare associations for stepmother and stepfather families. Stepfamilies (N = 330) from the National Survey of Families and Households with data from both adult children and primary respondents (resident parent or stepparent) were included. All three models fit the data. The best-fitting model suggests the most probable order of association is that parental involvement is associated with parent-child closeness which, in turn, is associated with stepcouple stability. Results also suggest that multiple parent-child relationships and stepcouple relationship stability are generally positively linked for both stepmother and stepfather households, although some differences emerged. Taken together, findings underscore the influence of cross-household stepfamily relationships even when children are adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).