Category: Relationships

Boosting marital quality with some of the oldest (and cheesiest) techniques known to psychology.

It can be hard to keep positive feelings towards your partner in a long-term relationship.

But help is at hand in the shape of new research funded by, of all people, the US Department of Defense.

Dr Jim McNulty, the study’s first author, explained:

“The research was actually prompted by a grant from the Department of Defense — I was asked to conceptualize and test a brief way to help married couples cope with the stress of separation and deployment.

We would really like to develop a procedure that could help soldiers and other people in situations that are challenging for relationships.”

What the psychologists came up with is a kind of subtle reprogramming of the mind using images of cute animals.

The idea being that we need to have positive associations with our partners.

So, why not boost those associations automatically using some of the oldest known techniques in psychology?

Half of 144 married couples watched a stream of images, with many positive ones appearing next to images of their partner.

The control group repeatedly saw their partner’s image linked to neutral rather than positive images.

They did this 3 days a week for 6 weeks.

The procedure worked: those who saw positive images linked to their partner reported higher marital quality afterwards.

Dr McNulty said:

“I was actually a little surprised that it worked.

All the theory I reviewed on evaluative conditioning suggested it should, but existing theories of relationships, and just the idea that something so simple and unrelated to marriage could affect how people feel about their marriage, made me skeptical.”

Of course, there are many other more everyday ways to create these positive associations, however, Dr McNulty said:

“One ultimate source of our feelings about our relationships can be reduced to how we associate our partners with positive affect, and those associations can come from our partners but also from unrelated things, like puppies and bunnies.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (McNulty et al., 2017).

One in five admitted using their sport as cover for an affair.

Football, rugby and golf are the sports most likely to be used as cover for an affair by men, according to a new survey.

Men playing team sports, in general were more likely to use practice as cover for an affair.

The results come from a British survey conducted by a golf equipment retailer.

Top of the lists of sports that men admitted to using as an excuse to be away was rugby.

Here is the full list along with the percentage of men admitting to using their sport as a cover for an affair:

1. Rugby (21%)
2. Football (19%)
3. Golf (17%)
4. Racing (15%)
5. Boxing (12%)
6. Tennis (11%)
7. Cricket (9%)
8. Cycling (7%)
9. Swimming (5%)
10. Athletics (4%)

Rugby-playing bankers

A recent study that was published in an academic journal had these down as the top professions for cheaters:

1. Financial (Bankers, brokers, analysts, etc.)
2. Aviation (Pilots, flight attendants, flight pursers, etc.)
3. Healthcare (Doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, etc.)

That leads us to the conclusion that bankers who play rugby at the weekend are probably the least trustworthy partners.

They are followed by football playing pilots and those well-known cads: golfing doctors.

How can we explain all this double-dealing?

Perhaps by amnesia:

“Cheating causes people to forget their past indiscretions and makes them more likely to cheat in the future, a new study finds.

Psychologists have found that people’s memories are actually less vivid for unethical decisions they have made in the past.

They call the phenomenon ‘unethical amnesia’.

In contrast, people have no problem in remembering the unethical decisions that others have made.

A slightly more scientific explanation could be the levels of testosterone in those playing aggressive full-contact sports like rugby.

Either that or it really is amnesia from all those concussions…

We all know that first impressions count — but this study reveals they matter a lot more than many people realise.

First impressions still affect how people treat us six months after they first see us.

Even if that first impression was only seeing a picture!

Professor Vivian Zayas, the study’s senior author, said:

“Facial appearance colors how we feel about someone, and even how we think about who they are.

These facial cues are very powerful in shaping interactions, even in the presence of other information.”

For the study a group of people were shown pictures of four women.

Sometimes they were shown smiling, other times not.

Up to six months later they met the woman face-to-face and had an interaction with her.

The results showed that people’s ratings of the women were heavily coloured by their initial reaction to the photograph.

It turned out that the actual meeting only seemed to confirm the first impression that people had formed from a photograph.

Professor Zayas said:

“What is remarkable is that despite differences in impressions, participants were interacting with the same person, but came away with drastically different impressions of her even after a 20-minute face-to-face interaction.”

How is it, that people only came to confirm their earlier impressions?

Professor Zayas thinks it’s down to a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Professor Zayas explained:

“They’re smiling a little bit more, they’re leaning forward a little bit more.

Their nonverbal cues are warmer.

When someone is warmer, when someone is more engaged, people pick up on this.

They respond in kind.

And it’s reinforcing: The participant likes that person more.”

It is also due to the halo effect, Professor Zayas said:

“We see an attractive person as also socially competent, and assume their marriages are stable and their kids are better off.

We go way beyond that initial judgment and make a number of other positive attributions.

A later study revealed that people thought they would revise their judgement of someone when they actually met them.

But the reality was that first impressions really do count.

Professor Zayas said:

“…people really think they would revise.

