All is well in moderation: Perspectives of young adults on positive and negative factors influencing the quality of romantic relationships

Abstract

Considerable research confirms that romantic relationships and their quality are one of the top priorities in the lives of individuals, especially as they enter the emerging adulthood stage. It is indisputably relevant to revisit relationship quality factors in research, even though there is generally plenty of interest in this topic across the research literature. The present study concerns the antecedents of relationship quality in a research-excluded region of Central Eastern Europe, namely Slovakia, where no similar research has been published to date, presuming the cultural specificities of Slovak youth. The study intends to approximate individuals' perceptions, not to fit them into predefined theories; thus, the research is inductive with an experiential orientation to the data. A reflexive thematic analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews (37) or written self-moderated accounts (74) from 104 participants in a cohort of 18- to 35-year-olds resulted in the creation of four themes. These reflect the participants’ accounts of the antecedents of relational quality, which are i) external circumstances, ii) partners’ mutual attitudes and feelings, iii) the degree of sharing, and iv) individual contributions to relationship quality (personality, character traits, emotionality). Although the results can be formulated as a positive versus negative duality of oppositional influences, the degree phenomenon is strongly present. The idea that “everything in excess is bad” certainly applies.