‘Phubbing’: The Modern Way To Kill Your Relationship

Phubbing is a phone behaviour linked to depression and lower relationship satisfaction.

Phubbing is a phone behaviour linked to depression and lower relationship satisfaction.

Phones could be damaging romantic relationships and leading to depression, a study finds.

Researchers looked at the impact of snubbing your partner to look at your phone.

They have called this ‘phubbing’ (phone snubbing).

Dr James A. Roberts, the study’s first author, said:

“What we discovered was that when someone perceived that their partner phubbed them, this created conflict and led to lower levels of reported relationship satisfaction.

These lower levels of relationship satisfaction, in turn, led to lower levels of life satisfaction and, ultimately, higher levels of depression.”

Examples of phubbing include:

  • My partner places his or her phone where they can see it when we are together.
  • My partner keeps his or her phone in their hand when he or she is with me.
  • My partner glances at his/her phone when talking to me.
  • If there is a lull in our conversation, my partner will check his or her phone.

The survey, which included 145 people, found:

  • 46% had been ‘phubbed’ by their partner.
  • 23% said this phubbing caused conflict in their relationships.
  • 37% felt depressed at least some of the time.

Dr Meredith David, another of the study’s authors, said:

“In everyday interactions with significant others, people often assume that momentary distractions by their cell phones are not a big deal.

However, our findings suggest that the more often a couple’s time spent together is interrupted by one individual attending to his/her cellphone, the less likely it is that the other individual is satisfied in the overall relationship.

Specifically, momentary distractions by one’s cellphone during time spent with a significant other likely lowers the significant other’s satisfaction with their relationship, and could lead to enhanced feelings of depression and lower well-being of that individual.

Thus, when spending time with one’s significant other, we encourage individuals to be cognizant of the interruptions caused by their cellphones, as these may well be harmful to their relationship.”

The study was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior (Roberts et al., 2016).

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).

The Best Personality Trait For A Partner

This personality trait was linked to less marital conflict.

This personality trait was linked to less marital conflict.

Positivity is one of the best personality traits for a partner, research finds.

Women who have positive partners report less marital conflict.

Other personality factors are also linked to a better relationship:

  • Women fought less with introverted men.
  • Women had less conflict with men who had stable emotions.

Marital conflict included things like criticism, too many demands or just getting on the other person’s nerves.

Along with personality factors, health was also important.

Women had less marital conflict if their partner was in good health.

Dr James Iveniuk, the study’s first author, said:

“Wives report more conflict if their husband is in poor health.

If the wife is in poor health, there doesn’t seem to be any difference in terms of the quality of the marriage for the husband.”

The conclusions come from a study of 953 hetersexual couples who had been together for an average of 39 years.

The results showed that the personality and health of the man was linked to marital conflict.

However, the woman’s personality and health made little difference in this regard, said Dr Iveniuk:

“Wives whose husbands show higher levels of positivity reported less conflict.

However, the wives’ positivity had no association with their husbands’ reports of conflict.”

Professor Linda J. Waite, study co-author, said:

“Several previous studies have been about the implications of marital status on health.

This research allows us to examine individual marriages and not ‘married people.’

We have the reports on the quality of the marriage from each person, about their own personality and their own health.”

The study was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family (Iveniuk et al., 2014).

Cheating Partners Most Common In These Professions

Cheating is most common in these professions and when key age milestones are approaching, according to a survey.

Cheating is most common in these professions and when key age milestones are approaching, according to a survey.

Bankers, pilots and doctors head the list of cheating professionals, according to a survey.

People working in finance, aviation and healthcare are most likely to cheat on their partners.

Cheating is more common as people reach milestone birthdays, such as 29, 39 and 49, a recent study also revealed.

Here is the full list of nine professions from the survey conducted for an infidelity dating website:

  1. Financial (Bankers, brokers, analysts, etc.)
  2. Aviation (Pilots, flight attendants, flight pursers, etc.)
  3. Healthcare (Doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, etc.)
  4. Business (CEOs, managers, secretaries, etc.)
  5. Sports (Athletes, instructors, representatives, etc.)
  6. Arts (Musicians, models, actors, photographers, etc.)
  7. Nightlife Industry (DJs, dancers, waiters, etc.)
  8. Communication (Journalists, public relations, communicators, etc.)
  9. Legal (Lawyers, secretaries, prosecutors, judges, etc.)

Over 5,000 women who were currently cheating, or have cheated on their partner, were surveyed.

The survey found that two-thirds cheated at work, despite 85 percent saying it was better to avoid relationships with colleagues.

The advantage of the workplace, though, is it easier to find someone there and it makes work more exciting, survey respondents indicated.

