Abstract
Prior research suggests that peers are important to adolescent dating experiences. However, questions remain about the role peers play in adolescent relationships, including dating violence. To fill this gap, eight sex-specific focus groups were conducted with 39 high school–aged teens, all of whom had experienced prior relationship problems. Participants described how peers helped them initiate dating relationships, but once in the relationship, peers would spread rumors and create dramas that led to jealousy, discord, and violence between the couple. Prevention programs should focus on cultivating peers as helpful bystanders and counteracting peer actions that lead to dating violence.
Dating serves as an important developmental milestone in adolescence (Brown, Feiring, & Furman, 1999; Chen et al., 2009; Collins, 2003; Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009; Kuttler & La Greca, 2004; Shulman & Seiffge-Krenke, 2001; Zimmer-Gembeck, 2002). The majority of youth are interested in dating, and the prevalence of youth who are dating increases throughout early, middle, and late adolescence (Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Metzger, 2006). In one study, 25% of adolescents had a first date before 13 years of age and 100% reported having had their first date by 18 years (Zimmer-Gembeck, 2002). Furthermore, by middle adolescence (14-17 years old), most youth have been involved in at least one romantic relationship (Carver, Joyner, & Udry, 2003). Healthy dating relationships provide teens with multiple positive outcomes, including a sense of belonging among peers, social status, enhanced feelings of self-worth, a positive identity, and opportunities to gain resolution skills and inner strength (Brown et al., 1999; Chen et al., 2009; Furman & Shaffer, 2003; Kuttler & La Greca, 2004).
However, adolescent dating experiences are not always healthy and can include incidents of violence. Adolescent dating violence (ADV) consists of physical, sexual, and/or emotional violence, including monitoring and controlling behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014; Mulford & Giordano, 2008). Although prevalence rates of ADV vary across studies, there is a general consensus that dating violence is a significant public health problem for adolescents. Rates of physical violence range between 10-20%, with rates of emotional violence, and monitoring and controlling behaviors much higher (Ackard, Neumark-Sztainer, & Hannan, 2003; Baker & Helm, 2011; Foshee, Reyes, & Wyckoff, 2009; Halpern, Oslak, Young, Martin, & Kupper, 2001; Halpern, Young, Waller, Martin, & Kupper, 2004; Jouriles, McDonald, Garrido, Roselfield, & Brown, 2005; Marquart, Nannini, Edwards, Stanley, & Wayman, 2007; Olshen, McVeigh, Wunsch-Hitzig, & Rickert, 2007; Sears, Byers, & Price, 2007). Of note, among adolescents who reported violence in a dating relationship, a majority reported that the violence was reciprocal (O’Leary, Slep, Avery-Leaf, & Cascardi, 2008; Swahn, Alemdar, & Whitaker, 2010). Consequences of ADV include depression, suicide ideation and attempts, posttraumatic stress, eating disorders, and risky sexual behaviors (Ackard & Neumark-Sztainer, 2002; Banyard & Cross, 2008; Belshaw, Siddique, Tanner, & Osho, 2012; Silverman, Raj, Mucci, & Hathaway, 2001; Swahn, Ali, et al., 2010).
Given the prevalence and consequences of ADV, it is important to focus our efforts on prevention (Close, 2005; O’Leary & Slep, 2012). However, few ADV prevention programs have been shown to be effective (see Foshee et al., 1998; Wolfe et al., 2009; Wolfe et al., 2003, for exceptions). Additional programs are needed that represent the dynamic and complex issues teens face. When developing such a program, it is helpful to understand the factors that have been shown to be associated with ADV. The literature includes examples of individual-level risk factors, including mental health issues and substance use, that have been associated with ADV (Howard & Wang, 2003a, 2003b; Rothman, McNaughton Reyes, Johnson, & LaValley, 2012; Zaha, Helm, Baker, & Hayes, 2013). In addition to individual-level factors, it is important to consider factors related to the adolescent’s social ecology. One such factor is the role of peers in adolescent dating experiences.
Although relationship behaviors may be learned from parents, there is an increasing influence of peers during adolescence (Connolly & Goldberg, 1999; Fergusson, Swain-Campbell, & Horwood, 2002; Miller-Johnson & Costanzo, 2004). Peers may serve as models for adolescents as they learn about dating and how to act in dating relationships. Connolly, Furman, and Konarski (2000) reported on the importance of peer groups in the initiation of romantic relationships. During this developmental period, adolescents begin to socialize in mixed-gender groups, thus increasing the possibility of a romantic relationship. In these groups, adolescents observe their peers, including their cross-gender interactions, and receive advice and information from their peers about dating behaviors and norms (Connolly et al., 2000; Furman, Simon, Shaffer, & Bouchey, 2002).
In some cases, however, modeling their own behaviors after peers may be detrimental to adolescents who are seeking to establish healthy relationships. Prior research has shown that adolescents who associated with peers who approved of or used aggression in dating relationships were more likely to engage in similar behaviors than adolescents whose peers disapproved of such aggressive behaviors (Arriaga & Foshee, 2004). In fact, adolescents may engage in these behaviors to gain the approval of their peers. In addition, peers may influence adolescent experiences of dating violence victimization as well as perpetration. Researchers have found that adolescents with friends who had been victims of dating violence were more likely to report being victimized themselves (Arriaga & Foshee, 2004; Foshee, Benefield, Ennett, Bauman, & Suchindran, 2004).
