Relationships

Little evidence linking five 'love languages' to healthy relationships, researchers say

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 15:16:15 +0000

Little evidence linking five 'love languages' to healthy relationships, researchers say

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 01/04/2024 - 10:16

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Assumptions around love languages, such as physical touch and gifts, don't hold up to scientific scrutiny, according to research by U of T Mississauga psychologist Emily Impett and her research partners (photo via Pexels)

Megan Easton

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Breaking Research

Graduate Students

Psychology

Relationships

Research & Innovation

U of T Mississauga

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U of T Mississauga's Emily Impett and her collaborators say good relationships are more like a balanced diet, where people receive a wide range of essential nutrients

Even if you don’t know your love language, you’ve probably heard of the concept.

The theory’s pervasiveness in pop culture has only increased in the 30-odd years since Baptist minister Gary Chapman published his book The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts.

But when psychology researchers at the University of Toronto decided to test Chapman’s main assumptions, they found they don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Emily Impett (supplied image)

“We were very skeptical about the love languages idea, so we decided to review the existing studies on it,” says Emily Impett, a professor in U of T Mississauga’s department of psychology who collaborated with graduate student Gideon Park and York University Assistant Professor Amy Muise.

“None of the 10 studies supported Chapman’s claims.”

For example, Chapman uses the language metaphor to represent how individuals tend to prefer giving and receiving love. The notion rests on three premises: that every person has a primary love language, that there are five love languages (physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time and gifts), and that when couples “speak” the same love language it improves the quality of their relationships.

But each of these assertions broke down when Impett and her team evaluated them against the 10 studies they reviewed (the team’s results are scheduled to be published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science).

“People determine their primary love language by taking Chapman’s quiz, which forces them to select the expressions of love they find most meaningful,” says Impett, who is also the director of the Relationships and Well-Being Laboratory. “It could be choosing between receiving gifts or holding hands, for example. These are trade-offs we don’t have to make in real life.

“In fact, people report that they find all of the things described by the love languages to be incredibly important in a relationship.”

When it comes to the number of love languages, the studies found inconsistent evidence for the five languages Chapman identifies, while other relationship research shows there are additional ways of expressing and receiving love.

“One key thing to remember is that Chapman developed the five love languages by working with a sample of white, religious, mixed-gender, traditional couples,” says Impett. “There are certain things that are left out, such as affirming a partner’s personal goals outside of the relationship, which might be significant to couples with more egalitarian values.”

Most importantly, Impett and her team found no scientific evidence for Chapman’s central contention that people who choose partners that speak their love language, or learn to speak it, will have more successful relationships.

“There’s no support for this matching effect,” says Impett. “People are basically happier in relationships when they receive any of these expressions of love.”

Impett and her collaborators recognize that people crave easy tools to enhance their love lives – which helps explain why Chapman’s book has sold millions of copies and turned the “love languages” into romantic shorthand.

“Everyone wants to be in a good relationship, so we didn’t just say the love languages are scientifically debunked and stop there,” she says.

The team offered an alternative metaphor – one that’s rooted in research. It proposes that relationships are a balanced diet, where people need a full range of essential nutrients (including the factors described by the five love languages and others such as companionship and emotional support) to nourish lasting love.

“It keeps all expressions of love on the menu and invites partners to share what they need at different times,” says Impett. “It allows for the fact that people and relationships aren’t static and can’t be categorized into neat boxes.”

This is not the first time Impett has put common beliefs about relationships to the test. “I really like challenging these lay ideas because my goal is always to translate the best scientific evidence to therapists and the general public,” she says.

Relationship feeling stale? WooYourBoo startup to help couples reconnect

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 19:56:57 +0000

Relationship feeling stale? WooYourBoo startup to help couples reconnect

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 02/13/2023 - 14:56

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Colleen and La Vance Dotson, members of U of T's Black Founders Network, co-founded WooYourBoo to help couples better communicate with each other through features such as quizzes, activities and rewards (photo courtesy of WooYourBoo)

Adina Bresge

Topic

City & Culture

Black Founders Network

Entrepreneurship

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Relationships

Startups

Falling in love is easy — but staying in love takes work.

