Overparenting and Female College Students’ Decision-Making Into Romantic Relationships and Hookups

Abstract

Love and romance significantly influence self-identity during emerging adulthood. While romantic relationships offer various benefits, many emerging adults, especially college students, often choose to engage in hookups. Specifically, female college students may face greater psychological and emotional harms following hookups. Overparenting might relate to college students’ relationship choice, through hindering emerging adults’ decision-making processes (sliding vs. deciding). This study investigated how overparenting across relational, academic, health, and financial domains relate to female college students’ (N = 505; Mage = 19.84, SD = 1.21; 78.6% European American) involvement in romantic relationships and hookups, mediated by emotional and physical deciding. A path model revealed that relational overparenting was associated with a lower likelihood of involvement in romantic relationships through hindering emotional deciding. At a three-month follow-up (N = 265), results from a path model showed that relational overparenting was associated with more hookup partners through poorer physical deciding. Implications for practice are discussed.

Keywords

overparenting romantic relationships hookups sliding/deciding emerging adults

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