From the current body of research, there is unequivocal evidence that peer involvement is associated with the establishment of dating relationships as well as with relationship quality, including experiences of discord and violence (e.g., Arriaga & Foshee, 2004; Connolly et al., 2000). However, there is still a question of how peers affect the dating relationships of other teens. Preliminary research into this question has offered some answers. In one study, teens were asked to provide written descriptions of a youth conflict, including whether anyone else was involved in the conflict. Within the broader set of conflicts provided by youth, researchers focused on those related to dating, with results showing that peers were directly involved in the dating relationships of others. In particular, youth narratives described peers stealing or flirting with one of the partners (Adelman & Kil, 2007). However, given the method (asking teens to write down their responses and analyzing them afterward), there was no opportunity to follow-up on what teens had written. By contrast, other research has shown that peers can have a positive role in dating relationships by providing emotional support to the partner who has been victimized (Weisz, Tolman, Callahan, Saunders, & Black, 2007). Additional details of this support, however, are lacking as data from the study were from quantitative surveys with teens.
A recent qualitative study extended these earlier findings by exploring the ways in which peers were involved in the dating violence of other adolescent couples. The study included interviews with 88 young adults about their experiences of dating violence when they were teens. Results showed that male and female peers were distinctly involved in the violence. Male peers not only participated directly in the aggression but also were indirectly involved by agitating the aggression between the couple, being the competition, and keeping tabs on one of the partners. By contrast, female peers were involved in a couple’s dating violence by cheating with the boyfriend, antagonizing the male dating partner, and deserting the recipient of the violence (Stephenson, Martsolf, & Draucker, 2012). Although helpful in increasing our understanding of peer involvement in adolescent relationships, participants in this study were older (18-21 years), and provided retrospective accounts of their experiences when they were in middle and high school.
With this limitation in mind, a focus group study that was conducted with younger adolescents (14-17 years) is beneficial to consider. According to participants, peers contributed to dating violence by spreading rumors about one partner cheating on the other; in fact, results suggested a reciprocal relationship between dating violence and peer violence, such that, in some cases, one partner would instigate a fight with a peer suspected of cheating with the other partner (Helm, Baker, & Iskandar, 2013). A limitation of this research is that it was conducted with a sample of teens that did not necessarily have direct experiences with dating or dating violence.
The Present Study
Peer norms surrounding adolescent dating are particularly influential. As such, prior research suggests that peers are an important part of a couple’s dating experience. Moving forward, the field would benefit from research that adds to our contextual understanding of how peers influence adolescent dating as well as dating violence. Although some studies begin to address this gap in the literature, additional research with younger adolescents for whom dating violence is a salient issue is needed to build on these preliminary findings. For example, it would be helpful to further clarify whether peers are involved as teens initiate a dating relationship, as well as their role during the couple’s relationship and in the dissolution of the relationship. In particular, a better understanding of whether their role is a function of direct action or indirect involvement, and whether it is positive or negative, is needed.
To answer these questions, findings are presented from a series of focus groups with high school–aged teens recruited from community-based organizations and court-ordered group homes, all of whom had experienced problems in a prior dating relationship. In these groups, teens talked openly about peers in the context of their dating experiences. They also described how peers contributed to discord and violence between them and their partner. With these findings, prevention programs are needed that focus on cultivating peers as helpful bystanders and counteracting peer actions that may exacerbate dating violence.
Method
Recruitment Strategy
Prior to initiating participant recruitment, the project received approval from the University of Hawai’i Committee on Human Studies. The author had previously conducted ADV workshops with service providers from community-based organizations across the State of Hawai’i. The author chose to utilize these relationships in the recruitment of teens for the current study. Providers who attended the workshop were given a description of the project, timeline, participant eligibility criteria, and assent/consent forms. Providers unable to assist with participant recruitment suggested other organizations and points of contact who could serve as liaisons for the project.
Providers and other community liaisons introduced the project to teens in their programs. Youth who met the following eligibility criteria were invited to participate: (a) high school age, 14-19 years, though they did not need to be enrolled in public school; (b) had prior dating relationships in the past year they characterized as having been problematic, though not necessarily abusive; and (c) were not currently in a relationship involving abuse or dating violence.
Participants
Participants were recruited on a voluntary basis from a range of community-based organizations, including a peer mentoring program (n = 4), an alcohol support program (n = 6), a youth career center (n = 5), and court-ordered temporary group homes for boys and girls (n = 24). Eight sex-specific focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 39 participants: four focus groups with boys (n = 21, 54%) and four focus groups with girls (n = 18, 46%). Focus group participant numbers ranged between three and eight, with an average of four per group. Youth under the age of 18 (14-17 years, n = 31; 17 boys and 14 girls) obtained parental consent and completed an assent form on the day of the focus group. Participants 18 years of age (n = 8; 4 boys and 4 girls; there were no participants who were older than 18 years) completed a consent form on the day of the focus group. Given the complexity of race and ethnicity in Hawai’i, youth were not asked to report their race and/or ethnicity. Rather, all participants are identified as “local.” 1 Participants were given a US$10.00 gift card for their participation.
