A Very Pleasurable Way To Improve Your Relationship

Both husbands and wives can benefit from this simple technique.

Both husbands and wives can benefit from this simple technique.

Acting compassionately towards your partner makes you feel better, even if your partner doesn’t notice it.

Compassionate acts include things like expressing tenderness, showing your partner they were valued and changing plans to accommodate your partner.

The study examined 175 newlyweds who had been together an average of 7 months.

Professor Harry Reis, the study’s first author, said:

“Our study was designed to test a hypothesis put forth by Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama.

That compassionate concern for others’ welfare enhances one’s own affective state.”

For the study, the couples kept a diary over two weeks recording when they acted compassionately towards their partners.

The study’s author describe ‘compassionate acts’ as:

“…caregiving that is freely given, focused on understanding and genuine acceptance of the other’s needs and wishes, and expressed through openness, warmth, and a willingness to put a partner’s goals ahead of one’s own.”

The results showed that partners benefited from receiving compassionate acts, but only if they noticed them.

However, performing the compassionate act was beneficial to the partner that did it, whether their partner noticed or not.

Professor Reis said:

“Clearly, a recipient needs to notice a compassionate act in order to emotionally benefit from it.

But recognition is much less a factor for the donor.”

The study was published in the journal Emotion (Reis et al., 2017).


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Hello, and welcome to PsyBlog. Thanks for dropping by.

This site is all about scientific research into how the mind works.

It’s mostly written by psychologist and author, Dr Jeremy Dean.

I try to dig up fascinating studies that tell us something about what it means to be human.

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Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks.