Dating Relationships among Emerging Adults: A Qualitative Exploration for a Problem Definition

Apoorva Nag; Kavya Swaminathan; Sumithra Sridhar; Delphina Esther

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PEER-REVIEWED

Qualitative Study

| Published: December 14, 2022

Dating Relationships among Emerging Adults: A Qualitative Exploration for a Problem Definition

Apoorva Nag

Student, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Psychology Building, 603 E Daniel St, Champaign, IL 61820, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5483-0814 Google Scholar More about the auther

, Kavya Swaminathan

Student, School of Social Sciences and Policy Evaluation, Claremont Graduate University, 150 E. 10th Street Claremont, CA 91711 Google Scholar More about the auther

, Sumithra Sridhar

Private practicing Counselling Psychologist in Chennai, Tamil Nadu Google Scholar More about the auther

, Delphina Esther

Counseling Psychologist at Heart it Out, Bangalore Google Scholar More about the auther

DIP: 18.01.137.20221004

DOI: 10.25215/1004.137

ABSTRACT

Colloquially, with globalization, dating relationships in India have been gaining traction, leaving the construct understudied. Operationalization of dating relationships in previous literature appears to lack the all-important synergy of individual and contextual influences that could determine an individuals’ experience– a consideration that must be accounted for by emerging research. We offer a qualitative exploration of a problem definition for dating relationships contextualized to emerging adults in urban Bangalore, India. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 27 individuals, across two categories: 13 who identified as having dated before and 14 as not having dated. The thematic analysis of data emergent from an expert-validated interview schedule, concluded in four global themes spanning the individual and contextual factors influencing participants’ understanding of ‘dating relationships’.

Keywords

Dating Relationships, Problem Definition, Contextual Influences, Emerging Adults, Urban Bangalore.

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This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite this article: Nag, A., Swaminathan, K., Sridhar, S., & Esther, D. (2022). Dating Relationships among Emerging Adults: A Qualitative Exploration for a Problem Definition. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 10(4), 1437-1446. DIP:18.01.137.20221004, DOI:10.25215/1004.137