That’s why husband-and-wife co-founders La Vance and Colleen Dotson decided to launch a dating app tailored for more seasoned lovebirds — couples who want to “swipe right” on strengthening their relationship.

Supported by the University of Toronto’s Black Founders Network, WooYourBoo is a digital platform that aims to help partners reconnect and better communicate with each other through features such as quizzes, activities and rewards.

Colleen says the app is designed to reignite the excitement of courtship by emulating the gamified thrill of swiping through profiles on a matchmaking app.

“Social media is not designed to be social in the way it nurtures relationships,” says Colleen, who is also head coach of the U of T Track & Field Club.

“Our goal is to create depth and help you reconnect with this person that you’ve committed to — and make it fun.”

The idea for WooYourBoo, which is set to launch in the coming weeks, stems from the Dotsons’ own relationship trajectory over nearly 15 years, three children and two countries.

La Vance first met Colleen at the University of Central Missouri, where he was playing football and she was coaching track and field while earning her master’s degree. But as time went on, their initial infatuation gave way to the familiar challenges of sustaining a long-term relationship.

One day, Colleen decided to tell La Vance how she was feeling: “You don’t woo me anymore.”

La Vance says he felt both offended and inspired.

“Up until that point, I had men teaching me how to go pick up a woman. No one had ever sat me down and said, this is how you actually have a successful relationship,” says La Vance. “What she was actually communicating to me was that ‘You don’t make me feel loved.’

“I told her that it’s not that I don’t want to. I just simply don’t know how to.”

La Vance recalls wishing that there was an app he could download to guide him; Colleen suggested it calling it WooYourBoo.

The resulting startup is built on the pair’s learnings as they worked to better communicate their love with each other. The “love expressions” quiz, for example, allows users to swipe through a series of prompts asking them to pick between two romantic options — spending quality time together or getting a small gift. Your “boo” can then take a test to see if they can guess your preferences.

The app also uses that data to make suggestions about ways you can make your partner feel loved and work toward mutual goals. There’s also a feature that awards users points for putting in the effort.

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The Dotsons say the Black Founders Network (BFN) has been instrumental in building WooYourBoo, which was among the inaugural cohort of the BFN Accelerate Program.

“When you’re in a space with people who may come the same background as you, who may talk like you and look like you and have a similar experience, it makes accomplishing any task a lot easier,” La Vance says.

“It’s helping us connect with people and other organizations that on our own we may not have access to, but through the community of the BFN, we do.”

BFN founder and manager Efosa Obano says the couple’s focus on building connections could be a competitive advantage in a crowded dating app market.

“I think it’s really going to take off because it’s so much more than just matching with someone based on their profile pictures,” Obano says. “They’ve taken a more thoughtful approach to helping you understand yourself and how you connect with others and coaching you through every phase of your dating or relationship journey.”

The Dotsons say they can personally attest to WooYourBoo’s effectiveness. They’re also betting there are many other couples who can relate to their struggles.

“You have to keep wooing your boo because you’re going to discover more things to love about them that you didn’t know were there,” says Colleen. “It becomes exciting because you get to date that person all over again.

“It could be a new relationship every time if you allow it to be.”

Forever alone... and thriving? U of T expert examines link between attachment styles and life satisfaction

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 15:47:20 +0000

Forever alone... and thriving? U of T expert examines link between attachment styles and life satisfaction

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/07/2022 - 11:47

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(photo by lolostock/iStockPhoto)

Josslyn Johnstone

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Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Psychology

Relationships

Why are some happier flying solo while others want a romantic partner? Are some people truly better off alone?

Geoff MacDonald, a professor in the department of psychology in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Arts & Science, investigated the topic in a recent study that resulted in the first data to connect “attachment styles” to how happy people are with being single and with their lives overall.

