Spencer B. Olmstead

Hooking Up and Penetrative Hookups: Correlates that Differentiate College Men

One prominent pathway to sexual intimacy among college student populations is hooking up. Past research has largely compared men and women, with limited attention given to how men differ regarding involvement in hookups and their hookup behaviors. This study used a sample of 412 college men to examine the individual, social, relational, and family background correlates of (1) hooking up during a semester and (2) penetrative hookup encounters (e.g., oral sex, intercourse). Overall, 69% reported a hookup during the semester, with 73% of those who hooked up reporting penetrative hookups. Using logistic regression, men were more likely to hookup if they had an extraverted personality, were consuming more alcohol, and had previous hookup experience. They were less likely to hookup if they were more thoughtful about their relationship decisions and if they were in a stable, committed romantic relationship. Men also were more likely to engage in penetrative hookups only if they held more permissive attitudes towards sex and if they had previous penetrative hookup experience. Implications for intervention and research are discussed.

Helping Couples Work Toward the Forgiveness of Marital Infidelity: Therapists' Perspectives

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how therapists treat infidelity and work toward forgiveness with couples presenting with extramarital involvement. Ten licensed marital and family therapists were interviewed. Major categories, themes, and subthemes were generated from open, axial, and selective coding analyses. Participating therapists described treating marital infidelity and incorporating forgiveness sequentially. Infidelity treatment included assessing family of origin and relationship history, and discussing mutual acceptance of responsibility. When working toward forgiveness, therapists described: (a) assessing client understanding, (b) psychoeducation, (c) clarification, (d) client languaging, and (e) time. Implications for research and treatment are discussed.

Bipolar Disorder: Medication Adherence and Life Contentment

Using family stress theory, we examined the influence of family and health stress, level of coping, and internal health locus of control upon the life contentment of individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BPD) who were either adherent or nonadherent to their medication regimens. A survey-interview design was used with a sample of 100 individuals diagnosed with BPD; 50 participants were adherent to their medication and 50 were considered nonadherent. The results indicated that the adherent group had fewer health problems and more resources for coping with stress, possessed a stronger belief that their own behaviors controlled their health status, and had higher life contentment compared to nonadherent participants. For the participants in this study, internal health locus of control had the greatest total effect on life contentment followed by family coping. Implications included the need to comprehensively assess each individual regarding the multiple factors in ones life that influence an effective treatment regimen.

Hooking Up and Risk Behaviors Among First Semester College Men: What is the Role of Precollege Experience?

Some scholars assert that a hookup culture exists on college campuses and that individuals who attend college are socialized into a hookup script. This study examines hooking up among first-semester college men (N = 158), with specific attention to precollege heavy episodic drinking (i.e., binge drinking) and precollege hookup experience. We found that freshman men begin a pattern of hooking up well before attending college. After controlling for known correlates of hooking up, men had more hookup partners during their first semester at college if they engaged in greater levels of precollege binge drinking and had greater precollege hookup experience. Men were also more likely to have penetrative sex hookups (i.e., oral sex and/or intercourse) if they had done so prior to college. Precollege binge drinking and precollege hookup experience were also associated with unplanned sexual activity when drinking, and men were more likely to have unprotected sex when drinking during their first semester if they engaged in more frequent precollege binge drinking. Implications for intervention and future research are discussed.

Hooking up during the college years: is there a pattern?

Hook ups are sexual encounters that can include a variety of behaviours (e.g., kissing to intercourse) with no expectation of future contact or a committed relationship. Although hooking up is reported to be common on college campuses across the USA, little is known about whether the frequency of hooking up changes over the course of the college experience. Using cross-sectional data and the covariates alcohol use, gender and relationship status, we examined a synthetic cohort of undergraduate students (n = 1003) on rates of hooking up using (1) logistic regression and (2) an applied form of survival analysis. Whereas both analytic techniques produced similar results, survival analysis provided a more complete picture by showing an increase in the rate of hooking up that peaked between spring semester of the first year of college and autumn semester of the second year of college, followed by a gradual decline in hook up rates over subsequent semesters. Findings indicate that gender is significantly related to hooking up in the logistic regression analysis, with women reporting fewer hook ups; however, gender was not significantly related to hooking up in the survival analysis, indicating that there are no differences in the pattern across cohorts. Implications for promoting the sexual health of college students and future research are discussed.

