Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Elizabeth Jeglic

Committee Members

Cynthia Calkins

Philip Yanos

Georgia Winters

Nicole Colombino

Subject Categories

Clinical Psychology | Other Psychology

Keywords

age of consent, age-gap relationships, predictors, course, outcomes

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of age of consent laws and the importance of understanding age-related vulnerabilities for sexual exploitation, few researchers have directly examined abuse in adolescent age-gap relationships. This study sought to expand the understanding of these relationships through an exploratory, mixed-methods, online survey focusing on retrospective accounts of adolescent age-gap relationships. Using the survey platform Prolific, information from a sample of 120 U.S. adults who had engaged in a romantic or sexual relationship during adolescence with an older person at least five years their senior was collected. Results suggest differing pathways for these relationships including abusive relationships, more normative but still unhealthy relationships, neutral relationships, loving relationships, and mixed relationships with elements of both loving and unhealthy relationship dynamics. Findings also highlight some important potential factors that may predict some of these differences in relationship course and outcomes including size of the age-gap, participant gender and sexuality, participant history of abuse or instability, participant relationship history, participant perception of self-efficacy within the relationship, and older partner gender and family life. Such diverse relationship patterns underscore how adolescent-adult age-gap relationships are likely not a discrete nor unique category of relationship beyond their legal implication and may be better understood as falling under a wide range of relationship types. These results then suggest an alternative model for conceptualizing age-related vulnerabilities to sexual exploitation as a conflux of multiple factors that increase the potential for sexual exploitation rather than age alone. Implications and future directions are discussed.

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