Geoff MacDonald (photo by Lucy Jung)

The study, co-authored with U of T alumna and University of California, San Francisco post-doctoral researcher, Yoobin Park, appeared in the journal Personal Relationships.

Attachment styles are a combination of personality traits and adult relationship experience. They can fall into three categories: secure, avoidant and anxious. Think of them as individual filters that influence how people experience connections with others, and how they expect their relationships will unfold.

“Understanding your own attachment style will help you understand to what degree a relationship will satisfy your goals,” says MacDonald, the acting chair of the psychology department whose lab focuses on issues of social connection and disconnection. “For example, an anxious person wants to be in a relationship to feel better about themselves, but that’s not how it works – they end up feeling unhappy anyway – whereas a secure person wants one not as a self-esteem boost, but for companionship.”

Securely attached singles – those with low levels of avoidance and anxiety – expect others will be welcoming and comforting, and meet their emotional needs through many relationship types, including friends and family. “Securely attached folks are skilled at managing negative emotions and, to put it plainly, better at life,” says MacDonald. “It’s no surprise that we found they’re better at singlehood and generally satisfied with life.”

The most interesting findings had to do with avoidantly attached people, who prioritize independence over intimacy and tend to distrust other people. This group reported being satisfied with their single status – but less happy with life overall. As Park puts it: “Despite common belief, there seems to be more to being a happy single than simply not wanting a partner.”

MacDonald notes that most of the literature about individuals with higher attachment avoidance examines them in romantic relationships – an uncomfortable situation for them – and therefore the data may be incomplete.

“For a long time, we thought avoidant people deeply want love, but suppress this desire because they fear the vulnerability that’s necessary for building intimate relationships. Turns out that this just may not be what they’re interested in. They may be more fulfilled by their work life, for example.” Exactly why these avoidants are lower in overall life satisfaction, however, is still an open question that MacDonald’s lab is looking to answer.

In contrast to the avoidantly attached, anxiously attached people crave intimacy but fear potential rejection from others. They experience high levels of negative emotion and tend to feel overly dependent on close relationships. People in this group aren't happy about being single, nor with life in general, and strongly desire a partner.

One of the ways anxious people deal with their negative emotions is by relying on others, which is why they are particularly attracted to relationships and yet find themselves struggling to be happy while in them. MacDonald explains that for anxiously attached people to have more success romantically, they need to better manage emotional distress: “Therapy is one tool that can help. They can learn how to be empowered to choose partners that bring out their best, happiest selves instead of coupling up as a quick fix for stress.”

Anxious types can also take the pressure off romantic relationships by placing more value on the connections they have with their friends and family, he added.

“There’s a cultural tendency to focus on how people get their emotional needs met solely in the romantic-relationship context. When looking at the experiences of single people as a researcher, you take into consideration all these other relationships that are either supportive resources or the causes of problems for individuals,” MacDonald says.

This is one reason why securely attached people are generally happy being single – because they maintain close relationships in other realms, MacDonald explains.

In another study, he and Park examined the determinants of sexual satisfaction for singles. Perhaps not surprisingly, singles who are happier with their sex lives appear happier being single and less interested in a committed, romantic relationship.

Singlehood research has traditionally focused on the role of romantic relationships in single people’s lives. Now, labs like MacDonald’s are drawing attention to the fact that single people have a lot more going on in their lives than wanting or not wanting a romantic relationship – they have families, friends, careers and hobbies that all help determine how happy they are.

“Stage of life is a factor as well,” MacDonald says. “Evidence shows that younger generations are happier with singlehood than older generations, and ultimately that older single people who don’t want a romantic partner are the happiest single people overall.”

