Stress change the types of behaviours people notice in their partners.
There are two factors that help keep long distance relationships alive.
There are two factors that help keep long distance relationships alive.
Contrary to the received wisdom, long distance relationships can work, according to research published in the Journal of Communication (Jiang & Hancock, 2013).
Two factors that help keep long distance relationships alive are that these couples:
The study, which contradicts much standard dating advice, was inspired by the increasing numbers of people conducting long distance relationships because of the demands of education, employment or emigration.
The researchers examined 67 couples: some who were in long distance relationships, and others who were in close physical proximity to each other.
They found that the long distance couples were highly trusting and even felt more intimate with their partners, despite their physical distance.
Crystal Jiang explained:
“…our culture emphasizes being together physically and frequent face-to-face contact for close relationships, but long-distance relationships clearly stand against all these values.
People don’t have to be so pessimistic about long-distance romance.
The long-distance couples try harder than geographically close couples in communicating affection and intimacy, and their efforts do pay back.”
It shows that, while it is not necessarily ideal to be separated from your partner for long periods of time, people do find ways to cope with the situation.
Other studies have also found that, although those in long distance relationships talk with each other less, what they do say is imbued with greater meaning.
This appears to balance out the lack of physical contact.
This means those in long distance relationships often have similar levels of relationship satisfaction and stability as those who are geographically close to each other.
None of this research, though, tells us anything about which types of people can cope with long distance relationships.
While some people may naturally have the skills required, others may not.
Still, it’s heartening to know that should a long distance relationship be unavoidable, many people are able to keep their intimacy levels high, which helps fuel the relationship, just as if they lived in the same house.
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Despite major social changes in the last fifty years, some old-fashioned differences still exist between the sexes.
Despite major social changes in the last fifty years, some old-fashioned differences still exist between the sexes.
Intelligence and friendliness are the two traits seen as most attractive by both men and women in a potential romantic partner, research finds.
Despite major social changes in the last fifty years, some old-fashioned differences still exist between the sexes.
Men tend to care more about women’s appearance and go for younger women.
Women, meanwhile, have a tendency to focus more on security and financial prospects.
The conclusions come from a study of 14,399 heterosexual people from 45 different countries.
Broadly, these tendencies have not changed in the last forty years, the researchers find.
Women place more importance on men’s intelligence and good health, while men are more focused on appearance.
Women still prefer older partners, with the average age difference between men and women being around 2-3 years.
However, in cultures with more gender equality, partners tend to be closer in age.
The study has been criticised on social media, explains Professor Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, study co-author:
“One criticism of the findings that was quickly posted on social media was that there’s extreme overlap between the sexes in their partner preferences.
Some thought this should have been better communicated in the article.
But the criticism is unfair in this context, and not something that was undervalued.
The research identifies similarities, overlaps and differences.”
As with many psychology studies, the researchers are focused on average differences across many people.
Individuals, though, display incredible variety.
In other words, many men and women will have similar goals in dating while some women do focus more on appearance and some men focus more on money and security.
Professor Mons Bendixen, study co-author, said:
“The point of the article is to see if the gender differences observed in earlier cross-cultural studies were reproducible.
To a great extent, they are.”
One theory for why men focus on looks and women on security comes from evolutionary psychology.
Evolutionary psychology is a branch of psychology that attempts to explain mental traits as adaptations or products of natural selection.
According to the theory, women have more to lose from a relationship: they are left holding the baby.
Hence, their focus on security and age (older men tend to be richer).
Men, though, search for genetic fitness in their offspring.
They, or at least their genes, want to reproduce themselves in the fittest way possible.
Younger and more attractive women are more likely to produce healthy and genetically fit children.
Hence, men’s focus on looks.
It is highly debatable whether or not the explanation provided by evolutionary psychology is really true.
Certainly, its principles are not fashionable right now — not that fashion is any guide to truth.
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Walter et al., 2020).
What makes people stay in relationships and what makes them want to leave?
What makes people stay in relationships and what makes them want to leave?
People who are married or just dating give similar reasons for wanting to leave their partner.
These are (1) issues with their partner’s personality, (2) a breach of trust (often, cheating) and (3) partner becoming distant or disconnected.
