Emerging Adults’ Autonomy in Romantic Narrative Identities: Choices Between Emotions and Rationality

Trends in Psychology. 2025.

Victoria G. Yerofeyeva, Ekaterina M. Tsyganova, Bochaver A. A.

This study examines how emerging adults define autonomy through their roman-

tic relationship choices. Emerging adulthood provides a lot of opportunities to try

different things, but the diversity of alternatives makes it difficult to choose. Under

these conditions, autonomy becomes a necessary personal characteristic. We set

out to examine how young people construct romantic narratives identities based

on the characteristics of choices—emotional or rational, emotional tone, and their

own autonomy. To do this, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with

23 heterosexual emerging adults aged 18 to 25 and analyzed the data using McAd-

ams’ narrative analysis. It was found that early choices are mostly made with low

autonomy, and they are emotional. Later, autonomy increases, and choices become

rational. Most of the narratives are positive because of the optimistic sense of future

possibilities that characterizes emerging adulthood as a life period that provides a

lot of opportunities. We also found that some respondents refuse to enter relation-

ships, demonstrating a high level of autonomy. This may be explained by either a

reluctance to enter a relationship due to unwillingness or an avoidant attachment

style. Further research clarifying how autonomy and two systems of decision-mak-

ing relate is needed to better understand how choices affect well-being.

Keywords: rationality, autonomy, choice, emotions, emerging adulthood, relatedness, narrative identity

Publication based on the results of: Decision-making in key life spheres: space of choice and the role of individual characteristics and contextual factors (2025)