This final report presents a project that had the purpose of establishing a better understanding of how the relational context of positive feelings and behaviors intermingle with teen dating violence events within romantic relationships; it describes the research methodology, data collection and analysis, expected applicability of the research, project outcomes; and provides a list of artifacts.
The project reported here was based on objectives that are essential to advancing knowledge in the field of teen dating violence (TDV) and improving intervention development that has been hindered by a failure to recognize that violence occurs alongside positive relationship qualities. The three main project objectives were: to determine levels of emotional connectedness and TDV, with components including love, communication, dyadic trust, intimate self-disclosure, commitment, and enmeshment; to determine associations between pro-relationship behaviors and TDV, including fun with partner, playing, and giving/receiving presents; and to determine cycles of rupture and repair and TDV, examining the reciprocal effects of emotional connectedness, pro-relationship behaviors, jealousy, and TDV within and between individual relationships over time. The report lays out the research design, methods, analytical, and data analysis techniques, and results and findings. Key findings related to daily associations with violence include: the largest associations between measures of emotional context and pro-relationship behaviors and TDV occurred on the same day as the violence; previous-day measures associated with TDV include emotional safety, communication, having sex, and jealousy; and TDV events were associated with next-day communication (signaling and receiving) feeling loved as well as jealousy.