Love hurts (in more ways than one): specificity of psychological symptoms as predictors and consequences of romantic activity among early adolescent girls.

Objective: Research has linked adolescent romantic and sexual activities to depressive symptoms. The current study examines whether such activities are uniquely linked to depressive symptoms versus symptoms of other disorders (including anxiety, externalizing, and eating disorders), and whether co-occurring symptoms more precisely account for the association between depressive symptoms and romantic involvement.

Method: Early adolescent girls (N = 83; mean age = 13.

What I like about you: the association between adolescent attachment security and emotional behavior in a relationship promoting context.

Because the ability to flexibly experience and appropriately express emotions across a range of developmentally relevant contexts is crucial to adaptive functioning, we examined how adolescent attachment security may be related to more functional emotional behavior during a relationship promoting interaction task. Data were collected from 74 early adolescent girls (Mean age 13.45 years; SD = 0.

Romantic and sexual activities, parent-adolescent stress, and depressive symptoms among early adolescent girls.

Building on evidence that romantic experiences are associated with depressive symptoms in adolescence, we examined their bidirectional association, as well as the role of sexual activity and parent-adolescent stress in their association. Data were collected from 71 early adolescent girls (M age 13.45 years; SD=0.

Assessing romantic competence in adolescence: the Romantic Competence Interview.

This article presents preliminary psychometric data on the reliability and validity of the newly developed Romantic Competence Interview (RCI). The RCI is an interviewer-assessed measure designed to assess competence among adolescents regardless of romantic relationship status. Eighty-three early adolescent girls (m age=13.

Commentary: defining and understanding adolescent romantic competence: progress, challenges, and implications.

Commentary on the articles in this special section is provided. Following a brief review of the articles in this section, discussion focuses on the conceptualization of adolescent romantic competence, the importance of studying competence, and the implications of research in this area for knowing how to help young people have more successful romantic relationships.