Give and take: U of T researcher says its crucial for couples to talk about their needs

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 17:06:20 +0000

Give and take: U of T researcher says its crucial for couples to talk about their needs

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/14/2020 - 12:06

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Rebecca Horne, a PhD student at U of T Mississauga, is studying sacrifice in romantic relationships and is currently collecting data on couples who relocate for a partner's job, and how relationships change as a result (photo by Drew Lesiuczok)

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When is the last time you and your partner had a heart-to-heart about your respective needs and how they are being met? A University of Toronto researcher, whose work focuses on sacrifice in romantic relationships, is encouraging couples to have that talk.

“Open discussions about needs generally is crucial to relationships, which may sound really silly and obvious, but I think it’s quite striking how little we know about our own needs or our partner’s needs, and the best way we can go about meeting each other’s needs,” says Rebecca Horne, a PhD student in psychology at U of T Mississauga.

Relationships are often built on give and take. That might mean watching a movie one partner wants to see or choosing a restaurant one partner prefers. But sometimes those little sacrifices can be much larger. Someone might give up their goals, their job or even their friends for their partner.

The impact those bigger sacrifices have is the focus of Horne’s research. She is currently collecting data on couples who relocate for one partner’s job and examining how relationships change as a result. She plans to follow 150 couples over a period of one year.

Her current project is an extension of a paper she co-authored that was published last year in the Journal of Family Psychology, which takes this idea of sacrifice a step further and examines what consistently putting the needs of a partner before one’s own needs has on relationship satisfaction.

The key reason people in long-term relationships continue to give, even if it’s detrimental to them personally, is because they get some relational benefit, Horne says, noting it’s a tradeoff between personal well-being and relationship well-being. Whether that’s good or bad depends on the person, she says.

It is important for people to reflect on the type of supporter they tend to be when in a relationship, how they meet their partner’s needs and in what ways they like to meet their own needs, Horne says.

“Is it in line with how you like to give care and support, or do you find it exhausting or overburdening?” she asks. “Does it work well for you or not?”

Doing things for a partner one might not do for themselves might be good for the relationship to some extent, but partners should be mindful of the boundaries of such giving behaviour and determine if there are some needs being neglected, Horne says.

Perhaps a couple hasn’t done something one partner wants to do for a long time. That partner needs to decide if they are OK with that, if there’s a reason this has happened, or if it’s a pattern that’s developing in the relationship, Horne explains. And if it is a pattern, then the partner needs to assess if they are comfortable with that.

“It’s really about taking stock of how support and care is playing out in a romantic relationship, in a more explicit way, so certain patterns and routines don’t become set in stone and set you on a trajectory you don’t really want to be on,” Horne says.

The relationship between sexual narcissism and satisfaction: new study from U of T

ullahnor — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 12:54:35 +0000

The relationship between sexual narcissism and satisfaction: new study from U of T

ullahnor Tue, 02/14/2017 - 07:54

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Trio of U of T Mississauga researchers looked at how people view their sex lives in comparison to others (photo by Steve Corey via Flickr)

Elaine Smith

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Elaine Smith

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Researchers ask: Is comparison the thief of joy?

If you learned that your next-door neighbours were having sexual relations more frequently than you and your partner, would it bother you?

Three U of T researchers set out to understand how people view their sex lives in comparison to others and discovered that sexual narcissism colours the way people make and view those comparisons.

“For some people, those comparisons are pretty influential,” said Lisa Day, a PhD candidate at U of T Mississauga.

In new research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Day, Emily Impett, a psychology professor at U of T Mississauga, and Amy Muise, who is now a York University professor, looked at how these comparisons affect both relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction for people with varying degrees of sexual narcissism.

Sexual narcissism, which should not be confused with general narcissistic personality traits, is defined as “the tendency to exploit others, a lack of empathy, feelings of grandiosity and an excessive need for validation in the sexual domain.”

They’re the people, for example, who buy you dinner and expect sexual favours in return.