Data Collection Procedure
Experienced interviewers facilitated the focus groups, with assistance from a note taker. A male facilitator, assisted by a male note taker, conducted the focus groups with boys while a female facilitator, assisted by a female note taker, conducted the girls’ groups. Each focus group was voice recorded and pseudonyms were used to maintain participant confidentiality. The focus group guide included the following topics: (a) how relationships begin, progress, and end; (b) the use of social electronic media in dating and dating problems; (c) the role of substance use in dating relationships; and (d) the role of peers in relationship development and dating problems.
Data Management and Analysis
More than 500 min of audio were transcribed verbatim, with an average focus group time of 63 min. This resulted in 388 pages of transcripts (ranging from 24-63 pages, averaging 43 pages per transcript). With these transcripts, the research team began the process of analysis. We used a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, NVivo, to ensure a systematic approach to data management and analysis, while also allowing for the emergent nature of the analysis to occur (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014). As a first step, transcripts were read several times by the author and members of the research team and coded using a priori categories that matched the interview questions. For the current article, we focused on the different themes surrounding peers, dating, and dating violence.
Next, we used grounded theory and included open, axial, and selective coding procedures to determine whether there were patterns to teen’s discussions of peer involvement (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Ponterotto, 2010). During open coding, we found that teens discussed the role of their peers at different stages of the relationship (e.g., peers often helped them “get in” a relationship), as well as how peers created problems during the relationship. These patterns were then elucidated further through axial and selective coding, which sought to clarify the participants’ statements of how peers were associated with dating and dating violence. Building on the initial codebook to capture the details of these patterns, we added specific codes related to the role of peers during different stages of the relationship, from the beginning of (“initiating”), during (“jealousy” and “isolation”), and at the end of (“actively causing problems” and “positive support”) the relationship. Gender differences in how teens described peer involvement in their relationships were also highlighted when applicable.
Finally, each transcript was coded using the revised codebook and added to the digital database (NVivo, Version 10). The categories were not mutually exclusive, meaning that data could be coded within multiple categories, as appropriate to the content of the narrative. Narrative segments that were not identically coded by research team members (final coding was conducted by two coders independently and checked by the author) were discussed until consensus was reached.
Results
Before turning to the role of peers, it is helpful to establish how teens defined dating as well as the general context of teens’ relationships. Teens distinguished between dating and being in a relationship. Participants described how dating simply meant hanging out with someone but there was no expectation of exclusivity. By contrast, being in a relationship was more serious and meant that the partners were not seeing anyone else. This definition becomes important for understanding the context of teens’ relationships, which were filled with anxiety, distrust, discord, and violence. Although expected by the facilitators, given that one of the eligibility criteria for participation in the study was to have been in a past relationship that was deemed problematic, the extent and repeated nature (across multiple partners) of relationship problems was somewhat surprising, especially for some of the younger participants.
With their emphasis on exclusivity as an important marker of being in a relationship, boys and girls talked extensively about cheating and trying to keep track of their partners (or their partners keeping track of them) to ensure that they were not cheating. Teens also described constant arguments and verbal abuse. In fact, monitoring and controlling behaviors, along with verbal abuse, were the most often endorsed types of violence. Although instances of physical violence were reported less often, participants did describe occasions when they were victims or perpetrators of physical violence. Most often, these instances involved one partner slapping or hitting the other (although in several cases the physical violence was reciprocal). Within this context, participants described the role of peers in their dating relationships. Specifically, peers seemed to play a role at each stage of the relationship (i.e., getting in, during, and breaking up).
Initiating a Relationship
Often, peers were involved in teens’ dating relationships from the very beginning. Participants described how their relationships were often a result of a friend’s direct intervention. In one of the boys’ groups, boys relayed how friends encouraged them to talk with a particular girl they were interested in.
I think that’s how most things start. Like, when it comes through friends. Most of my relationships are through friends. “Like oh, dude, who is that? Dude, that’s so-and-so. You should go talk to her. She’s super cool.” And, then it just goes on and it becomes a relationship. (Frank)
Similarly, girls described how their friends would tell them to “give it a try.” When a boy asked one of the girls out in front of all of her friends, she did not want to say no.
’Cause they told me to give it a try, everyone. So, I was like, OK. (Quinn)
In other cases, participants met their partners in sustained group settings (e.g., groups of friends). In these settings, again, friends played a direct role by introducing one partner to the other. And then it was the group setting that allowed the friendship to grow into a relationship. In these situations, friends and peers also played an indirect role by asking repeatedly about a couple’s relationship status: So, me and Mark met in high school. I guess ’cause we had mutual friends. . . .We just started hanging out more. And, then a lot of people around school, and our friends, would always ask, “Oh, are you guys’ going out?” And, we were like “No, we’re just friends.” Then, of course, when people start asking you that question more and more, you begin to think about it. And, like a couple of weeks later he actually asked me out . . . then he asked me to be his girlfriend, and that’s when we became official. (Hope)
Similarly, a girl in another focus group described how she ended up dating one of the guys from her group of friends.
Well, me and him wouldn’t have gone out if it wasn’t for my friends actually. I didn’t know him personally to like try to talk to him. So, like my friends, they brought us closer because he started hanging out with my friends. So, they introduced me to him and then we just got along, and since I was friends with his friends and he was friends with my friends, we all just like had a big group and we all got close to each other. (Megan)
When asked by the facilitator whether she and her boyfriend went out alone or only with the bigger group, Megan replied, “It was with groups but there were points where me and him were alone too.” Several girls across focus groups described how this is standard; the couple would mostly get together as part of the group of friends, even after they had established themselves as a couple. But, for some, the togetherness of their partner and friends eventually led to problems in the relationship.
During the Relationship
Although peers seemed to play a positive role at the outset by helping their friends initiate a relationship, once the relationship was established, there was a shift in the role of peers from positive to negative. Importantly, though negative, peers did not necessarily play a direct role in causing problems between the couple. Rather, problems resulted indirectly from one partner continuing to interact with friends (both same-sex and opposite-sex friends) while also trying to maintain his/her new relationship. That is, these friends did not do anything to cause trouble in the relationship; rather, participants described that one partner would become jealous of the other partner’s friends, which would lead to fights between the dating couple. There were also instances when the jealous partner would try to isolate the other from continued interactions with peers.
Jealousy
Jealousy occurred regardless of whether the partner interacted with opposite-sex or same-sex friends. For opposite-sex friends, one girls’ group discussed how it was unacceptable for their boyfriends to have female friends.
No, you are not going to have a girl . . . friends that are girls.
I mean it’s understandable if it’s their cousins, yeah? But, that’s your boyfriend.
We’re young. You can’t be having friends that are girls.
Most of the girls in this group admitted that their feelings came from insecurity. According to one girl, “I’m insecure because when I see him talking to a prettier girl . . . or like even if they walk past me and my boyfriend is next to me, I feel insecure.” Others in the group agree and join in.
Feel shitty, yeah?
I feel crappy, like you know, how come I can’t look like them?
I start to feel territorial.
Yeah, stay away. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours. And, this ain’t going to be yours.
The girls also did not understand why boyfriends would feed into this insecurity by having pictures of other girls on their phone or talking to other girls on Facebook. “Like don’t give a girl a reason to compare ourselves to another girl, and bring down her self-esteem.” These actions inevitably led to fights between the couple.
Boys also were not comfortable when their girlfriends had male friends.
Yeah, friends can, I don’t want to say ruin it, but affect the relationship ’cause like there was this girl that I like and her best friend was a guy so it was kind of weird.
They obviously know more than you so it’s like competition.
Because of this jealousy, boys in our sample responded by monitoring their partner’s actions. Interestingly, across the girls’ groups, girls mentioned similar actions by their own boyfriends. Their boyfriends checked their phones and Facebook accounts regularly. Regarding her phone, one girl said, “All he would do was just look through it real quick and then give it back.” Of note, this girl did not consider these actions a problem. She said, “Well, since I was so protective of other girls, I guess, he would feel the same about guys.”
But, it was not just opposite-sex friends that boys and girls did not like. One girl stated that she had a problem with her boyfriend going to the gym and working out with his male friends instead of seeing her. “Who puts your friends first? I come first!” Similarly, another girls’ group described their frustrations about boyfriends spending too much time with their male friends, and why this was a problem for them. According to one girl, “He would go out. He’ll be with his friends—and I know how his friends are. His friends are sluts, so I’m not dumb. Like I know how it is.” Thus, girls were most worried that their boyfriends would go out with friends and meet other girls.
Boys also reported frustration when girls wanted to spend time with their girlfriends instead of them. One boy described a scenario: “You wanna go like camping with your girlfriend, and then she goes to like the beach with her friends instead.” Similar to girls, boys were worried about what their girlfriends were doing when they were with their friends. Again, conversations from one girls’ group seemed to corroborate this level of distrust, as girls described feeling like they could not have any friends, not only male friends, but also female friends. In another group, several girls described similar situations of how their boyfriends would want to stay near them to make sure they were not doing “something bad.”
’Cause like my boyfriend if I’m with Jessica [another girl in the focus group] and he’s like “oh, what you guys doing?” And, he just gets all like sketched about it. And, then he’ll be like “oh, are there boys there? Like what’s going on? There’s something going on.” (Madeline)
Isolation
Attempts by one partner to monitor the other partner’s interactions often caused friction between the couple. In some cases, feelings of jealousy went further than just monitoring, and resulted in one partner trying to isolate the other by restricting his or her access to friends. These attempts to isolate led to arguments, and at times, physical violence in the relationship.
In analyzing the data, isolation is one category where we found gender differences in boys’ and girls’ accounts of their experiences. Girls described how their boyfriends made them delete their Facebook accounts and told them that they could not talk to other boys. One girl discussed how she was still friends with her ex-boyfriend, and her partner did not like it.
And, he saw that were we were friends and that we were still talking. Then, he started going, “Why are you still friends with him? Why are you still talking to him? You guys are over. You shouldn’t be doing that.” And, he actually asked for my password and username, logged in, and de-friended him. So, my ex was like, “Oh, what’s going on? Did I do something wrong?” And, I was like, “No, it’s not that.” And, I couldn’t tell him because . . . you know. Yeah, so it was a really irritating issue. (Adele)
Boyfriends also forbade them to go out with their same-sex friends. In fact, girls described how they began “losing friends” because of their partner’s attempts to isolate them.
