Category: Relationships

1,523 pairs of friends and lovers were asked about their personalities, prejudices, values and attitudes.

People look for similarity in both their friendships and romantic relationships.

In a partner, people want someone with a similar personality, similar attitudes and values.

Similarity equals compatibility because couples do not change that much over the years.

That is why opposites generally do not attract — it is a fantasy that you will be able to make major changes to another person.

So, when two people meet for the first time, they are trying to work out what they have in common.

Any differences are only likely to be magnified over the years.

Dr Angela Bahns, the study’s first author, said:

“Picture two strangers striking up a conversation on a plane, or a couple on a blind date.

From the very first moments of awkward banter, how similar the two people are is immediately and powerfully playing a role in future interactions.

Will they connect? Or walk away?

Those early recognitions of similarity are really consequential in that decision.”

Birds of a feather

The conclusions come from a study in which 1,523 pairs of friends, lovers and mere acquaintances were asked about their personalities, prejudices, values and attitudes.

The results showed that people’s qualities did not converge over the years.

Instead, people choose to be friends and lovers with those who were already more similar to them at the outset.

Dr Bahns said:

“Anything that disrupts the harmony of the relationship–such as areas of disagreement, especially on attitudes, values, or preferences that are important–is likely to persist.

Change is difficult and unlikely; it’s easier to select people who are compatible with your needs and goals from the beginning.”

One should also pursue relationships with dissimilar people, though, said Professor Chris Crandall, study co-author:

“Getting along with people who aren’t like you is really useful.

Friends are for comfort, taking it easy, relaxing, not being challenged — and those are good things.

But you can’t have only that need.

You also need new ideas, people to correct you when you’re loony.

If you hang out only with people who are loony like you, you can be out of touch with the big, beautiful diverse world.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Bahns et al., 2016).

The best type of support to give your partner.

• Emotional support: being empathetic, encouraging, trusting and caring.
• Informational support: providing solutions in the form of advice.

“…receiving more emotional support was associated with more favorable affect and higher relationship satisfaction regardless of support preferences.Also, wives who received more informational support from their husbands had higher relationship satisfaction regardless of support preferences.”

“Husbands who experienced underprovision of informational support from their wives, experienced less favorable affect.In contrast, wives who experienced overprovision of informational support from their husbands experienced higher depressive symptoms.”

Related

• Love: 10 Studies That Unveil The Mysteries Of Passion, Attraction And Connection (P)

People’s decisions about their relationships are often unselfish.

People sometimes stay in unhappy relationships when they believe their partner cannot cope with a breakup.

It helps show that people’s decisions about their relationships are often unselfish.

Even people who are not that committed to their relationship do not want to hurt the other person.

Dr Samantha Joel, the study’s first author, said:

“The more dependent people believed their partner was on the relationship, the less likely they were to initiate a breakup.”

One of the studies in the research followed 1,348 people over ten weeks.

Dr Joel explained the results:

“When people perceived that the partner was highly committed to the relationship they were less likely to initiate a break up.

This is true even for people who weren’t really committed to the relationship themselves or who were personally unsatisfied with the relationship.

Generally, we don’t want to hurt our partners and we care about what they want.”

Other reasons people stay in unsatisfying relationships include that there are no better alternatives available and they afraid of being alone.

It is difficult to say if staying with someone for their benefit is really the sensible thing to do.

It will depend on how the relationship pans out.

Dr Joel hints that some people may be overestimating their partner’s reliance on the relationship:

“One thing we don’t know is how accurate people’s perceptions are.

It could be the person is overestimating how committed the other partner is and how painful the break up would be.”

Ultimately, Dr Joel asks:

“Who wants a partner who doesn’t really want to be in the relationship?”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Joel et al., 2018).

The test can predict which friendships will thrive and which will crumble.

Knowing how a friend will react in an irritating situation is a simple test of a good friendship.

Although it is easy to quickly describe someone’s traits, it is harder to predict how they will react in specific situations.

Some people have almost no knowledge of how people close to them will react, while others are surprisingly accurate.

The study of 178 people had them think about a number of scenarios and then predict how irritated they would be and how irritated their friend would be.

For example, imagine your friend is talking to someone who is very sceptical.

Here is the authors’ explanation:

“When someone is overly skeptical of information that he/she receives.

When he/she questions things that are generally accepted. When he/she is very hard to convince of something.”

The results showed that people with better relationships knew which situations really set their friends off and which didn’t bother them.

The authors call these ‘if-then’ profiles.

Knowing a friend’s ‘if-then’ profile was linked to lower levels of relationship conflict and less frustration.

Ms Charity A. Friesen, the study’s first author, said:

“It’s a more detailed way of understanding personality.

You might know the person is extroverted when they’re out with their friends but more introverted when they’re in a new situation.”

The study tested all kinds of scenarios, including obliviousness, gullibility, social timidity, social boldness and perfectionism.

While people have a natural desire to understand other people’s personalities, it takes more effort to really get to know a person.

Ms Friesen said:

“But, if I’m close to someone, I can really start to learn the if-then profiles, and that’s what’s going to pay off in my relationship.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Friesen & Kammrath, 2011).