The trio of researchers discovered that many people seemed to be curious about the sex lives of others. Individuals who had a high degree of sexual narcissism were very susceptible to comparisons with others, regardless of whether the source was friends, colleagues, survey data or magazine articles. They tended to make comparisons that were favourable to themselves. Comparisons that showed them in a lesser light appeared to decrease their satisfaction, both with their sexual relationship and their overall relationship.

“Individuals with a high degree of sexual narcissism tend to make comparisons with those who are less sexually skilled, for example,” Day said. “When they do make comparisons with someone doing better than they were, it gets under their skin.”

By contrast, individuals with a low degree of sexual narcissism weren’t affected by favourable comparisons. It didn’t impact how sexually satisfied they were or how much satisfaction they derived from their relationships.

The researchers reached these conclusions through three studies that used participants from the Amazon survey roster. In each study, the participants were measured for sexual narcissism and for personality narcissism. In the first study, participants were asked to recall the most recent comparison they had made between their sex lives and that of others.

The researchers assessed the direction of these comparisons.

“People who were higher in sexual narcissism were more likely to recall a [favourable] social comparison, which in turn predicted greater sexual and relationship satisfaction immediately after recalling that comparison,” they wrote.

In the second study, the researchers asked the participants how much they would be bothered by sexual comparisons with those who had more prowess or more regular sexual relations if those people were: (a) their best friend, (b) their partner’s best friend, and (c) the average couple. The results, wrote the researchers, “showed that people who were higher in sexual narcissism reported that they would be more bothered by [such] social comparisons, and, in turn, reported lower sexual and relationship satisfaction.”

In the third study, subjects were given a doctored magazine article relating to sexuality and randomly asked to compare its findings to their own sex lives. They were then asked about their satisfaction with their personal relationships and their sexual relationships. As anticipated, those with a high degree of sexual narcissism were very sensitive to such comparisons and were dissatisfied with their sexual and personal relationships when forced to compare themselves in a non-favourable way.

“People are curious about the sexuality of others and make comparisons that impact how they feel about their own relationships,” Day said. “This curiosity has opened a completely new line of research for us.”

How feeling good about your lover might be bad for your sexual health

sgupta — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 07:48:08 +0000

How feeling good about your lover might be bad for your sexual health sgupta Fri, 02/26/2016 - 02:48

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“We want secure attachments in relationships, so it’s interesting to see that feelings of security seem to promote unsafe sex,” John Sakaluk says.

Blake Eligh

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Blake Eligh

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“If you feel generally good about other people’s intentions, you’ll be less likely to be concerned about unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases”

A new study from U of T Mississauga psychology researcher John Sakaluk has found that the better you are bonded to your partner, the less likely you are to want to practice safe sex with them.

The three-part study surveyed heterosexual subjects online and in a lab setting, and asked participants to recall times when they held secure, anxious or avoidant feelings about another person. Once the mental mood was set, Sakaluk and co-researcher Omri Gillath asked participants a variety of questions to gauge feelings about condom use during sex.

Sakaluk says respondents who reported feeling more secure with their partner also reported that they were less likely to use a condom.

“Sex doesn’t happen in an emotional vacuum,” Sakaluk adds. “It’s happening between two people. Even in a one-night stand, people are pursuing some kind of psychological and physical connection. There are a lot of feelings involved.”

“We used experimental methods to manipulate people’s feelings about how secure they felt in their relationships,” he says. The team then measured how those feelings of attachment or closeness might affect attitudes towards condom use.

Sakaluk says experimentally setting the mental mood helps to provide evidence that feelings of security actually cause changes in condom use attitudes. “Much of the data we have on psychology and safe sex is assessed through self-report surveys,” he says, adding that simply correlating psychological variables like security and attitudes towards condom use can provide inconclusive results about cause and effect.

The first two parts of Sakaluk’s research found that when participants were encouraged to feel secure about a partner, they reported feeling that the other person was generally well-intentioned and trustworthy. These assumptions can have repercussions on attitudes towards sexual safety, he says.