But in our study, people show a lot more consistency in their judgments, and little evidence of revision.”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality (Gunaydin et al., 2016).

Meeting image from Shutterstock

It is well-known that women prefer taller men — but does this translate into more happiness?

Around 50% of US women will not accept a romantic partner who is shorter than them (Yancey & Emerson, 2014).

Even worse news for the shorter man is an earlier study finding that only 4% of women would accept a shorter man.

Is the preference justified?

If happiness is the aim, the answer could be yes.

The bigger the height difference between husband and wife, the happier the wife, new research finds.

But this effect faded over the years.

After around 18 years of marriage the height difference was no longer linked to a wife’s increased happiness.

That the benefit of happiness lasted so long is surprising.

Usually people get used to things that make them happier relatively quickly.

This suggests height difference could be a special factor, or is a proxy for some special factor.

For example, it could be that taller men are happier men — and this happiness is infectious.

Dr Kitae Sohn, the study’s author, said:

“Although it has been known that women prefer tall men in mating for evolutionary reasons, no study (before this one) has investigated whether a taller husband makes his wife happier.”

The conclusions come from an analysis of thousands of Indonesian women, some of who were followed up over 14 years.

Dr Sohn writes in the article that the relative tallness of her husband has various advantages for the wife:

“One is the intrinsic value of height; that is, women simply like tall men, while unable to say why.

This is similar to people favouring fatty, salty, and sugary foods without knowing exactly why: such foods are essential to survival but were scarce as humans evolved – hence craving such foods increased reproductive fitness in the past.

Similarly, the female preference for male height increased women’s reproductive fitness.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Sohn, 2016).

The very nature of the app could be depersonalising and make people feel disposable.

People using Tinder have more negative body perceptions, new research finds.

On top of worse perceptions of their body, men using Tinder also have lower self-esteem.

Tinder is a dating app with 50 million users where you swipe left or right to like or reject matches.

The very nature of Tinder — which focuses on looks and quantity of people — could be depersonalising and make people feel disposable.

Dr Jessica Strübel, one of the study’s author, said:

“Tinder users reported having lower levels of satisfaction with their faces and bodies and having lower levels of self-worth than the men and women who did not use Tinder.”

For the research 1,317 people were asked about their satisfaction with their bodies along with Tinder use and other psychological constructs.

Dr Strübel said:

“We found that being actively involved with Tinder, regardless of the user’s gender, was associated with body dissatisfaction, body shame, body monitoring, internalization of societal expectations of beauty, comparing oneself physically to others, and reliance on media for information on appearance and attractiveness.”

The nature of the study means we can’t say that Tinder is causing lower self-esteem in men and body dissatisfaction in both sexes.

It could be that people with lower self-esteem feel more drawn to these apps.

Still, the study does highlight potential problems in the way men see their bodies.

Dr Strübel said:

“Although current body image interventions primarily have been directed toward women, our findings suggest that men are equally and negatively affected by their involvement in social media.”

The study was presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Denver, Colorado.

Psychologist challenges the orthodox view with evidence from studies conducted over 30 years.

Single people are more likely to experience psychological growth and development than those who are married, a psychologist claims.

This is just one perk of being single which is often ignored.

Others include greater sociability and resilience.

The conclusions come from surveying 814 studies conducted over 30 years.

Dr Bella DePaulo, addressing the American Psychological Association’s 124th Annual Convention, said:

“The preoccupation with the perils of loneliness can obscure the profound benefits of solitude.

It is time for a more accurate portrayal of single people and single life — one that recognizes the real strengths and resilience of people who are single, and what makes their lives so meaningful.”

While the advantages of being married are well-known, if over-stated, Dr DePaulo wants the perks of singledom to be acknowledged and understood.

Dr DePaulo finds several advantages to being single, after reviewing the research:

• Single people are more connected to their friends, family, neighbours and co-workers.
• Single people derive more meaning from their work than married people.
• Single people have greater self-determination.

It is the greater self-determination, along with other factors, that may contribute towards single people being more likely to experience a feeling of growth and development as a person.

In addition, single people who feel self-sufficient are less likely to experience negative emotions.

These advantages are seen despite the many benefits that society grants to married people, Dr DePaulo pointed out:

“People who marry get access to more than 1,000 federal benefits and protections, many of them financial.

Considering all of the financial and cultural advantages people get just because they are married, it becomes even more striking that single people are doing as well as they are.”

Being married, of course, has its advantages as well and Dr DePaulo does not claim one status is better than the other:

“More than ever before, Americans can pursue the ways of living that work best for them.

There is no one blueprint for the good life.

What matters is not what everyone else is doing or what other people think we should be doing, but whether we can find the places, the spaces and the people that fit who we really are and allow us to live our best lives.”

The study was presented at the American Psychological Association’s 124th Annual Convention by Dr Bella DePaulo.