By contrast, boys’ discussions did not center on how their girlfriends tried to isolate them. Rather, boys described their own attempts to isolate their girlfriends. They admitted that, in general, couples who shared their passwords with each other are destined for trouble, with the result likely being “more dramas” in the relationship. When asked by the facilitator who is more likely to demand the other’s password, one boy replied unequivocally, “You see it more often with the guy trying to control the girl because the fact that every guy wants a girl, and there is a billion guys that want one girl.” Boys in the group agreed and explained that they are in competition over a girl and so when you have a girl, “she’s yours.” And, boys wanted to keep it that way. At the same time, boys knew that “holding on too tight” caused problems in their relationships. They admitted to being “scared because you don’t want to lose her.”
That’s why you don’t know which way to go. You wanna hold them. Keep them away from people. But, then you don’t want to hold them, because like it [is] pretty much going [to] end the relationship. (Thomas)
Ending the Relationship
In addition to causing problems in the couple’s relationships indirectly simply by continuing their friendship with one of the partners, there were also instances when peers played a direct role in relationship discord. In these cases, their actions were purposeful, with the goal of causing problems in the relationship that would eventually lead to one partner breaking up with the other. In other cases, friends were actually a source of support as relationships began to disintegrate; however, there were gender differences in how this support was received by teens.
Actively causing problems
Related to this direct, and negative, role of trying to break up the relationship, participants described two types of experiences: the participant’s own friends causing problems and the partner’s friends causing problems. First, there were issues with their own friends trying to steal their dating partners or “create drama” in the relationship. Because of these experiences, one of the girls’ groups discussed their uncertainty about whether they could trust their friends.
’Cause, they going to be like putting their two cents into everything you say.
You don’t know if they telling the truth.
[Agrees]. Yeah, and you don’t know if they’re actually trying to break you [up] or they’re out to get you. Like, you know, you guys know what kind of friends that is, right?
Yeah.
I had friends that tried to have sex with my boyfriend.
Within another group, girls also described how Facebook led to friends (and other peers) causing problems in the relationship.
The second you change your relationship status from “single” to “relationship” everyone is like “are you kidding me?”
We need to like mess it up.
Yeah, everyone just freaks out about it.
When the facilitator asked why their friends and other peers try to cause problems, one girl stated simply, “Because they like the drama.” All girls in the group agreed. The girls also agreed that, “Once you fall in love with a boy . . . you can’t let anybody in your guy’s circle.” They referred to the relationship as their “bubble” and that in order for the relationship to work, they could not allow anyone into the bubble because they could not trust other girls (many of whom were their friends). In fact, they described how other girls would “want to play with them [the couple], like a toy” to see if they could break up the relationship.
Boys reported similar experiences with friends causing problems, though boys did seem to have more trust in their friends than many of the girls in our sample. Even so, they acknowledged that friends might not always have their best interests in mind. When asked about this discrepancy (i.e., trusting but also doubting their friends), boys described a scenario where a boy’s friends might purposefully misrepresent information about a girl he is dating.
Well, sometimes they’re not always right though.
Straight up.
’Cause, most of the time they are not right.
Like you don’t know if they’re lying.
Like they’re jealous.
Maybe they like that girl, too.
Even in this situation boys wanted to give their friends the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that friends may give wrong advice, but that it was not on purpose.
’Cause, someone could be telling your friends rumors, like saying bad things she did, but she never do that.
So, your friends could think that they’re right and that they’re helping you out but their information could also . . .
Be wrong.
The second set of experiences reported by participants was related to their partner’s friends. Specifically, when boys were asked about their “girlfriend’s friends” one boy replied, “When it comes to that, they can either be your best ally or your worst enemy” because “they can talk shit about you.”
There were similar discussions in the girls’ groups about their boyfriend’s friends. One girl shared the problems she had with her boyfriend as a result of his friends becoming involved in the relationship.
Since they [her boyfriend’s friends] don’t know me, they would judge me based on like people I’d hang out with. He went on a trip one time and all his other friends told him that I went out with other guys and was flirting with them, but they didn’t know that I was only with my girlfriends. So, that made like a huge fight between us and we didn’t talk for a week. And, like before our break up also, they had a huge rumor about me going out with other guys again and he totally believed it and stopped talking to me for a while. (Maile)
Similarly, another girl described how her boyfriend eventually broke up with her because of these types of rumors: “He had trust issues with me ’cause of the rumors when he was hearing about me from his friends. So he broke up.”
Positive support
On an encouraging note, there was also some evidence that peers played a direct, and positive, role by offering emotional support to teens. Although positive support was sometimes provided during the relationship, often participants discussed it in connection with the dissolution of a relationship. Both boys and girls reported going to friends for help and advice when they were having trouble in their relationships. However, gender differences emerged in the commitment that boys and girls showed to their friendships and, therefore, in their response to the support provided by friends.
Boys, more often than girls, followed their friends’ advice, sometimes to the detriment of their dating relationship. For example, one of the boys described how his friend broke up with his girlfriend for him because “I cared too much” and therefore, “I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” The boy knew his friend was right, but ultimately needed not only his emotional support but his intervention to end the relationship. Another boy in the group understood this friend’s actions and went on to explain the importance of boys’ friendships: ’Cause, it’s like your girlfriends come and go, but like your friends, your true friends are always gonna be there for you. (Kyler)
This belief allowed boys to continue friendships even when one of their friends ended up dating their ex-girlfriend (which happened a lot according to the boys in our sample). When this happened, there was an unspoken rule between the two boys that they would not talk about the girl. They believed this was important because “you just want to try to avoid. I try to avoid the conversation, ’cause I don’t want to lose a friend.” Boys went on to explain how they would get back together with their friend once the relationship ended. In this way, the girl became the focus of their anger, thereby preserving the friendship: Like in that situation, I wouldn’t dwell on her, I would just be like, so what? How’d it go man? [after the friend broke up with his ex-girlfriend]. “She’s a bitch.” [replied his friend]. Exactly. Now, it’s like we’re on the same page again. (Justin)
In this same group, boys compared their friendships with girls’ friendships, with the belief that boys can count on their friends, whereas girls might not be able to say the same.
