A Comparison of Relationship Behaviors

Abstract

Pro-relationship behaviors—commitment, accommodation, sacrifice, and forgiveness—differ across rela-tionships with parents, friends, and romantic partners. In order to test the extent to which the type of rela-tionship plays a role in how willing a person is to accommodate, forgive, or sacrifice, participants were administered a series of questionnaires. The associations of these pro-relationship behaviors with com-mitment were compared across relationships. Although the tendency to accommodate, sacrifice, and for-give in one relationship was significantly correlated with the tendency to behave similarly in other rela-tionships, there were significant differences from one relationship to another. For example, participants were significantly less likely to sacrifice for a friend than for a parent or a romantic partner. Conversely, participants were found to be significantly less accommodating for a parent than they were for a friend or for a romantic partner. Also, participants were significantly more likely to forgive friends than they were to forgive a romantic partner. All relationship behaviors were significantly correlated with commitment across all three relationship types, but the strength of these correlations was not consistent. This inconsis-tency is probably due to the differences in expectations that people have for different relationships. The friendships of college students are usually temporary, as friends graduate and move on, whereas relation-ships with parents last until death. Although there were inconsistencies, there were many significant cor-relations that showed that behavior in one relationship did predict behavior in other relationships. Just as behavior towards one's parents was related to behavior towards one's friends, it was also predictive of behavior towards romantic partners. Whether this applies to adolescents from other cultures, and whether it applies to non-university students, remains to be determined.