People give slightly different reasons for wanting to stay together.
For people who are married, the top reasons to stay together are the investment they have already made in the relationship, family responsibilities and the barriers to leaving (e.g. financial).
You can tell these are people who have been together for an average of 9 years — the responses are kind of negative.
Top of the reasons to stay for those dating included liking their partner’s personality, feeling close and the positive emotions from the relationship.
In other words, these are couples who have been together for an average of two years and haven’t had kids yet.
Professor Samantha Joel, who led the study, said:
“Most of the research on breakups has been predictive, trying to predict whether a couple stays together or not, but we don’t know much about the decision process — what are the specific relationship pros and cons that people are weighing out.”
Around half the people in the study had both reasons to stay and reasons to leave.
Professor Joel said:
“What was most interesting to me was how ambivalent people felt about their relationships.
They felt really torn.
Breaking up can be a really difficult decision.
You can look at a relationship from outside and say ‘you have some really unsolvable problems, you should break up’ but from the inside that is a really difficult thing to do and the longer you’ve been in a relationship, the harder it seems to be.”
Most people said they had relationship deal-breakers, but these are often forgotten when they meet someone.
Professor Joel said:
“Humans fall in love for a reason.
From an evolutionary perspective, for our ancestors finding a partner may have been more important than finding the right partner.
It might be easier to get into relationships than to get back out of them.”
The study was published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science (Joel et al., 2017).
Includes research on the secrets partners keep from each other, signs of healthy marriages and what children to relationships.
Includes research on the secrets partners keep from each other, signs of healthy marriages and what children to relationships.
Almost 90 percent of people keep small, mundane secrets from their partners, it turns out.
This is just one of the most fascinating insights from recent psychology studies on relationships covered here on PsyBlog.
The researchers conclude that these little secrets may even benefit relationships in certain ways.
Find out about this and other intriguing psychology studies on relationships from the members-only section of PsyBlog:
(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)
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This attachment style can be damaging to relationships.
This attachment style can be damaging to relationships.
People who feel strong connections to fictional characters in TV shows are more likely to have relationship issues, research suggests.
Fictional TV shows and movies may provide a ‘safe space’ in which people with relationship problems can work them out.
By thinking about their favourite character, they can imagine what they might do in the same situation.
People high in anxious-avoidant attachment were especially likely to strongly identify with fictional characters.
Anxious-avoidant people desire intimacy, but display avoidant behaviour that tends to damage their relationship.
Classic examples of avoidant behaviours include not returning calls, not expressing love, mocking partner’s attempts at intimacy and ‘forgetting’ plans.
Mr Nathan Silver, the study’s first author, said:
“We can do a lot more with stories than just escape into them.
For people with attachment issues, movies and TV shows can be a way to try to understand their problems or to vicariously meet their needs for intimacy in a way that they may find difficult in real life.”
For the study, 1,039 Americans were asked about their relationship problems and TV habits.
Anxious-avoidant people were most strongly connected to characters in TV shows, the results showed.
They were more likely to:
Mr Silver explained the problem that faces anxious-avoidant people in their relationships:
“These are the classic self-sabotagers.
They really want supportive intimacy, but tend to screw it up because they also have these avoidance behaviors.
What the story world provides these people is a safe place to deal with this ambivalence.
That’s why I believe they are engaging more in the story world.”
Fiction provides a virtual world to try out possibilities, said Mr Silver:
“What our results suggest is that people with these issues can use the story world to think about how they would react if they had the chance.
They expand their social experiences, at least vicariously.”
Unfortunately, the study doesn’t tell us whether using TV shows and movies in this way is beneficial or not to people with attachment issues.
However, other research has found that individuals with insecure attachment styles are more likely to use television as a way to avoid their own emotional experiences, which can be detrimental, depending on the circumstances (Greenwood, 2008).
Alternatively, some shows may provide a sense of vicarious emotional connection and validation for people with insecure attachment styles, who may struggle to form healthy, secure relationships in their own lives.
In other words, for some people, TV may function as a distraction from real relationship problems and/or as a method of filling a void.
The study was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (Silver & Slater, 2019).
Look for these signs of a successful relationship.
Look for these signs of a successful relationship.