You know what I notice? You know how girls when they make friends, they just, like, they don’t have long friends.
Short-term friend.
They make a friend and then they leave their friends. Like they’re not friends again? But, boys is always friends no matter what. From young to old.
This description of girls’ friendships seemed to have some validity to it, as many girls in our sample talked about not being able to trust their friends. However, there were girls who had supportive friends and, thus, actively sought help from them. In these cases, friends would provide them with emotional support, and also help them think through the situation and plan their next steps.
I would tell my friends about the whole situation to see what their insight is on like how I reacted, and “Do you think that was reasonable? Like am I overthinking it? Am I overreacting? Or was he just being an idiot?” (Taylor)
Although girls reported positive support, many admitted to not following their friends’ advice (thus, contrasting boys’ reports). According to one girl, “Like what they say [her friends] wouldn’t really change my mind . . . because how I am feeling is how I am feeling. Can’t really change that.” In several cases, girls said that they felt pressured by their friends to break up with their boyfriend because “you deserve better.” In these cases, rather than breaking up with their boyfriend, they would start to pull back from their friends.
And, then that affected me a lot, because they’re my friends you know. How they think of me is really important. So, then in a sense, I would kind of feel like, they thought of me differently. You know, “Why is she going out with him?” You know, “She could do better.” . . . And, I would kind of hold back what I would tell them. If mean things would happen, I would either sorta bring it up or just not bring it up at all. I would still talk to them but just not about that subject. (Maria)
This illustrates the delicate balance between providing support to a friend, while also allowing her to ultimately act on her own. Often teens were not good at achieving this balance, with girls in our focus groups relaying that friends would tell them that they were “crazy” to continue in the relationship. According to the girls, this “advice” was actually meant to be supportive, but fell short of its mark. Even the comment “you deserve better” was viewed as not all that helpful to girls as they struggled with what “better” meant, including how they should go about achieving “better” in their relationships.
Discussion
The findings from the current study clearly show that peers were involved indirectly and directly in teen relationships, from initiation to dissolution. Friends helped teens initiate relationships by giving them the confidence to go up and talk to someone they were interested in. Participants also reported meeting partners who were originally members of their group of friends. This finding is consistent with prior research conducted by Connolly et al. (2000), in which they found that mixed-sex peer groups began to form in middle adolescence, and increased the likelihood of teens starting a romantic relationship. In this way, these groups provide a venue for teens to learn about and participate in dating as well as establishing more serious relationships.
While peers seemed to play a direct, and positive, role in helping teens initiate relationships, they also contributed to turmoil after the couple’s relationship began, sometimes unwittingly. Peers played an indirect role in that they did not do anything purposeful to cause trouble, but just their continued interaction with one of the partners was enough to sow the seeds of jealousy and distrust. Then, jealousy and distrust would grow until it affected all interactions and communication between the couple, thus leading to discord and violence in the relationship.
The prominence of jealousy and distrust in ADV has been found in prior research (Draucker et al., 2010; Giordano, Soto, Manning, & Longmore, 2010; Linder, Crick, & Collins, 2002). In particular, teens may use violence to establish control in their relationships, particularly dating relationships, as a way to deal with their jealousy (Sears et al., 2007). The use of psychological abuse found in the current study, including attempts to monitor and limit a partner’s contact with others, is consistent with this need for control. And the need for control may be especially important for boys, as they may have difficulty transitioning from the competition that is central in boys’ friendships to the more intimate and egalitarian exchanges necessary in dating relationships (Giordano, Longmore, & Manning, 2006).
Moreover, boys may be especially susceptible to the need to maintain their status among peers during this developmental phase (Brown, 1999; Sullivan, Erwin, Helms, Masho, & Farrell, 2010). Therefore, boys may feel pressure to select (and keep) a girlfriend of whom other peers approve. The importance of maintaining status was clear as it was mainly boys who participated in monitoring and controlling behaviors (according to both girls and boys in our study), to try to keep their girlfriend in the relationship. Although girls were also jealous of their boyfriends’ interactions with same-sex or opposite-sex peers, boys acted more often on this jealousy by trying to control their partner’s access to others. This finding is consistent with research by Draucker et al. (2010), who also reported that jealousy led to controlling behaviors by one partner over the other.
In addition to peers indirectly causing problems between the couple, similar to past research (e.g., Helm et al., 2013; Stephenson et al., 2012), boys and girls in our sample described how peers (including their own friends) would purposefully aggravate the situation by spreading rumors of one partner cheating on the other, which led to fights between the couple, and then to the dissolution of the relationship. In terms of prevention strategies, it is helpful to think about why friends might engage in these actions. Certainly, it may be that friends are only interested in creating trouble for their own entertainment, but it could also be that their actions are a result of jealousy. For example, teens may be jealous that their friend is in a relationship and, therefore, no longer has time for them (Nieder & Seiffge-Krenke, 2001; Parker, Low, Walker, & Gamm, 2005; Roth & Parker, 2001; Thomas, 2012). Jealousy might not be a problem at the start of the relationship because the couple may continue to socialize with friends in mixed-sex groups (as was the case for participants in our sample). But, according to Connolly and Goldberg (1999), these early relationships then progress and the couple’s intimacy increases. As intimacy increases, the peer groups’ ability to structure and regulate the relationship decreases. Therefore, peers may become jealous and try to break up the relationship because they are no longer a central part of the couple’s lives.
