Romantic Competence, Romantic Functioning, and Mental Health in Adolescence

Adolescent romantic competence is broadly understood as a person's capacity to adaptively approach, form, and maintain healthy romantic relationships and has important implications for relationship functioning and mental health. In this review, we first provide a history of the development of the construct of romantic competence and give an overview of different conceptualizations and assessments of adolescent romantic competence. Next, we summarize the research findings on the associations between adolescent romantic competence and relationship experience, relationship functioning, and mental health. Special challenges are addressed for romantic competence and adolescent relationships that may arise from social media. We then outline relationship education programs created out of the romantic competence literature, and we conclude by identifying future directions and remaining questions in the field.