The Development of Online and Offline Romantic Relationships: A Turning Point Study by Sophia W. McDowell
Relation Between Turning Point Type and Reported Commitment Change
Hypotheses 1 proposed that turning points involving significant shifts in media use and exchange of real-life information would be important to online partners and be related to large changes in reported commitment levels. Hypothesis 2 further posited that first face-to-face (FtF) meeting with one’s significant other would be the most important turning point to online partners and would lead to the largest changes in reported commitment levels.
For each turning point, participants had been asked to plot the level of commitment immediately following the occurrence of each turning point. Therefore, the commitment change related to each turning point was calculated by first taking the commitment level of each turning point and subtracting the commitment level of the previous turning point. These difference scores were then averaged for each turning point category. Categories with an average commitment difference score greater than zero were viewed as positive turning points, whereas those with an average difference score of less than zero were viewed as negative. Table 3 illustrates average commitment change levels by turning point type for all participants, from most positive to the most negative. Results were similar to those found by Baxter and Bullis (1986): For both online and offline groups, all categories were positive, with the exceptions of External Competition, Relational Problems, and Negative Psychic Change.
To determine the absolute levels of change in commitment each turning point type was related to, the absolute values of the commitment change scores for each turning point category were averaged. Mean absolute values and rankings for each category are shown in Table 4. A between-group analysis of variance of overall differences was conducted on the various categories, with absolute change in commitment level as the dependent variable. The main effect on turning point type was found to be significant (F = 3.15, df = 15, p < .001).
However, Scheffé’s post-hoc tests demonstrated that the only significant individual difference in absolute difference in commitment was between the Passion (M = 60) and Quality Time categories (M = 10.13) (F = 23.58, p < .05). Some seemingly large differences, for example between Exclusivity (M = 39.38) and Quality Time (M = 10.13), didn’t reach significance, probably because of smaller sample sizes.