Marital and love attitudes as predictors of Polish young adults’ relationship status

Background

The purpose of this study was to longitudinally examine the predictive role of marital and love attitudes and of the love–marriage connection for young adults’ relationship status.

Participants and procedure

The study was based on a sample of 117 Polish participants aged 20-33 who completed the Polish versions of the Love Atti-tudes Scale – Short Form and Marital Attitudes Scale and provided answers to the seven questions concerning love as a basis for marriage.

Results

The performed analyses demonstrated that 1) single and partnered individuals reported similar levels of marital attitudes; 2) sin-gle individuals scored higher on the Eros love style than partnered individuals in the first assessment; 3) single individuals scored lower on the Mania love style than partnered individuals in the first and the second assessments; 4) single individuals scored higher in the first assessment on the Importance of love for entering marriage in comparison to partnered individuals. A binary logistic regression indicated that the Eros and Mania love styles in the first assessment were significant predictors of young adults’ relationships in the second assessment. The alternative model predicting marital and love attitudes and the love–marriage connection at Time 2 (T2) from young adults’ relationship status at Time 1 (T1) demonstrated that relationship status at T1 was predictive only of the Mania love style at T2.

Conclusions

The Eros and Mania love styles were significant predictors of young adults’ relationships after a 12-month interval, and rela-tionship status was predictive of the Mania love style at 12 months after the first assessment.