TITLE:
A Comparison of Relationship Behaviors
AUTHORS:
Brian Eberly, Robert Pasnak, Keith Renshaw, Linda Chrosniak
KEYWORDS:
Friends; Parents; Romantic Partners; Relationships
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.4 No.11,
November
27,
2013
ABSTRACT:
Pro-relationship behaviors—commitment, accommodation,
sacrifice, and forgiveness—differ across relationships with parents, friends,
and romantic partners. In order to test the extent to which the type of relationship
plays a role in how willing a person is to accommodate, forgive, or sacrifice,
participants were administered a series of questionnaires. The associations of
these pro-relationship behaviors with commitment were compared across
relationships. Although the tendency to accommodate, sacrifice, and forgive in
one relationship was significantly correlated with the tendency to behave
similarly in other relationships, there were significant differences from one
relationship to another. For example, participants were significantly less
likely to sacrifice for a friend than for a parent or a romantic partner.
Conversely, participants were found to be significantly less accommodating for
a parent than they were for a friend or for a romantic partner. Also,
participants were significantly more likely to forgive friends than they were
to forgive a romantic partner. All relationship behaviors were significantly
correlated with commitment across all three relationship types, but the
strength of these correlations was not consistent. This inconsistency is
probably due to the differences in expectations that people have for different
relationships. The friendships of college students are usually temporary, as
friends graduate and move on, whereas relationships with parents last until
death. Although there were inconsistencies, there were many significant correlations
that showed that behavior in one relationship did predict behavior in other
relationships. Just as behavior towards one’s parents was related to behavior
towards one’s friends, it was also predictive of behavior towards romantic
partners. Whether this applies to adolescents from other cultures, and whether
it applies to non-university students, remains to be determined.