Courtship and Dating
INTIMACY
PSY3105C
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Attraction
Casual Dating
Steady Dating
Exclusive relationship
Formal commitment to permanent
relationship
• Reproduction
Issues in Adol Romantic
Relationships
Functions of Dating
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Recreation
Source of status and achievement
Part of the socialization process in adol
Learning about intimacy
Context for sexual experimentation/explore
Contributes to identity formation
Means of mate sorting and selection
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Degree of commitment to the relationship;
The relationship “ground rules”;
Confidentiality of self-disclosure;
Expectations about the relationship;
Concerns about being hurt emotionally;
Discussing limits of each partner’s
responsibility.
Study by Rosenthal and Peart
(1996)
Rosenthal cont’d
• Examined the rules that young people
follow during a sexual encounter.
• Interested in how teens communicate that
they would like to have sex and how they
proceed to encourage or discourage a sexual
encounter
• For example, how does one bring up the
topic of condom use?
• A sample of working class 15-17 year olds
repsonded to questionnaire items
concerning social rules for giving messages
indicating whether they wanted to have sex,
strategies for encouraging/avoiding sex, and
the acceptability and usefulness of these
strategies.
• Strategies included stating rules about intent
Rosenthal cont’d
Rosenthal cont’d
• at the beginning of the encounter (I don’t
want to), making up excuses, leaving the
situation, giving nonverbal cues, and joking
your way out of it.
• Results indicated avoiding unwanted sex
was difficult.
• The rules for getting sex appear to be more
clear-cut.
• Most favourable strategies for avoiding sex
were those that were indirect