MU doctoral student Tyler Jamison gave “shacking” a classier name in her pioneering study on the “stayover phenomenon.”
“I needed something that sounded more scholarly,” she said. “I’m just giving it a word that would be more widely accepted in an academic community and may be more descriptive.”
[“‘We’re not living together’: Stayover relationships among college-educated emerging adults”](http://spr.sagepub.com/content/28/4/536.abstract) strictly defines a stayover couple as a stable pair that spends at least three nights per week together, without living together full time.
“When I was in college, my peer group did this,” Jamison said. “I noticed that most of the people who were dating someone exclusively stayed over. And then I came to grad school, and I really started to read the research about dating couples and cohabitation, and I just didn’t see it anywhere.”
Jamison, along with co-author Lawrence Ganong, explored the motivations and emotions surrounding stayovers. They interviewed 22 MU students, aged 19 to 28, in order to gauge the importance of different factors in stayover relationships.
According to the study, “Comfort and convenience were perceived as benefits of stayovers by all participants. However, they exert control over their space, time, possessions, and the relationship itself so that the levels of relational closeness and commitment do not exceed a desired level.”
Jamison said the information was a little surprising.
Her study revealed many participants did not leave belongings at a partner’s home because they wanted to be in control of their possessions and their space. Participants also wanted to maintain friendships, so they limited the number of stayovers per week.
Jamison said stayovers are used to slow a relationship or to avoid making the bigger commitments of cohabitation or marriage. MU junior Mira Barasch said staying over can actually foster commitment.
“People who stay over are people who want to commit some amount of time to each other but aren’t necessarily going to get married,” she said. “That’s just the relationship they’re in, and that’s where they want to be.”
This study is the first of its kind in the field of social science, but Jamison acknowledged the stayover phenomenon is nothing new.
“I don’t think this is a brand-new trend,” Jamison said. “But I think it’s gotten a bit more common. And for us social scientists who are a little behind the times, this is the first time we’ve talked about it in the context of other research that we have.”
In fact, the New York Times recently [published the study](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/fashion/the-stayover-as-a-relationship.html).
This study did not determine how staying over can impact the future of a relationship. MU sophomore Max Conger said he believes stayovers will strengthen his relationship with his girlfriend.
“It’s a sample of cohabitation, which I believe is necessary before marriage,” he said. “You can’t really know all the intricacies of a person and if you’re compatible if you haven’t lived with them for some noticeable amount of time.”
Jamison has already expanded her research with a survey study of 600 emerging adults that is currently in review at an academic journal. The survey will determine the prevalence of stayovers and the characteristics of people who are more likely to engage in stayover relationships. She hopes to expand her research to include older age groups and to study the development of stayover relationships over time.
“I think (staying over) is something we need to understand better,” Jamison said. “Does this matter in the future of those relationships, or is it just something that people do?”