Being ‘ready for commitment’ is a clear sign of relationship success, research finds.
Being ready for commitment makes people do the work required to keep a relationship going.
Those who are ‘commitment ready’ are 25 percent less likely to break up over time.
Four common signs of commitment include:
Professor Chris Agnew, the study’s first author, said:
“Feeling ready leads to better relational outcomes and well-being.
When a person feels more ready, this tends to amplify the effect of psychological commitment on relationship maintenance and stability.”
The conclusions come from a study of over 400 adults in relationships.
All were asked about their sense of whether this was the right time for a relationship, how satisfied they were with it and how much investment they had made.
The results showed that readiness was strongly linked to commitment.
In other words, people tended to commit to a relationship when they felt ready for it.
However, when they didn’t feel ready, they did not do the work required to keep the relationship alive.
Professor Agnew said:
“People’s life history, relationship history, and personal preferences all play a role.
One’s culture also transmits messages that may signal that one is more or less ready to commit.”
The study will be published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Agnew et al., 2019).
Attachment styles are important because we are social animals, relying heavily on our ability to form relationships with others.
Attachment styles are important because we are social animals, relying heavily on our ability to form relationships with others.
Attachment styles analyse how people respond to threats and problems in their personal relationships.
People who find relationships difficult often become unable to participate in the ordinary give-and-take of everyday life.
They may become hostile towards others, have problems in education as well as a greater chance of developing psychiatric disorders later in life.
These difficulties sometimes have their roots in the most important early relationships, evidenced in attachment styles.
It’s no wonder that child psychologists are so interested in the first relationships we build with our primary caregivers.
These attachment styles are likely to prove a vital influence on all our future relationships, including those with our spouse, our workmates and our own children.
While you can’t blame everything on your parents, early relationship attachment styles are like a template that we take forward with us in life.
So the development of early relationships – often called ‘attachment styles’ – is extremely important.
Naturally child psychologists realised it would be extremely useful to know how well attached children are to their parents.
But here’s the problem: how do you measure attachment styles?
Infants of eight months old tend not to say very much of any use and parents can’t be trusted.
Clearly psychologists needed to observe the caregiver and baby interacting.
It was well-known child psychologist Mary Ainsworth and colleagues who came up with what has now become standard procedure for investigating the emotional attachment styles between children and caregivers (Ainsworth et al., 1978).
Some have argued that this is the most powerful experiment for studying a child’s social and emotional development.
Ainsworth based her test of attachment styles on fear, one of the most basic human emotions.
As the baby becomes attached to its caregivers, after about six months, it starts to display fear in two easily repeatable situations:
To investigate how infants and their caregivers interact Ainsworth devised a series of interactions which were designed to test how the baby reacted to both stranger anxiety and separation anxiety.
The procedure is like a carefully choreographed ballet, each act lasting about 3 minutes:
As you can see the strange situation is designed to get more strange for the infant as it goes on.
For a start the infant is in an unfamiliar room, then a stranger enters, then the stranger starts trying to talk to them, then their caregiver is nowhere to be seen.
Each time the stress on the infant is ramped up.
Analysing the results after repeating the experiment with many infants, Ainsworth discovered a fascinating pattern in the data.
It turned out that the most interesting aspect of the interactions observed was how the baby reacted when the caregiver returned.
This analysis of the infant’s reaction to the mother’s return led to a distinction between three separate types of attachment, one of the ‘good kind’ and two so-called ‘disordered attachment styles’.
Infants considered securely attached will be reasonable upset when their caregiver leaves but will be happy to see them return and will be quickly soothed.
Extensive research has found that around 70 percent of infants fall into this category.
Infants with this attachment style show little interest in their caregivers, although they will cry when they leave the room.
Strangely, though, they don’t seem that pleased when their caregivers return, often turning their backs on them and trying to get away.
Around 20 percent of infants fall into this category.
Infants with this attachment style initially don’t want to leave their caregiver to explore the room.
Then, like the insecure/avoidant, they cry when their caregiver leaves but then when they return seem to want to be consoled, but resist it.
They seem angry.
About 10 percent of infants fall into this category.
Later research also identified a further insecure attachment style of disorganised attachment.
These infants don’t show much of a pattern: they seem constantly afraid of and confused by their caregiver.
