Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: All of us grow up surrounded by close others that play important roles in fulfilling basic human needs of affiliation, companionship, support, and intimacy. Parents, for instance, nurture us and provide instrumental and emotional support when we are children. When we enter adolescence, our close friends become prime sources of affiliation and our most trusted interaction partners (Nickerson & Nagle, 2005). At some point in early adulthood, romantic partners take centre stage. In short, which close relationship fulfils what role changes remarkably across the first two decades of life. This project zooms in on close relationships during the transition from late adolescence to early adulthood (18-25) and examine whether 1) different relationships fulfil different needs at different ages, 2) relationship qualities are linked to the extent to which young people meet traditional developmental tasks or engage in a period of exploration (i.e., emerging adulthood) as indicated by factors including time spent in education, living with parents versus other residential forms, and being in a stable relationship, and 3) how patterns of relationship features are associated with social and behavioural outcomes at different ages and for different groups of young people.