Social Representation of Healthy Loving Relationship

Abstract

There are various ways in which people can have romantic relationships, be it by hooking up, dating, getting married, or online dating, and many ways to understand what a relationship actually is. With that in mind, the present research had the goal of investigating the social representations of healthy romantic relationships. The study participants were 80 people, most of which were female (65%), with ages between 18 and 77 years (M = 29,30; DP = 12,90), and most of the participants (63,75%) reported being in a romantic relationship at the time of the study. The participants were given a free association test and an open question about relationships. The softwares OpenEvoc and Iramuteq were used for the analyses. It was found that respect was the characteristic with highest centrality, followed by love, companionship, and trust. The data also indicated that participants see healthy relationships as those which are not abusive. The present research had the theoretical contribution of defining what a romantic relationship is through the lens of what is healthy and functional.

Keywords

• relações interpessoais
• casamento
• psicologia social