{"id":14834,"date":"2012-10-03T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=14834"},"modified":"2013-10-24T12:43:35","modified_gmt":"2013-10-24T19:43:35","slug":"the-culture-of-hooking-up-and-depression-among-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/culture-of-hooking-up-and-depression-among-teens-1003122","title":{"rendered":"The Culture of ‘Hooking Up’ and Depression Among Teens"},"content":{"rendered":"

The term \u201chook up\u201d is one modern way individuals, especially young people, refer to casual-sex encounters. Teenagers who are sexually active, but not in romantic relationships, may \u201chook up\u201d with other teens. But are these encounters damaging to adolescents\u2019 sense of well-being? Research has suggested that teens who date are more likely to experience stress<\/a>, depression, and emotional conflict than those who do not. However, the level of depression and stress teens experience in committed relationships<\/a> has not been compared to the depression and stress in teens who \u201chook up.\u201d<\/p>\n

To address this void in research, Jane Mendle, of the Department of Human Development at Cornell University in New York, conducted a study that compared the emotional and psychological well-being of more than 1,500 pairs of siblings ranging in age from 13 to 18. She gauged whether the siblings were romantically involved with another person, engaging in sexual activity with that person, or whether they were sexually active with nonromantic partners. She found that although the teens in committed relationships did have moderately higher levels of depression than those who were single, the teens who participated in \u201chook-ups\u201d had the highest levels of emotional distress and depression. This was especially pronounced in teens under the age of 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mendle believes that one of the reasons for this finding could be the fact \u201chook-ups\u201d often involve partners who used to date, or who may want to date each other in the future. In this sense, one of the participants may be more emotionally invested in the encounter than the other. The subsequent dismissal of a romantic relationship may bring on feelings of sadness, disappointment, and even jealousy<\/a>. The findings in this study are rather robust because they are based on sibling pairs. However, this dynamic can also limit the results, and further family history should be gathered in future work. Additionally, romantic relationships, as defined by the participants, may not necessarily involve sexual intercourse but may include other intimate acts. This should also be explored in future research. \u201cContinued exploration of how the transition to sexual maturity may be moderated by contextual factors can help clarify the particular developmental challenges and stressors of adolescence,\u201d Mendle said.<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/p>\n

Mendle, J., Ferrero, J., Moore, S. R., Harden, K. P. (2012). Depression and adolescent sexual activity in romantic and nonromantic relational contexts: A genetically-informative sibling comparison. Journal of Abnormal Psychology<\/em>. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037\/a0029816<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teens who engage in casual sex experience higher rates of emotional stress and depression compared to those in committed relationships, a study reveals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[31,21,161,431,25,41,139,239,470],"class_list":["post-14834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-therapy-news","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-child-and-adolescent-issues","tag-depression","tag-emotional-overwhelm","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships","tag-sex-therapy","tag-stress","tag-young-adult-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}