Participants also described instances where friends either wanted to (as perceived by the participant) or tried to steal their partner. Within this ever growing climate of jealousy and distrust, participants described how their dating relationships began to disintegrate. One reason may be that adolescence is a time when youth are learning how to interact with others, and if they are having trouble establishing trusting peer relationships, this can spill over to their dating relationships (Connolly & Goldberg, 1999; Nieder & Seiffge-Krenke, 2001). For the current study, much of this distrust, although initially caused by peers’ actions, was also fueled by the participant’s own insecurity. Both boys and girls admitted to feeling insecure in their dating relationships. For girls, the insecurity stemmed from boys not acting like they wanted to be in the relationship. They would have pictures of other girls on their phones and interact with other girls on Facebook. These actions caused girls to question their boyfriend’s commitment to the relationship. For boys, insecurity resulted from the belief that there are “a billion guys that want one girl.” Therefore, in boys’ opinion, everyone is a threat, including their friends and even their girlfriend’s female friends because they can “talk shit about you.” Inevitably, couples would find themselves yelling and fighting with each other, thus making the situation worse.
Although much of the focus group discussions on peer involvement suggested a negative impact on the dating relationship, there were also examples of friends and peers providing support to teens when their relationship was going badly. Boys reported relying on their friends for advice and support. Interestingly, boys almost always followed their friends’ advice. Boys felt that their true friends would be with them forever, even when these friends ended up dating their ex-girlfriend. The friendship continued, but there could be no discussion of the relationship while the friend was dating the ex-girlfriend. Once the relationship ended, boys would continue as if nothing happened.
For girls, friendships were more tenuous. Research has shown that girls may shift their attention from maintaining friendships to maintaining intimate relationships earlier than boys do (Thomas, 2012), which may explain why girls often did not take their friends’ advice. Still, in some cases, friends were helpful in providing emotional support; however, girls also reported feeling pressured by friends to end their dating relationship. Although seemingly supportive in that friends did not want them to be hurt, girls said that these types of responses actually caused them to pull back from their friends, and to stop reaching out to them for support. Pulling back may cause further deterioration of these friendships which, in turn, can make girls more vulnerable to negative consequences when the dating relationship ends (Thomas, 2012). Thus, while overall our data show that boys and girls report positive support, there was a difference in the level of trust in these friendships, with findings suggesting that boys more so than girls felt that they could count on their friends.
Recommendations for ADV Prevention Programming
From these findings, recommendations for program development can be made. First, we need to consider the developmental milestones of adolescence when developing ADV prevention programming and the importance of meeting these milestones, if teens are to achieve healthy relationships with peers and romantic partners. Messages must be targeted to teens as individuals and as relationship partners to help them traverse the different phases of a dating relationship while also maintaining their sense of self and connectedness with others. Second, interventions must include information on how to be a supportive peer, including teaching teens how to intervene if they see abuse occurring in their friends’ or peers’ relationships. These messages should describe the role that peers play now, either indirectly or directly, in causing dating violence, and contrast it with the more supportive role they could be playing.
For the first recommendation, although dating can be helpful developmentally to adolescents, the benefit of these experiences is reduced if relationships are filled with stress, discord, and violence. According to one study, stress in relationships was highest at age 14 (Nieder & Seiffge-Krenke, 2001). This may be due to the fact that early adolescence is a stressful time overall, as teens struggle with identity development, integration in peer groups, as well as relationship initiation. In this way, teens must achieve a balance between closeness and autonomy (Connolly & Goldberg, 1999). Thus, it is important to help teens manage their desire to be in a dating relationship with other responsibilities that are important during this developmental period.
The importance of this balance can be seen from the results of one study showing that over-involvement in dating prior to age 16 is associated with poorer psychosocial functioning (Zimmer-Gembeck, Siebenbruner, & Collins, 2001). Authors posited that adolescents who have many dating relationships early on may commit high levels of energy and emotion to maintaining these relationships, which is likely to displace other responsibilities and create an imbalance. Furthermore, with a high number of relationships, there are necessarily a high number of break-ups and conflicts, which can take an emotional toll on the adolescent, and lead to poorer emotional health (Larsen, Clore, & Wood, 1999).
With this in mind, researchers have emphasized the importance of teaching conflict and emotion management skills to help adolescents manage dating situations that they find most challenging, which may be more likely to occur in these early relationships when teens are trying to negotiate their own and their partner’s commitment to the relationship (Foshee et al., 1998; Sullivan et al., 2010; Wolfe et al., 2009). Challenging situations may include those perceived to threaten the relationship. For example, one study found that middle school students reacted negatively when presented with common dating situations (e.g., a boy sees his girlfriend talking to another boy). When asked what their reaction would be to these seemingly innocuous situations, younger adolescents responded more aggressively (e.g., he should fight the boy) than older adolescents who were presented with the same scenario (Prospero, 2008). Therefore, from a developmental perspective, targeting younger adolescents to receive ADV prevention programming (including a focus on establishing healthy relationships) is likely to be most beneficial in helping them reframe how they think about themselves and their relationships, including managing feelings of jealousy, as well as conflict within their early dating relationships.