The stress is often too much for the infant.
This type of attachment style has been associated with depressed caregivers or instances of child abuse.
An enormous amount of research on attachment styles has gone into examining what factors cause infants to be attached in these different ways.
Much emphasis has been placed on the way the caregiver treats the infant.
Secure attachment styles have been associated with caregivers being (Papalia & Olds, 1997):
Clearly the reverse of these tends to result in insecure attachment styles.
Some research has also found that the infant’s temperament (personality) is also an important factor in attachment styles.
Many researchers have argued that attachment styles have important social, emotional and cognitive consequences.
Some have argued that the more positive an infant’s early attachments are, the more likely it is to successfully separate from the caregiver later in life.
Other benefits of secure attachment styles include (Papalia & Olds, 1997):
Meanwhile insecurely attached children tend to:
Critics of the ‘strange situation’ have argued that it is just too strange.
For example:
Despite these criticisms the ‘strange situation’ has fared relatively well in answer to many of these questions.
It provides a standardised way of examining the very earliest relationships we form with our caregivers.
It is a way of revealing the answers infants have arrived at to four major questions their social and emotional selves are asking:
It’s infant’s attachment styles that give us a clue to what answers they’ve formulated to these questions and so a window on both their past and their future.
→ This article is part of a series on 10 crucial developmental psychology studies:
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Men’s choice of pick up lines may help quickly select for women with particular personalities.
Men’s choice of pick up lines may help quickly select for women with particular personalities.
When it comes to the human mating game, men are often portrayed as having little power or guile.
Research finds it is women that control early interactions, from first signalling the man to approach to deciding whether to engage in sex.
One area in which men are popularly seen as especially inept is in their choice of pick up lines.
Leading the field in crass openings are sexually-loaded remarks.
Indeed, a study by Chris Bale from the University of Central Lancashire found that sexually-loaded remarks were the type of openers least likely to lead to further interaction (Bale, 2006).
Which begs the question: why do men still use them?
An ingeniously simple answer is suggested by both Bale (2006) and Cooper et al (2007), with some evidence to back it up.
Pick up lines may be a way for men to select for a particular type of woman.
In other words, men using sexually-loaded remarks are looking for a certain type of woman.
Similarly, at the other end of the scale, men who use character-revealing or culture-based pick up lines are probably trying to show they are a good mate looking for a long-term partner.
That’s the theory and here’s how Cooper and colleagues searched for evidence.
The study first asked participants to consider a series of scenarios in which men tried to strike up a conversation with a woman.
In each the man used a different type of pick up line.
Participants were then asked to rate how likely it was the conversation would continue on the basis of that pick up line.
These pick up lines were collated from a variety of sources and clustered into the following categories:
So, now we know, generally speaking, how our female participants react to these four broad types of pick up lines.
Next we need to find out what types of men the female participants prefer.
For this they completed the Dating Partner Preference Test.
An analysis of these results suggests women see men as generally falling into one of four types:
Along with these vignettes and the Dating Partner Preference Test, participants were asked to fill in personality measures of their psychoticism (tendency for inappropriate emotional responses and recklessness), extraversion (being outgoing, gregarious, externally oriented) and neuroticism (the tendency to experience negative emotional states).
Now we’ve got all the information we need to see if there’s any connection.
Looking at the correlations shows there is support for the idea that pick up lines select for women with particular personalities.
It does seem, then, that the type of pick up lines men choose does have a measurable effect on the type of women who respond to them.
This can effectively allow men to make a quick assessment of a woman’s personality by their response to a particular type of approach.
Those looking for a ‘bad mate’ might use a sexually-loaded remark or a compliment, while those wanting an extrovert should use a joke.
I have focussed on women’s perceptions of male pick up lines as in most cultures it’s mostly the men using the lines, although this is changing.
Perhaps to reflect this men’s perceptions of women’s pick up lines were also included in this study.
The results for men’s perceptions showed that in comparison to women, men were more likely to prefer pick up lines involving sex (surprise surprise!) as opposed to women who preferred humour.
Men also tended to be worse than women at judging what types of pick up lines women prefer.
