Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-26T14:02:36.951Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Emotions of Romantic Relationships: Do They Wreak Havoc on Adolescents?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2014

Reed W. Larson
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Gerald L. Clore
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Gretchen A. Wood
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Wyndol Furman
Affiliation:
University of Denver
B. Bradford Brown
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Candice Feiring
Affiliation:
New Jersey Medical School
Get access

Summary

Romantic emotions can grip adolescents' lives. A 14-year-old reports feeling so in love that he can think of nothing else. A 15-year-old is distressed that “everyone has a boyfriend but me” and broods for hours in her room. Another girl finds herself in a passionate lesbian relationship and feels elated, affirmed, and “chosen.” And a boy reports feeling so enraged by the betrayal of his girlfriend that he is obsessed with thinking up ways to hurt her.

Western thought has long been ambivalent about the role of emotion in human behavior. On the one hand, we have praised and idealized deep feeling. It is the motif for much of our entertainment in novels, television, and film. On the other hand, we have been suspicious about emotions and the disruptive effects they are believed to inflict upon rational thought and action; Kant (1798/1978), for example, referred to emotions as “diseases of the mind.” This same ambivalence is manifest in our society's attitudes toward adolescent romance and the emotions that surround it. We sentimentalize young love and the joys and pains that accompany it, yet we also view it with suspicion as a set of affairs that can play havoc with young people's lives.

What is indisputable is that emotions related to romantic relationships constitute a substantial part of adolescents' day-to-day emotional lives, at least in the United States.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×