“We see that they perceive sexual partners as less of a threat to their health, which results in more negative attitudes toward condom use,” Sakaluk says. “If you feel generally good about other people’s intentions, you’ll be less likely to be concerned about unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. It’s irrational, but you feel like you can trust the other person and bad things aren’t going to happen.”

In the third part of Sakaluk’s research, his team observed how many condoms participants would take after being encouraged to feel secure.

The condoms participants were given were also altered for the experiment. Some participants received condoms that read “Protect YOUR Sexual Health.” Others received condoms that read “Protect YOUR PARTNER’S Sexual Health.” The team found that when people were encouraged to feel secure, they took fewer condoms when the importance of their own sexual health was stressed, compared to when the importance of their partner’s sexual health was stressed.

“Security is generally a good thing – we want secure attachments in relationships, so it’s interesting to see that feelings of security seem to promote unsafe sex,” he says.

Canadian statistics show reported rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and infectious syphilis have been rising since the late 1990s, and this trend is expected to continue in Canada and other similarly developed countries such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.

“My research shows that we have to consider the emotional context and how people might feel about those relationships as a part of the decision-making process to use a condom," he says. "When it comes to gut feelings about sexual attitudes, it has real medical health consequences.”

“The Causal Effects of Relational Security and Insecurity on Condom Use Attitudes and Acquisition Behavior” was published in the February 2016 edition of the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

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Relationship research: happiness is not a match made in heaven

sgupta — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:22:03 +0000

Relationship research: happiness is not a match made in heaven sgupta Thu, 07/24/2014 - 10:22

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Couples who take pride in talking it out, working through challenges, have better relationships than those who see themselves as soul mates destined to be together, study finds (photo by Patrick via Flickr)

Ken McGuffin

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Forget destiny; focus instead on how far you've come, study suggests

Sure, Aristotle may have said, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” But thinking that you and your partner were made in heaven for each other can hurt your relationship, researchers say.

Psychologists observe that people talk and think about love in apparently limitless ways but underlying such diversity are some common themes that frame how we think about relationships. For example, one popular frame considers love as perfect unity (“made for each other,” “she’s my other half”); in another frame, love is a journey (“look how far we’ve come,” “we’ve been through all these things together”).

These two ways of thinking about relationships are particularly interesting, say study authors and social psychologists Spike W. S. Lee of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Southern California, because they have the power to highlight or downplay the damaging effect of conflicts on relationship evaluation.

After all, if two people were really made in heaven for each other, why should they have any conflicts?

"Our findings corroborate prior research showing that people who implicitly think of relationships as perfect unity between soulmates have worse relationships than people who implicitly think of relationships as a journey of growing and working things out,” says Lee. “Apparently, different ways of talking and thinking about love relationship lead to different ways of evaluating it.”

In one experiment, Lee and Schwarz had people in long-term relationships complete a knowledge quiz that included expressions related to either unity or journey, then recall either conflicts or celebrations with their romantic partner, and finally evaluate their relationship. As predicted, recalling conflicts leads people to feel less satisfied with their relationship – but only with the unity frame in mind, not with the journey frame in mind. Recalling celebrations makes people satisfied with their relationship regardless of how they think about it.

In two follow-up experiments, researchers invoked the unity vs. journey frame in even subtler, more incidental ways. For example, people were asked to identify pairs of geometric shapes to form a full circle (activating unity) or draw a line that gets from point A to point B through a maze (activating journey). Such non-linguistic, merely pictorial cues were sufficient to change the way people evaluated relationships.

Again, conflicts hurt relationship satisfaction with the unity frame in mind, not with the journey frame in mind.

The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

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Bad relationships and the fear of being single

sgupta — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 13:21:30 +0000

Bad relationships and the fear of being single sgupta Wed, 12/04/2013 - 08:21

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Researcher Stephanie Spielmann found that those who fear being single recognize they make poor decisions about dating (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Dominic Ali

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Dominic Ali

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Breaking Research