The Effects of Having Early Romantic Relationship

During teenage years, youth become curious and involved in relationship because of the desire to
belong with others. As a result, it is clear that over the time, romantic relationships gain in importance.
Adolescents crave to have an intimate romantic relationship to which love is given and received without
condition. It is according to the need to belong theory by which individuals have the determination to
connect with others in permanent, close relationships. Myers (2010) supported the need to belong
theory by saying that people who find a person giving their needs to whom they can share their
problems with, makes those people more acknowledgeable.
Because of this desire to belong, we can see nowadays that most university students are
harmonizing their time in both academic and romantic aspect. Furman (2002) said that romantic
relationships become more and more important to teenagers in their social world as they also develop
from puberty towards late adolescence in which it shows how typical is romantic relationship among
adolescents.
A lot of students just now get involved to many kind of relationship. Somehow, students are
getting careless on making decisions. Due to immaturity and lack of guidance this may result to some
negative and positive outcomes.
A study conducted by Campble, Olivier and Sedikides (1994) found that romantic relationships
give significant positive effects on academic achievement. They can bring companionship, feelings of
happiness, feelings of being loved or loving another, intimacy, self-growth and self-understanding and
more positive-esteem. Romantic relationships therefore are said to be the cause of motivation for
students in pursuing their studies.
Although some people believe that having a relationship while studying can be instrumental,
opponents of this idea would state that teenage relationships can cause problems on academic
performance in some ways. Based on a study at the University of the Philippines by Bernales and Colonia
(2011), when teenagers are involved in romantic relationships, they tend to pay less attention to their
academic work. The study shows that students who engage in relationships are unable to manage their
time well and mostly spend only 1 to 4 hours per week for their studies. As love grows fonder, along
with the desire to keep the relationship going, more time is allotted to different dating activities, leaving
only a small amount of time for learning (Newman, n.d.).
The main thrust of the study was to determine the effect of romantic relationships to the
academic performance of the students who were involved in a romantic relationship.

Specifically, this study sought to answer the following question:

1. How long have you been in romantic relationship?

2. What are the positive effects of early romantic relationship on your academic performance?
3. What are the negative effects of early romantic relationship on your academic performance?

4. Is their any possibilities that sometimes you didn’t follow the rules of your parents because of your
boyfriend/girlfriend?

5. Does your relationship help you to you school or not? If not why?

References:

Bernales and Colonia (2011) https://uc.edu.kh/

Campble, Olivier and Sedikides (1994) https://uc.edu.kh/

Furman (2002) https://www.academia.edu/

Myers (2010) https://www.academia.edu/