Is There Really a Benefit to Being Nice to Others? Relationship Matters Podcast #21

In the 21^st installment of Sage’s Relationship Matters podcast, hosted by Dr. Bjarne Holmes of Champlain College, Bonnie Le (a graduate student in Dr. Emily Impett's lab at the Univ. of Toronto) talks about the personal and interpersonal effects of having a communal orientation.

Communally oriented people care for the welfare and needs of others, and want others to care for them in return. Ms. Le explained, “In a communal orientation… we give because of need, we give because we care about the well being of other people. And so you don’t necessarily expect something in return when you’re giving help or care in a communal relationship or when you have a communal orientation, but you do expect that people will behave the same in return [eventually].”

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Can a Toxic Relationship Make Me Toxic Too?

My brother is married to a passive aggressive woman and he is very unhappy in his relationship. I have a friend who just got engaged to a passive-aggressive woman. Both my friend and my brother have developed quite a few negative personality traits that make me not want to be around or even talk to them. Do you think it's their true natures coming out (ages 35-40) or the result of relationships with passive aggressive women?

Great question! I am sorry that you are having a difficult time being around your friend and brother right now. Passive-aggressive behaviors, which are hostile and resistant actions that a person expresses in very subtle or indirect ways, are not fun to experience. For example, your sister-in-law might give your brother the “cold shoulder” to show she is angry and defiant rather than telling him about the real reason she is she upset about something. 

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First World Problems...

Read more about Facebook creeping here.

Throw Your Relationship a Bone

Learn more about Science Of Relationships book here.

Does Size Matter to Women?

In their coverage of a recent study, NationalGeographic.com concluded that "women prefer larger penises." Is their conclusion of the research accurate? In the actual study, women rated silhouettes of men with larger penises as "more attractive." But does that mean that they actually prefer well-endowed men as relationship or sexual partners? What do you think?

See our article by Dr. Amy Muise on this topic here, and a recent post about this study by by Dr. Justin Lehmiller here.

Here’s the Punchline: The Link between Humor and Hotness

Chad Michael Murray, the actor from One Tree Hill, once said, “To all the girls out there who think being funny is not sexy, you are wrong!” Not only has a point, but there is some research to back him up. Two guys walk into a bar… and according to research, whomever women consider funnier will also be seen as more attractive and suitable for a long-term relationship.¹ Having a funny partner may simply make them more fun to be around, but it is also possible that a good sense of humor indicates that a person has advanced language skills, creativity, abstract thinking, and intelligence.² Put another way, a quick wit may signal the quality of a potential partner’s genetic make-up, which can lead that person to appear more attractive. Then again, maybe attractive people are more likely to be naturally funny, or are more likely to be perceived by others as funny. Recent research delves deeper into these issues to answer two key questions: Is being funny more attractive for short-term or long-term relationships? Does physical attractiveness influence ratings of funniness?

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Why Men Shouldn't Do Housework

Check out this article from Slate "Guys Who Do Housework Get Less Sex." The article shares a study that directly contradicts the common sense notion that women want men to do housework and find it sexy.

Our colleague and ScienceOfRelationships.com contributor Dr. Justin Lehmiller also wrote about this research on his blog (click here to check it out).

Understanding ‘The Price of Marriage in China’

The New York Times recently covered two very different match-making stories that unfolded in Beijing (read the article here). In one, a wealthy bachelor nicknamed “Mr. Big” paid more than half a million dollars for a squad of “love hunters” to scour the country looking for his vision of the ideal wife: a milky-skinned virgin eighteen years his junior. In the second, Ms. Yu, the desperate mother of an unmarried forty-year-old man, spent her days making fruitless trips to the local match-making park. (Yes, there really are parks for parents to meet other parents and set their mutual children up on blind dates—more on this below.) She had been searching for a daughter-in-law for four years, but her son’s “pickiness” and meager financial prospects quashed every lead she could generate.

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To Self-Disclose or Not to Self-Disclose? Relationship Matters Podcast #20

In the 20^th installment of Sage’s Relationship Matters podcast, hosted by Dr. Bjarne Holmes of Champlain College, Dr. Sue Sprecher (Illinois State University) and Stanislov Treger (DePaul University) talk about their work on self-disclosure during first encounters with strangers. Specifically, the researchers designed a series of experiments to determine whether people enjoy interacting with, and like, a stranger more when those people talk about themselves versus listen to the stranger do all the talking.

