Jul 08, 2024
A Scoping Review of dating behaviours in typically developing adults
- Nicholas Behn1,
- Katerina Hilari1,
- Emma Power2,
- Dr Laura Wolford3,
- Victor Piotto1
- 1City, University of London;
- 2University of Technology Sydney;
- 3MGH Institute of Health Professions
Protocol Citation: Nicholas Behn, Katerina Hilari, Emma Power, Dr Laura Wolford, Victor Piotto 2024. A Scoping Review of dating behaviours in typically developing adults. protocols.io https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.rm7vzbp5rvx1/v1
License: This is an open access protocol distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Protocol status: Working
We use this protocol and it's working
Created: April 21, 2023
Last Modified: July 08, 2024
Protocol Integer ID: 80898
Keywords: Dating, flirting, courting, courtship, behaviour, social skills
Funders Acknowledgement:
City, University of London Pump
Grant ID: Priming Grant
Abstract
This protocol details a scoping review of dating behaviours in typically developing adults.
Attachments
Guidelines
Overall methods and design/rigor
A scoping review will be conducted to assess the potential size and scope of available research literature and identify any gaps in the current research and highlight areas that require further research and inquiry.
The review will be guided by relevant frameworks (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005) with refinements by Levac et al (2010) and reporting guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR; Page et al., 2021)
Review question:
Overall question:
What is known about verbal and non-verbal dating behaviours in the typically developing population?
Specific questions:
- What theories are used to inform the dating behaviours of typically-developing adults?
- What does the published literature tell us about the verbal and non-verbal dating behaviours for typically-developing adults?
- What outcome measures have been used to capture the dating verbal and non-verbal behaviours of typically-developing adults?
Literature review:
Dating is an important topic for many clinical populations (e.g. autism, brain injury, learning disability) however, little is known about dating behaviours in the normal typically-developing population. Also, little is known about the theoretical frameworks that help to explain the behaviours required for dating. The review will aim to identify theories and behaviours relevant to dating. Such knowledge can then be used to inform development of intervention programmes and outcome measures for people who have impaired ability to date successfully.
For the purposes of this review, dating will be defined as: “a social activity or exchange of information involving two or more people who have an emotional connection and/or romantic interest in each other”.
Sources:
- EBSCOhost (APA PsycArticles, APA PsycExtra, APA PsycINFO, CINAHL Ultimate, Medline Complete, Sociology Source Ultimate), Ovid online (Embase) and PubMed. Only studies post-2000 will be included.
- Search will be re-run approximately one month prior to final analysis to identify and retrieve any further studies.
- Hand searches will also be completed on the reference lists and citations of the included studies.
Search Strategy:
A search will be conducted to identify available literature that addresses dating, flirting and courting in a typically-developing adult population. This will use the following search terms (title/abstract only):
Dating terms: “Dating” OR “Flirt*” OR “Courting” OR “Courtship”NOT “violen*” NOT “aggressi*”NOT “harassment” NOT “infidelity” NOT “cheating”
Behaviours: “Behaviour” OR “skills” OR “patterns” OR “Persuasi*” OR “Social cogniti*” OR “Communication” OR “Interpersonal” OR “signal” OR “conversation” OR “theory of mind”
To increase the likelihood to incorporating all relevant studies, a search using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) will also be completed using subject and keyword searches of the terms “dating”, “flirt” and “courting”.
Limiters: Human and English and Adult (18+)
Domain being studied:
Able-bodied, normal, typically-developing adults
Participants/population:
Inclusion: Studies that describe specific verbal and non-verbal dating behaviours in neurotypical adults (18 years or over). Behavious may be linguistic or non-linguistic, verbal or non-verbal including pictures, photographs or emoticons (behaviours that can be changed or altered). The study must have a primary focus on dating, flirting or courtship (or the intention to) with an interest beyond friendship.
Exclusion: People <18 years of age
and studies with a primary focus on any of the following areas:
- Violence, aggression, harassment, infidelity or cheating (including abuse, intimate partner violence, rape, cyberstalking, lying, deception, scams, jealousy, conflict, rejection);
- Sexual activity and the sexual act; studies related to chemical changes in the body or genetic testing; adults with acquired or developmental disorders.
- Physical appearance or perceived attractiveness
- Demographic variables, characteristics and qualities (age, sex, income, education, personality types)
- Pre-existing dating and established relationships including, pre-marital dating, commitment, dating couples
- Alcohol or drug consumption or involvement in dating process
- Attachment styles or relationship quality
Types of studies to be included:
Quantitative studies using experimental, observational, or survey methodologies; and qualitative studies and review articles will be included. Opinion pieces will be excluded from the analysis but reserved for hand searches of the references. Conference abstracts will be excluded.
Health area of review
Rehabilitation
Language
English
Countries
Australia, UK, USA
Dissemination plans
A peer-reviewed journal article will be submitted to a journal in the field of communication sciences and disorders.
Conflicts of interest:
Nicholas Behn is a Senior Lecturer at City, University of London and has previously published work related to dating and communication interventions.
Katerina Hilari is a Professor at City, University of London and has previously published work related to dating and communication interventions with NB.
Emma Power has ongoing grants from the Stroke Foundation and the Agency for Innovation NSW for sexuality research. She is also an author of an in-process online e-learning module on sexuality for the Stroke Foundation and has recently completed a six-year term on the research advisory committee.
Laura Wolford is a certified member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, runs a business teaching speech-language pathologists to communicate about sexuality with their clients, and has given invited and reimbursed talks about the topic at conferences
Study Selection
Study Selection
Reviewers will use Covidence to organize their work. Two reviewers will independently screen the titles/abstracts for 20% of studies for inclusion.
If Kappa scores are 0.8 or above, one author will continue to review.
If Kappa scores are below 0.8, all articles will be reviewed by a second team member, with disagreements resolved through consensus.
If consensus is not achieved, a third reviewer will act as moderator. The same process will then be repeated for full-text appraisal.
Data Extraction
Data Extraction
An extraction tool will be developed with all authors based on the research questions.
The tool will be piloted on several articles and discussed with the team and any revisions to the tool completed at that time.
A single reviewer will extract study data, with a second reviewer appraising 20% of the studies to ensure reliability.
Disagreements will be discussed to reach consensus, with a third reviewer acting as moderator if consensus is not achieved.
Data extraction will include:
- Author/s
- Year of publication
- Study aims/purpose
- Country
- Number of participants (and sample)
- Number of males and females
- Ethnicity
- Study design
- Theories underpinning study
- Identify nonverbal and verbal behaviours
- Any associations or predictive models explaining the links between behaviours
- Outcome measures (name of)
Missing details will be coded as “not present”.
Strategy for data synthesis
Strategy for data synthesis
The data obtained from eligible papers will be summarized descriptively. We will count and compare them directly.