Developmental Designs

Developmental research designs are intended to capture information about how individuals change over time and the processes through which those changes occur. Like many researchers with interests in close relationships, developmental researchers hope to predict the quality and stability of close relationships and both adaptive and maladaptive functioning within them. Developmental approaches to stability and change, however, involve examining relationship phenomena in connection with individual functioning in different life periods. This entry describes designs commonly used to address questions pertaining to close relationships in particular life periods, the transformations that may occur in particular dyads across time, and the functional significance of these relationships for individuals and later relationships.

Developmental research on relationships encompasses diverse questions. Some researchers are interested in the timing or onset of relationship events. For example, a researcher might be interested in determining the age at which adolescents first experience a significant romantic relationship and/or the determinants of this transition (e.g., puberty, community norms, peer pressure, gender). Researchers also often wish to identify the important factors in whether individuals can maintain those relationships. Others might be interested in examining and accounting for age-related differences in relationship functioning (e.g., the nature of friendship in early adulthood as compared to adolescence). Developmental, longitudinal studies likewise can inform many research questions regarding adult relationships. The nature, course, and processes of adaptation to major relationship changes, such as divorce or the death of a partner, are both common and significant experiences of individual development to which developmental designs are uniquely well suited.

An underlying goal when using these designs is capturing the emergence of and successive transformations in competencies relevant to age-appropriate social functioning. Accordingly, one could ask whether the processes related to effective romantic relationship functioning are different in adolescence and in adulthood or whether similar processes are implicated in maladaptive relationships, as compared to adaptive ones. In true developmental designs, the same participants are assessed at multiple time points (longitudinal designs). Some questions relevant to the study of development may be informed by other research approaches as well. The next sections of this entry describe the most common designs used in developmental research on close relationships.