The types of pick up lines whose effectiveness was under-estimated by men were those involving offers of help to women, handing control of the interaction to women and (subtly) displaying wealth (surprise surprise!).
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that men prefer pick up lines to be direct.
But, do men and women agree on what a direct approach is and why such directness is necessary in the first place?
These questions are addressed in a study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Wade et al., 2009).
Forty women aged between 19 and 22 were asked to list the types of pick up lines they might use to signal their interest in dating a man.
Researchers sorted these pick up lines into 10 categories, then 40 men and women rated them in order of perceived directness.
Here are the 10 categories (with examples) from most to least direct pick up lines:
Then men were asked which pick up lines they thought would be most effective for women to use on them.
They pretty much put the pick up lines in order of directness, with the most direct also perceived as the most effective.
When women were asked to do the same they produced a similar list with one exception.
Women didn’t rate as highly giving out phone numbers or asking for a call.
Overall, though, women clearly understand that men prefer the direct approach.
The only surprise is the low ranking of funny or sexual humour.
Men don’t seem to appreciate the lewd come-ons suggested by gender stereotypes.
This relatively low rating for a jokey approach is another thing shared by both sexes.
Previous work by Bale et al. (2006) found that women weren’t particularly impressed with men trying to be funny, despite what we are often told.
It seems opening lines are a serious business for both sexes.
The interesting question, although it may seem easy to answer, is why do men prefer a direct approach?
Two obvious answers are men’s purported inability to read body language or an assumed distaste for reading situational subtleties (in other words: too stupid or can’t be bothered).
But researchers in Germany provide us with evidence for an alternative explanation.
Grammer et al. (2000) videotaped opposite sex pairs meeting for the first time to catch the nuances of body language in the first 10 minutes of an interaction.
Afterwards women were asked how much interest they had in the man they’d been talking to.
The researchers revealed two counter-intuitive results:
The reason men prefer a direct approach becomes clearer.
Women may think they are sending out all the right nonverbal signals and may blame men for failing to pick up on them.
But from a man’s perspective there may often be little to pick up on because women, being polite, are always sending positive nonverbal signals.
While it’s not good practice to generalise too much from one relatively small study of 45 participants whose age ranged from 18 to 23, the results accord with what men say anecdotally: they often can’t tell if women are interested or not because the signals are too ambiguous.
So subtlety is out and it’s back to the age-old problem for both men and women: who has the guts to risk rejection with the direct approach?
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Searching for someone who exactly matches your ideals may be a waste of time.
Searching for someone who exactly matches your ideals may be a waste of time.
People desire positive traits in a partner, but it probably does not matter exactly which ones they get, research reveals.
The study found that when selecting a partner, people tend to ignore their own top three traits and are equally happy with someone who has a different set of positive traits.
For example, people say they want intelligence and kindness, but are just as happy with a sense of humour and ambition.
Dr Jehan Sparks, the study’s first author, said:
“The people in our study could very easily list their top three attributes in an ideal partner.
We wanted to see whether those top three attributes really mattered for the person who listed them.
As it turns out, they didn’t.”
For the research, over 700 people were asked to list their ideal traits in a partner.
These traits were then compared to people they actually knew and with how attractive they were.
The results showed that people did prefer others who had the traits they had listed as most attractive.
So far, so predictable.
Professor Paul Eastwick, study co-author, said:
“On the surface, this looks promising.
You say you want these three attributes, and you like the people who possess those attributes.
But the story doesn’t end there.”
However, people were equally attracted to other people who had different positive traits.
Dr Sparks explained:
“So in the end, we want partners who have positive qualities, but the qualities you specifically list do not actually have special predictive power for you.”
Professor Eastwick said:
“Why do we order off the menu for ourselves?
Because it seems obvious that I will like what I get to pick.
Our findings suggest that, in the romantic domain, you might as well let a random stranger order for you—you’re just as likely to end up liking what you get.”
Searching for someone who exactly matches your ideals may be a waste of time, says Dr Sparks:
“It’s really easy to spend time hunting around online for someone who seems to match your ideals.
But our research suggests an alternative approach: Don’t be too picky ahead of time about whether a partner matches your ideals on paper.
Or, even better, let your friends pick your dates for you.”
The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (Sparks et al., 2020).
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