The main goals of the current study were to examine whether romantic relationship experiences in emerging adulthood reflect, in part, risk factors for alcohol use and misuse, and whether romantic relationship status accounted for, in part, the associations between these risk factors and subsequent alcohol use. Contrary to our expectations, a parental history of alcohol problems did not have a direct association with dating several people. However, as hypothesized, there was an indirect effect of parental alcohol problems on dating several people via a deviance proneness pathway. Participants whose parents had a history of alcohol problems reported more conduct problems, and in turn higher conduct problems was associated with a greater likelihood of dating several people. These findings are consistent with previous research showing that parental alcohol use disorder is associated with offspring conduct problems (Haber et al., 2010; Sher et al., 1991) as well as previous research that suggests that conduct problems are associated with lower likelihood of involvement in exclusive relationships (Horn et al., 2013; Jaffee et al., 2013).
