Examining subjective understanding of participants and trained coders in adolescent romantic couples' interactions

The purpose of this study was to examine the similarities and differences of adolescent romantic couple members' and trained coders' subjective understanding and to assess simultaneously their unique contributions to predicting relationship satisfaction and whether couples were dating a year later. Data were collected from 211 couples over two years (median age = 17 years of age; median week dating = 31.5 weeks). Couples and trained coders used Video-recall procedures, which included recording couples' conversations and ascertaining couple members' and trained coders' understanding of the conversations. Individual couples were followed up approximately 1 year after Time 1 data collection. Multilevel modeling was utilized in order to maximize the reliability of the models by addressing the non-independence of partner members' data. Findings indicate that both couple members', as well as trained coders' perceive interactions differently. In addition, couple members' and trained coders' perceptions of the interactions and not couple members' attitude about the relationship predicted couple members' relationship satisfaction at Time 2. Couple members who felt more connection or closeness during their interaction, regardless of perceived conflict, were more likely to be together a year later. Although not hypothesized, there appears to be consistent findings suggesting that adolescent romantic relationships may serve more of an individual developmental role in facilitating identity development rather than being about the development of dyadic intimacy. Future research needs to investigate this possibility further.