Expansion of Childhood Relationship Study to Young Adult Romantic Relationships
Condition: Healthy
Study type: Observational

Summary: 
      Background:

      - An earlier study on child development focused on the relationship between children and
      their caregivers (usually mothers). It looked at how this relationship influenced children's
      social and mental development. It also studied how these children related with family members
      and friends. Researchers are now interested in expanding the study with the same group of
      children. They want to look at these children, who are now young adults, and focus on their
      current romantic relationships. This new study will look at how child development affects the
      formation of stable, mature romantic relationships in young adulthood. Original child study
      participants and their significant others will be included in the new study. Only
      participants who are living together with a partner will be studied.

      Objectives:

      - To look at romantic partnerships in a childhood study s original participants and their
      significant others.

      Eligibility:

        -  Participants of the 88-CH-32 study who are at least 18 years of age.

        -  Significant others of the study participants who are at least 18 years of age.

        -  Original participants and significant others must be cohabiting (living together).

      Design:

        -  No screening tests will be required for this study. No study visits will be needed.
           Samples will not be collected.

        -  Original study participants will fill out four online questionnaires. They will be on a
           National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD) website. They will ask
           personal questions about relationships with the current romantic partner and other
           important people. The questions will take about 25 minutes to answer.

        -  Significant others will fill out 13 online questionnaires. They will be on a NICHHD
           website. They will ask personal questions about the romantic partner and other important
           people. The questions will take about 1.5 hours to answer.

        -  All participants will receive a small amount of money for completing the study.
    

Detailed description: 
      The purpose of this study is to expand our ongoing longitudinal study (study 88-CH-32) by
      gathering information about romantic partnerships from both the longitudinal study s now
      young adult target children, who were 5 months old when the study began and are now as old as
      23 years of age, and their significant others. Because the target children are approaching
      the age when they form lasting romantic relationships, we wish to track these partnerships as
      they form. With these data, we will be uniquely suited to identify how key individual and
      inter-personal factors at distinct points of development (i.e., childhood, adolescence, and
      young adulthood) influence the formation of stable, emotionally intimate, mutually dependent
      romantic relationships during young adulthood. In particular, we aim to disentangle the
      influence of childhood and adolescent interpersonal experiences in other relational spheres
      (i.e., relationships with parents and friends) from the influence of contemporary
      characteristics of both members of the romantic dyad. As part of our examination, in addition
      to relationship quality, we focus on the strength of each dyad member s attachment to his or
      her parents as well as each other, thereby allowing for the examination of attachment
      transfer, an important yet understudied characteristic of successful romantic relationship
      formation.

      Only cohabiting (whether married or otherwise) young-adult romantic dyads that include a
      target child from our existing longitudinal study (dyad N equals 250; 500 young adults
      overall, all volunteers) will be eligible to participate in this new data collection. By
      limiting eligibility in this way, we will have data extending back to infancy for one member
      of each young-adult romantic dyad. All data collected will be collected via a secure,
      password-protected website.

      As part of our on-going longitudinal study, we already collected (or will collect) individual
      information from the young adult target children (mental health, attachment style, attachment
      strength, personality, substance use). We propose here to collect complementary individual
      information from the significant others of young adult target children as well as dyad-level
      information (relationship satisfaction and household functioning) from both members of the
      cohabiting romantic dyad. Combined with existing data from our longitudinal study, these new
      data will enable us to move beyond most current research focused on the developmental
      antecedents of successful young adult romantic relationships and examine how an individual s
      past interpersonal experiences interplay with the contemporary characteristics of both
      young-adult romantic dyad members to influence the state of the romantic dyad.
    

Observational model: Cohort
Time perspective: Prospective
Sampling method: Non-Probability Sample
Study population: 
        Original child (now adult) study participants from protocol 88-CH-0032 and their
        significant others will be included in the new study. Only participants who are living
        together with a partner will be studied.
      
Keywords: Longitudinal Study; Natural History