How to keep the spark alive in long-term relationships.

Responsiveness is the key to keeping the sexual spark alive in long-term relationships, new research finds.

A deep level of understanding and the willingness to invest resources is central to responsiveness.

A responsive partner shows understanding to their other half, rather than dismissing their problems or ignoring them.

It is about being aware and responding to the emotional needs of the other person.

Professor Gurit Birnbaum, the first author of this study, said:

“Our research shows that partners who are responsive to each other outside the bedroom are able to maintain their sexual desire.

Responsiveness — which is a type of intimacy — is so important in a relationship because it signals that one is really concerned with the welfare of the other, but in a way that is truly open and informed about what the other cares about and wants.”

For the research 100 heterosexual couples kept diaries over six weeks.

They reported their own sexual desire and the responsiveness of their partner outside the bedroom.

The results showed that both men and women felt more sexual desire when their partner was more responsive to their nonsexual needs.

Women in particular responded to higher levels of responsiveness in their partner with greater levels of sexual desire.

The study’s authors explain:

“People who perceive that their partners understand and appreciate their needs can view sexual interactions as one way to enhance intimate experiences with responsive partners and, accordingly, may experience greater desire for sex with them.”

Professor Birnbaum said:

“Being nice’ and things like that are not necessarily based on who the partner is and what the partner really wants.

When a mate is truly responsive, the relationship feels special and unique and he or she is perceived as valued and desirable.

Sexual desire thrives on increasing intimacy and being responsive is one of the best ways to instill this elusive sensation over time; better than any pyrotechnic sex.”

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

Relationship image from Shutterstock

How feeling wealthy affects men and women’s satisfaction with their relationships.

When men feel wealthy, they are less satisfied with their partner’s appearance, new research finds.

Essentially, when men are wealthier, they feel their value is higher.

For women, though, how much money they have doesn’t seem to matter to how satisfied they are with their relationship.

Similarly, women do not feel that being richer increases how attractive they are.

Money, however, makes both sexes more bold.

When they feel richer, people are more likely to approach others that they find attractive.

Professor Darius Chan, one of the study’s authors, said:

“…wealthy men attach more importance to a mate’s physical attractiveness setting higher standards and preferring to engage in short-term mating than those who have less money.

However, for committed women, money may lead to less variation in their mating strategies because losing a long-term relationship generally has a higher reproductive cost.”

The results come from a Chinese study of heterosexuals involved in long-term relationships.

Here is how the study’s authors explain the results:

“…individuals’ mate preferences could be conditional on their self-perceived mate value…

Men’s mate value is based more on resources than women’s mate value, while women’s mate value depends more on physical attractiveness than men’s mate value.”

Professor Chan explained the motivation for the study:

“We wanted a better understanding of the psychological importance of money in the development of romantic relationships because very little is known about this subject.

That way people would have a better perspective of the relationships they are in.”

Would the same results be seen outside China?

Professor Chan thinks they would:

“Whereas it remains as an empirical question to be answered, we expect that our findings are likely to be found in other cultures as well because the basic mechanisms of mate selection have been found to be rather similar across culture.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Li et al., 2016).

Breakup image from Shutterstock

Almost everyone wants to get married eventually — but the reasons have changed.

Marriage is now more about children than an institution based on gender specialisation, a new study concludes.

Intensive investment in children is now the drive behind modern marriage, rather than economic necessity.

Professor Shelly Lundberg, a demographer and one of the study’s authors, said:

“In a gender-specialized economy, where men and women are playing very different productive roles, you need the long-term commitment to protect the vulnerable party, who in this case is the woman.

But when women’s educational attainment increased and surpassed that of men, and women became more committed to jobs and careers, the kind of economic disparity that supported a division of labor in the household eroded.”

But marriage means different things to different parts of society, Professor Lundberg explained:

“What we see is a striking adherence to traditional marriage patterns among the college educated and those with higher professional degrees.

While marriage rates have declined consistently over time, they have declined far more among people whose education level is high school or some college.”

More educated and higher income mothers also spend more time with their children than they did 30 years ago:

“In terms of time and money, the well-educated, higher-income parents have increased their investments in children much more than those with lower incomes.

They have the know-how and the resources and they expect to help their children become economically successful in a way that may seem out of reach for parents with much lower levels of resources.”

Despite all these changes, most men and women still do marry eventually:

“If you look at the fraction of people 50 years old who have ever married, the differences between the education groups are very, very small.

What is really distinctive is the timing of marriage and the very high proportion of women with a high school diploma or some college who have their first child either on their own or within a cohabitating relationship, which is extremely rare among people with a college degree or higher.

The timing is extraordinarily suggestive.

Almost everyone wants to get married eventually.

The question is when, and do you wait until you get married before you have a child?”

The study was published in the journal The Future of Children (Lundberg & Pollak, 2015).

Marriage image from Shutterstock