In support of earlier prevention programming, our data show that teens (most of whom were between 14-17 years old) had already been in relationships (and for some, more than one relationship) that were filled with anxiety, stress, conflict, and violence. One reason was likely related to the participant’s own feelings of insecurity. For girls, insecurity led them, out of frustration, to become aggressive against their dating partners because they could not understand why their partners were not as committed as they were to the relationship. For boys, insecurity caused them to engage in monitoring and controlling behaviors to restrict their partner’s interaction with others. These gender differences will be important to consider as findings suggest that boys and girls not only have different preconceived notions about what relationships should be like, but they also have different reactions to stressors that threaten the relationship.
In addition to implementing prevention programs earlier in adolescence and focusing on individual-level skills such as conflict and emotion management, a second recommendation is that programming must consider the role of peers in dating relationships. With results from the current study showing the intersection of peers and ADV, it would be advantageous to incorporate bystander intervention messages into existing and new ADV prevention programs. Bystander interventions emphasize the importance of a community response to violence prevention, with everyone having a role. There is a focus on teaching bystanders the skills they need to intervene safely. In this way, with more and more individuals taking responsibility for preventing violent incidents, prevalence is reduced. Bystander interventions have been found to be efficacious in reducing sexual violence among college-age populations (Banyard, Moynihan, & Plante, 2007), as well as increasing bystander involvement in bullying situations among school-aged youth (Polanin, Espelage, & Pigott, 2012).
One caveat to this recommendation is that the efficacy of bystander interventions in preventing ADV has yet to be established. There may also be resistance on the part of the youth as to whether they should intervene. For example, investigators found that middle school–aged youth did not believe they should get involved in incidents of violence between dating partners; however, one reason may be due to the fact that they do not know how to intervene safely (Noonan & Charles, 2009; Weisz & Black, 2008). When taught the skills necessary to intervene appropriately and safely, it may be that we see a reversal of these attitudes. And given that dating violence often occurs in the presence of others (Molidor & Tolman, 1998), and that peer actions contribute to this violence, bystander interventions may be an important tool in addressing ADV.
Limitations
There were several limitations to the study. First, the sample was not representative of a universal population of teens. Rather, teens were recruited based on their prior experiences of dating violence. That said, by including youth who had past relationship problems, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of the context of these relationships as it was a salient topic for them. A second, interrelated limitation is that teens were engaged in community-based services, such as an alcohol support program and court-ordered temporary group homes for boys and girls. Recruiting from these programs resulted in a skewed sample than would be typical if recruitment occurred in other settings. For example, the extent of anxiety, jealousy, discord, and violence in these relationships may have been greater than in a sample of teens recruited from typical school settings. Still, there is benefit in exploring these issues with teens who may be at risk for continued negative life experiences. In this way, in addition to universal prevention programming that highlights the connection between peer involvement and dating violence, these findings suggest the need for more targeted programs for youth who have already experienced negative dating and peer relationships.
Third, although we chose to use a focus group format for data collection, there are other formats, such as individual interviews, that may have worked better for an investigation of these issues. For the most part, teens seemed comfortable sharing their stories in a group setting but there were times when it seemed as if one or two participants were holding back. Therefore, future studies should explore multiple formats to gather information. For example, we believe that combining focus groups with follow-up individual interviews would have been helpful. In this way, the focus group is used to build rapport and provides entry for more in-depth individual discussions.
Conclusion
Given the significance of peers as part of the adolescent’s social ecology, an understanding of peer involvement in dating and dating violence can be especially helpful to the development of prevention programming. The current study shows that teens struggle with initiating relationships and, given their inexperience, may be vulnerable to stress, discord, and violence. Furthermore, peers, although initially serving as a support to teens as they enter into relationships, tend to exacerbate the difficulties (both indirectly and directly) that teens have in establishing healthy relationships.
Therefore, using a developmental perspective, programs should help teens manage feelings of insecurity by teaching them conflict and emotion management skills. Given the intense jealousy described by participants in our study, these skills are critical if teens are to be able to progress from the instability of these early relationships to more committed and sustained relationships. It will also be important for prevention programs to reframe the role that peers play, by helping them become helpful bystanders when they observe violence between a couple rather than being instigators of that violence. As a result, peers learn skills that not only prevent dating violence in the short-term, but through exposure to these messages, there may be changes in peers’ own attitudes and behaviors about the acceptability of using violence in dating relationships. Through these efforts, we may increase the potential for adolescents to achieve important developmental milestones related to their own identity development and to establishing healthy dating relationships.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Susana Helm, Justin Ramos, James Charisma, Jaclyn Khil, Katie Gray, Lorraine Coffinet-Smith, Kaela Teilhaber, and Katrina Rose for their help with data collection and analysis. She also thanks Jeffrey Berlin for all of his help in coordinating this project. In addition, she thanks the providers for their help with recruitment and, most of all, the youth who participated in the focus groups for sharing their experiences.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was received through a University of Hawai’i College of Social Sciences Research Award.