Relational turbulence theory posits that external changes to the relational environment compel romantic partners to navigate transitions by establishing new daily routines as interdependent couples. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented transition fraught with difficult changes that have the potential to be especially disruptive to romantic partners’ daily routines as couples alter their patterns of interdependence and adapt their everyday lives. To study the pandemic’s effect as a relational transition, college students in romantic relationships ( N = 314) completed measures of partner facilitation and interference, negative emotions, and relational turbulence as they recalled what their relationships were like prior to the pandemic (January, 2020) and then reported on their relationships during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in the U.S. (April, 2020). On average, negative emotions (i.e., anger, fear, sadness) toward interacting with partners and relational turbulence both increased from before to during the pandemic, and partner interference was positively correlated, whereas facilitation was inversely correlated, with negative emotions during the pandemic. Results of a within-subjects mediation model revealed that changes in relational turbulence were explained, in part, by a decrease in partner interdependence due to the pandemic. A direct effect of the pandemic on increases in relational turbulence was also discovered.

Relational Turbulence Theory proposes that when romantic partners interrupt everyday routines in response to transitions, affective arousal will be heightened in the form of more intense emotions. The goal of this study was to test this theoretical logic in a married sample of 165 spouses during the initial peak of the COVID-19 pandemic (April, 2020). Participants completed an online survey measuring how often their spouse interfered with their daily routines, the negative emotions they experienced when interacting with their spouse, and how much turbulence they perceived in the marriage. Results of a parallel multiple mediation model provided support for the theory in the context of this global pandemic; anger and sadness toward the spouse independently mediated the effect of interference from that spouse on relational turbulence in the marriage.

This investigation replicated and extended previous research on the behaviors that college students perceive their instructors use as a way to make course relevant to students' interests, needs, and goals. In study one, using a sample of 87 undergraduate students, the four categories of relevance-enhancing behaviors (i.e., 10 teaching style, outside course, inside course, and methods and activities) identified by previous research were replicated. In study two, using a sample of 202 undergraduate students, study one findings were extended by assessing students' perceptions of the perceived frequency and effectiveness with which instructors 15 utilized these four categories of relevanceenhancing behaviors. It was found that students (a) perceive their instructors to use the inside course and teaching style behaviors more frequently than the outside course and methods and activities behaviors and (b) rated inside course behaviors as more effective than the teaching style, inside course, and methods and activities behaviors for enhancing content relevance. Future research should consider examining instructors' perceptions of their own use of relevance-enhancing behaviors with their students.

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