Young Adults Turn Crushes Into Love, UC Davis Study Suggests
First Study to Look at Early Relationships and How They Do and Do Not Develop
The image of young adults living in a hookup culture with emotionally meaningless relationships might be a common theme in movies and daytime talk shows. But it does not seem to be the norm in real college life, suggests a new study from University of California, Davis, researchers.
The study, published May 28, is the first of its kind to look at early relationship development — the time period in which people experience rising and falling romantic interest for partners who could, but often do not, become committed partners; in other words, “crushes.” Previous studies have examined committed relationships on one extreme, and first impressions on the opposite extreme.
To obtain their data, researchers surveyed 208 heterosexual college students at a Midwestern university about their dating habits, their various likes and dislikes, and attraction to potential partners over a seven-month period. Participants described an average of five crushes during this stretch of time and reported about 15% of them turning into dating relationships at some point. They collected a total of over 7,000 reports on these potential partners.
What took us by surprise is that many of the important factors were the same things you would have seen in a committed relationship.” — Paul Eastwick, UC Davis professor in the Department of Psychology and lead author of the study.
Read the rest of this article at UC Davis News.