Implementing Relationship Education for Emerging Adult College Students: Insights from the Field

With federal and state Healthy Marriage Initiatives, greater attention is on education aimed at helping couples form and maintain healthy relationships. Emerging adults attending college are one population of focus for these efforts. Here we briefly describe a relationship education intervention for this population and provide participant feedback from a recent year of the project. Overall findings were that participants perceived the program and the facilitators positively. When asked what was helpful, they identified curriculum delivery (e.g., use of movie clips) and the teaching of skills among other things. Their assessment of the intervention differed by facilitators gender and years of experience. Implications for relationship education for emerging adults and college instructors are discussed.

Willingness to Engage in Consensual Nonmonogamy Among Emerging Adults: A Structural Equation Analysis of Sexual Identity, Casual Sex Attitudes, and Gender

Research on consensual nonmonogamy (CNM) has increased over the past decade. However, willingness to engage in CNM is an understudied phenomenon within this body of literature. Little research has examined the correlates of this aspect of CNM or focused on individuals in the developmental period of emerging adulthood. This study used multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) to test a conceptual model of emerging adults’ (ages 18 to 29; N = 890) willingness to engage in CNM. Results indicated that emerging adult experimentation/possibilities, sexual identity exploration, and permissive attitudes toward casual sex were all related to willingness to engage in CNM. Results also showed that the pathway from emerging adult experimentation/possibilities to willingness to engage in CNM was differentially mediated across gender. Specifically, for women there was an indirect (and positive) pathway from experimentation/possibilities to willingness to engage in CNM through sexual identity exploration. For men there was an indirect (and positive) pathway from experimentation/possibilities to willingness to engage in CNM through permissive attitudes toward casual sex. Implications for future studies on CNM among emerging adults are discussed.

Breaking Up in Emerging Adulthood A Developmental Perspective of Relationship Dissolution

Using a unique sample of individuals who have and have not attended college, the present mixed-methods study examined narratives of 113 (47% women) emerging adults’ motivations for initiating breakups with romantic partners. Findings indicated that emerging adults’ motivations for ending their romantic relationships were largely due to their relationships and/or their romantic partners not fulfilling their needs for interdependence. Additionally, unmet intimacy, identity, and autonomy needs were the most frequently reported reasons for relationship termination, indicating that emerging adults consider both their need to be close with others and their need to follow their own paths for their careers and desires for family formation. This study also demonstrated links between perceptions of developmental tasks in emerging adulthood and motivations for ending romantic relationships. Those who end romantic relationships due to unfulfilled intimacy needs tend to be more relationally focused, and those who end romantic relationships due to unfulfilled autonomy or identity needs tend to view emerging adulthood as a time of experimentation/possibilities, feeling “in between,” and negativity/instability. Implications for the role of relationship dissolution in emerging adult development are discussed.

In the Child’s Best Interest: Terminating the Rights of Fathers With Children in Foster Care

The authors conducted a content analysis of appellate court foster care cases in which fathers appealed the termination of their parental rights. Applying the Responsible Fathering framework to organize the contextual issues that impede men from responsibly fathering, the authors sought to learn what factors affect decisions regarding the termination of their parental rights. Multiple risk factors emerged including lack of social support, financial resources, and opportunities. Implications for practitioners include attending to father’s mental health, alcohol and/or substance abuse, issues surrounding incarceration, and the coparental relationship.

College Adjustment, Relationship Satisfaction, and Conflict Management A Cross-Lag Assessment of Developmental “Spillover”

Emerging adulthood is a period in the life course that consists of several developmental tasks, including occupational and relationship exploration. Consistent with the developmental tasks of this period, we tested a model of individual development. Using a sample of emerging adults in romantic relationships (N = 267), we examined the longitudinal association between conflict management and relationship satisfaction and subsequent college adjustment using two cross-lag path analyses. In the first path analyses, results indicated conflict management and social adjustment are mutually influential over time. In this second path analyses, conflict management is related to academic adjustment through relationship satisfaction. Implications for romantic relationship education for emerging adults and future research are discussed.