To test this question, Sprecher and Treger randomly assigned people to either talk to a stranger or listen to a stranger talk for 12 minutes. What did they find? Listeners, compared to talkers, were happier with the interaction, liked the stranger better, and felt closer to the stranger.

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Can't We Just Enjoy the Limited Time We Have Left in Our Relationship?

My girlfriend of 10 months just broke up with me a few days ago. This has been her longest relationship. She had never lasted longer than 3 months with anyone prior because she is an independent girl and is afraid of commitment. For whatever reason, our relationship is different. We fell in love with each other and have had our ups and downs. However, the ever looming fact that we are both about to graduate from college this May and going to different states afterwards has been her main concern.

She claims that she has not felt the same about me lately and that she is tired of fighting for something that is going to end. This is not the first time she has broken up with me because of this, but it is definitely more serious and evident this time around. She says that I love her more than she loves me and that she now only loves me as a friend. The decision to break up was purely hers and now I am heart broken.

I plan on waiting a couple of weeks with no contact with her. If she does not break silence, then I'd like to at least meet up one more time to see if she might have reconsidered and if we can at least spend the rest of the semester together and make the best of it. I just want to be with her and not waste what we have together.

I am really sorry to hear about your heart being broken. It is always hard to end relationships, especially when you had already accepted that your time together was limited to begin with. Based on the information you provided, it sounds as if your ex-girlfriend has a very avoidant attachment style.

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The Relationship Science of Mad Men

Who's ready for tonight's season premiere of Mad Men? Get caught up on the science behind all your favorite characters' relationships here:

• Curves that Drive the Mad Men Mad
• Four Signs that Don Draper is Avoidantly Attached
• Breaking Up with Your Job: Mad Men Demonstrates What Work Relationships and Romantic Relationships Have in Common
• The Dating Equation: ½(your age) + 7

Read more about infidelity here.

Top 10 Articles About Weddings and Marriage

Wedding season is just around the corner, so you might want to check out the wedding announcements section at the Onion and read up on our favorite wedding- and marriage-related articles:

1. From Bride to Blues: Examining the Prevalence of Post-Nuptial Depression
2. Bridesmaids and the Changing Role of the Bachelorette Party
3. Got “Cold Feet”? Watch Out for Marital Woes Ahead
4. For Better or Worse…In Marriage, Men May Get More of the Better
5. I Do, or Do Not, Take Your Name in Marriage
6. Our Stuff: Household Objects Indicate Relationship Quality
7. The Top 20 Most Desired Personality Traits in a Future Spouse
8. Wanna Make You Feel Wanted: Husbands’ Sensitive Support Predicts Relationship Outcomes
9. Who Has the Busier Bedroom: Single People or Married Couples?
10. Sustainable Marriage Quiz

Tag, We’re It: How Facebook Reveals Information about Current (and Past) Relationships

You know those people on Facebook who tag their romantic partners in every…single…post? Or how about the people whose uploaded photos almost always contain their partners? If you’re anything like me, you may find it somewhat annoying, but these kinds of behaviors convey important information about couples’ relationships.

Previously, we have discussed how romantic partners’ senses of self gradually begin merging together and overlap with one another. In other words, we begin to take on some of our romantic partner’s aspects into our sense of who we are (e.g., you may find that you have picked up interests or hobbies that your partner introduced you to), and we begin to talk more in terms of “us” and “we” than “me” and “him/her”. In a recent study, researchers surveyed 276 individuals (mostly college students) about various aspects of their romantic relationships, including the degree of self-partner overlap and the content of their Facebook profiles.

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Leaving an Abusive Relationship is Better than Expected

Research recently published by our friend and colleague Dr. Ximena Arriaga shows that people in abusive relationships underestimate the degree to which they will be better off after leaving those toxic relationships. Read more about her research here, and check out the short interview with Dr. Arriaga here.

Check out our past article on this topic here.

Everyone Needs an Enemy

February has come and gone, and, fortunately (for some), the Valentine’s Day craze has left with it. Leading up to and throughout the month, contributors at Science of Relationships worked overtime to bring you as much research as possible about the day of love (click here for a thorough recap). With all of the hullabaloo, I think I fell into a state Valentine’s Day fatigue; quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing about love!

