Some research shows that college students are not aware of their financial situation and even avoid engaging with their finances. Research has yet to investigate how this financial avoidance is associated with emotional and relational health for college students in romantic relationships. As such, the purpose of this study was to identify the associations between financial avoidance and conflict frequency. Emotional distress was included as a possible mediator of the association. Results revealed that for both men and women, higher financial avoidance was indirectly associated with increased conflict frequency with their partner through increased emotional distress. A direct association was found for men. These results are important as they may give insight into increased mental health issues and relational distress in college students. Implications for practice are discussed.
Relationships and FinancesRomantic relationships in college. Although a complex process, forming and sustaining healthy romantic relationships during emerging adulthood is considered one of Journal of Financial Therapy Volume 8, Issue 2 (2017) ISSN: 1945-7774 CC by-NC 4.0 2017 Financial Therapy Association 65 ISSN: 1945-7774 CC by-NC 4.0 2017 Financial Therapy Association 702.122, p =.547; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .000; SRMR = .014. Standardized factor loadings were .94 for men's depression and .95 for women's depression, .86 for men's anxiety and .89 for women's anxiety, .72 for men's stress and .82 for women's stress.Conflict frequency. Conflict frequency was measured by asking respondents about the amount of conflict that existed across nine domains of the relationships (Kluwer & Johnson, 2007). This scale was originally adapted from Van De Vliert (1996, 1997). The questions stemmed from the following: "How often did you have a difference of opinion, disagreement, fight, or argument about": (a) money, (b) division of housework, (c) division of childcare, (d) family or in-laws, (e) amount of time spent together, (f) how to spend leisure time, (g) physical intimacy (e.g., sex), (h) emotional intimacy, and (i) goals in life. Responses ranged from 1 never to 7 very often, items were averaged, and higher scores indicated more frequent conflict (Men: M = 2.91, S.D. = 1.08; women: M = 2.63, S.D. = .95). Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients were .89 for men and .86 for women.
Control variables.We included several important control variables-age, hours worked, income, amount of student loans, credit card debt, amount of financial aid, amount of aid from family, relationship length, and relationship status-because of their potential relationship to financial health and well-being (Archuleta, Dale, & Spann, 2013). All variables were scored to be continuous (except relationship status), so that higher scores reflected higher/more of that scale. The following categories of relationship status were dummy coded (0, 1): Dating and cohabiting, dating and not cohabiting, engaged, and married.
Analytic PlanDescriptive statistics and bivariate...