Dependency and Frustration Tolerance in Adolescent and Young People's Romantic Relationships: A Latent Profile...

Violence in early dating relationships can continue into adulthood. The literature usually focuses on the negative effects of violent relationships, but rarely includes the reasons for or antecedents of such behavior. The main objectives of this study were to identify different psychosocial profiles in terms of frustration tolerance and partner dependency and how they are correlated with psychological partner violence, as well as to analyze the justifications for such violence in adolescents and young adults. A total of 69.9% of the final 1044 participants (62.1% girls; age range = 15-22) were involved in a relationship at the time of the evaluation. From a person-centered approach, latent profile analyses yielded three profiles (anxious dependent, low anxious and exclusive dependency, and low exclusive dependency). Significant differences were found between groups, except for the scores between Profiles 2 and 3 in exclusive dependency and anxious attachment between Profiles 3 and 1, with Profile 3 having the highest correlation with violence despite scoring lower in emotional dependency and exclusive dependency than Profile 1. Moreover, significant differences were found among the three groups in terms of violence in the relationship, but all three groups experienced bidirectional violence. The justifications were similar in all three groups, with the concern response being the most reported, together with jealousy in many cases. This research increases knowledge about the psychosocial factors associated with offline and online psychological violence in young couples and allows us to deeply examine the motives that young people express to justify violence in their relationships.