Instead of love, what about hate? Instead of parents, close friends, and romantic partners, what about enemies? Batman had the Joker; Harry Potter had Voldemort; Austin Powers had Dr. Evil; Jennifer Aniston has Angelina Jolie. What about non-superheroes/celebrities, you ask? Don’t regular people have enemies, too? (for the record, Science of Relationships doesn’t have any enemies. We’re lovers, not fighters.) And, if so, what functions do enemies serve, and are there benefits to having a mortal nemesis?

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Insecure Attachment and Real vs. Perceived Threat in Relationships: Relationship Matters Podcast #19

Sage’s Relationship Matters podcast, hosted by Dr. Bjarne Holmes of Champlain College, launches the Spring 2013 season with the 19^th installment, discussing Dr. Geoff MacDonald’s (University of Toronto) recent work published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. In this episode, he tells us about how insecurely attached individuals, compared to the securely attached, perceive potential close relationships as socially threatening vs. rewarding. Although we all evaluate what we will get out of our interactions with others, anxiously attached people are more likely to perceive social interactions as threatening. “Anxious attachment seems to revolve around concerns for negative evaluation and rejection,” MacDonald notes during the podcast.

So should anxiously attached individuals fear rejection when initiating a new relationship?

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Too Much, Too Soon

I took a weekend ski trip recently with The Consultant. We had great day of skiing, fantastic Bloody Marys with lunch, and enjoyed a much needed break from work and kids. Over an après ski beer at the base of the mountain, some locals told us that there was an outdoor, natural hot spring close by. That sounded like a perfect way to soothe our tired muscles, so we promptly made our way over for a little tub time.

At check-in, we were informed that clothing was optional in the springs. It was dark outside, and there were not too many people there to potentially gawk at us in our birthday suits, so The Consultant and I were comfortable with that. While most other the other guests at the hot spring were naked, there was one woman sitting at the edge of the pool who was considerably more self-conscious in a 1-piece bathing suit.  

A few minutes into our soak, a naked man swam over to the single, clothed woman. After some small talk, he immediately launched into a long, dramatic story about his ex-wife. From what we could gather, this guy’s ex-wife tried to take his kid’s birth certificates and sell them to some Mexican outlaws, she racked up huge amounts of debt using his identity, and then tried to break up every new relationship he started, such as texting him when she knew he was on dates. He was rambling on so much that he was oblivious to the fact that the woman he was trying to impress was slowly inching away from him.

Naturally, I thought to myself, “Whoa, dude, too much information!”

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Things You Might Say About Your Computer (but NOT Your Girlfriend)

from cheezburger.com

Week(s) in Review: 17-30 March 2013

In case you missed any of them, here are links to our articles from the last two weeks:

• All I Didn’t Want To Know About Relationships, I Learned From the Jersey Shore
• Firewood, Rice, and Fairy Tales: Ideas about Love in the US and China
• What's Wrong With My Internet Dating Profile?
• Infographic: 7 Ways to Improve Your Relationship
• Does Sexual Narcissism Lead to a Better Sex Life?
• Can Your Computer Play Cupid?
• Can She Fall In Love With Me Again?

Here's what we've been reading recently:

• Are We Sexually Attracted To People Who Remind Us Of Our Parents? (lemiller.com)
• Men Who Lack A Sense Of Smell Have Fewer Sexual Partners (lehmiller.com)
• Men Married to Women With Higher Incomes More Likely to Use Erectile Dysfunction Medication (sciencedaily.com)
• The Little Lies Spouses Tell (wsj.com)
• What Are the Scientific Odds of Finding Love? (gizmodo.com)
• Owl Monkeys Shed Light on Evolution of Love (nationalgeographic.com)
• Drab Guppies Find a Way to Score (sciencemag.org)

All I Didn’t Want To Know About Relationships, I Learned From the Jersey Shore

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a by-gone era. A time when we could turn on our televisions and get a weekly dose of Snooki, JWow, Pauly D, the Situation and the rest of the Jersey Shore gang. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not nostalgic for their dating debauchery but rather reflective on the impact that it has had on our society. Thinking back, I’ve come to the conclusion that all I didn’t want to know about relationships, I learned from the Jersey Shore.

Although I could easily be referring to the urban dictionary definition of a “grenade” or the meaning of GTB (gym, tan, break-up with Paula) or DTF (which I will not translate), I’m actually referring to how MTV’s Jersey Shore was a truly ingenious demonstration of social psychology principles. Unfortunately, it’s possible that we may all be worse off for having shared in their sexually-permissive hijinks. Here’s why...

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