Naturally, the main problem was if workplace romance ended badly and you had to continue working with that person.

Cheating when approaching a milestone

Another survey of 42,000 adults has revealed that people are more likely to cheat when approaching a milestone birthday, like 30, 40 or 50.

This seems to be about the search for meaning.

Dr Adam Alter, first author of that study, said:

“People audit the meaningfulness of their lives as they approach a new decade.

People tend to either conclude happily that their lives are meaningful or they decide their lives lack meaning.

Some people might struggle to come to terms with the conclusion that their lives lack meaning. They might seek a socially damaging extramarital affair.”

The study was published in the journal PNAS (Alter & Hershfield, 2014).

The Psychology Of Poor Christmas Gifts And How They Affect Relationships

Men and women react quite differently in the short-term to receiving good and bad gifts.

Men and women react quite differently in the short-term to receiving good and bad gifts.

Buying Christmas presents is hard work: hard on the feet, hard on the bank account and hard on the emotions.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of work for little reward.

Those nearest and dearest assume you know them well enough to buy a decent present, so that getting it wrong reflects badly on the relationship.

Psychological research on how gift-giving affects relationships hints at this no-win situation.

Studies suggest that good gifts only affirm similarity between couples, and so do little for the relationship.

Poor gifts, though, may lead people to question their similarity with each other, thereby damaging the relationship.

Studies tend to focus on how gifts affect perceived similarity because finding a ‘kindred spirit’ is thought central to successful relationships and reliably predicts relationship satisfaction (Murray et al., 2002).

But research by Elizabeth W. Dunn at the University of British Columbia and colleagues, published in the journal Social Cognition, suggests that men and women react quite differently in the short-term to receiving good and bad gifts (Dunn et al., 2008).

Gifts to strangers

To test their theories, Dunn and colleagues set up two experiments, each with a twist in their tail.

In the first experiment participants (students at the University of Virginia) were sat down to chat with a new opposite sex acquaintance for four minutes.

After this they were asked to select a gift for their new friend from a list of gift certificates for a variety of stores and restaurants.

The idea was that each participant then looked at the gift chosen for them and evaluated their perceived similarity with the other person.

Here’s the twist: before the experiment each participant had been asked to rank the gift certificates in the order they themselves would like to receive them.

Then the experimenters simply fed these preferences straight back to participants as though they had come from their new acquaintance.

Half the participants were told the other person had chosen their top choice, and the other half their last-but-one choice.

This created two conditions: those who got what they wanted and those who didn’t.

When the experimenters looked at the ratings of perceived similarity, the results showed a marked difference in how the men and women had reacted to good and bad gifts.

Men who got the gifts they wanted perceived themselves as more similar to the gift-giver, suggesting the better gift would have the expected positive effect on the relationship.

Women, though, seemed to be relatively unaffected by whether the present was good or bad.

This is a rather puzzling finding: shouldn’t good gifts also increase perceived similarity – and so liking – for women just as the men?

A possible solution to this puzzle emerged in the second experiment.

Gift-giving in established relationships

Instead of participants who hadn’t met before, the second experiment involved men and women who were already in (heterosexual) relationships.

Otherwise the experiment was almost identical, with the same twist that each received what they had indicated were their own best (or worst) gifts.

The only difference was that in addition to asking about perceived similarity with their partner, each participant was also asked how long they expected their relationship to last after the gift.

Again, men who received poor gifts, on average, perceived less similarity with their partners and thought their future together was significantly shorter – as you’d expect.

But this time women who received the poor gift from their partners actually saw greater perceived similarity and thought that their relationship would continue for longer than those who had received the good gift.

Now what’s going on?

Psychological defence mechanism

Dunn and colleagues explain that the more threat women felt to their relationship (i.e. from the poor gift), the more they tried to protect against this threat.

With a new acquaintance in the first experiment there wasn’t much relationship to protect, so the bad gift had no effect compared to the good gift.

But when there was a substantial existing relationship to protect, women were motivated to guard against this potential threat.

Men, in contrast, made no such effort, saying they didn’t like their partner’s choice and, by extension, their partner.

Now before men start thinking they can use these experiments to justify giving their partners poor gifts, remember that these studies are short-term and probably only represent men and women’s first instinct when receiving good and bad gifts.

The real lesson is that women are more motivated than men to marshal psychological defence mechanisms to protect against the damaging effects of poor gifts.

Over the long-term the story is likely to be the same for both sexes: bad gifts damage relationships by chipping away at their heart; the feeling that in this big, bad world you’ve found someone who really understands you, and knows what you like.

.