How Do Some Relationships Rock
Social scientists asked a new batch of college students to rate the opposite gender on attractiveness. Their scores were overwhelmingly similar. All the good looking boys and girls received high attractiveness rating. There was general unanimity.
Imagine being asked to rate members of the opposite gender by just looking at their pictures?
Millions respond to this question every day on Tinder, and hundreds of other dating apps. They register their answer by swiping the attractive ones ‘right’, and the less attractive ones ‘left’.
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A year later when the course ended, the question was repeated to the same batch of students. This time, however, the answers were all over the place.
Many of the attractive ones fared lower, and a number of less attractive ones scored much higher on attractiveness. Now that most students had interacted with each other, seen them at closer quarters, other aspects of their character influenced their rating.
Our views about attractiveness get colored by character and personality traits once we get to know the person.
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Samantha Joel and Paul Eastwick’s path-breaking study of 11,196 couples covering 43 different studies, tried to answer what exactly makes a relationship rock?
They discovered it has almost nothing to do with physical attractiveness. Nor personality. Or likes and dislikes. Or hobbies. Or extroversion and introversion. Or similarities between couple.
It has to do with something else, something we pay little attention to: our character, and how we treat our partners. They grouped factors into two:
Relationship
Character
Both influence the quality of a couple’s relationship.
Relationship
Four factors stand out. Together, they can predict up to 43% accurately how happy the couple’s relationship is likely to be.
Think about it – 43%!
Here are the four factors:
Appreciation: Do you appreciate your partner often enough? Or, you prefer to hold your complements back? Or, perhaps you believe appreciating might make your partner complacent, raise her expectation? Their research proves appreciation brightens relationship. It brings the partners closer to each other.
Intimacy: How intimate do you feel to your partner? If you are wondering what intimacy means, check this definition. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines intimacy as an interpersonal state of extreme emotional closeness such that each party’s personal space can be entered by any of the other parties without causing discomfort to that person. Wow! This means, the barriers to entering each others’ personal space are down. There is openess. Trust. Love. Care.
Conflict: Conflicts often arise between partners due to their mindsets about things that matter. Sometimes even subjects that don’t matter. It could be a particular dish both of them cook well. Or a debate over which brand of car is better? Or how much freedom is alright for teenagers? Or what kind of vacations are perfect? Conflict abounds in every relationship. What matters is how conflicts are resolved. It’s important that each partner protects the others’ ego. Which simply means, listen, and accommodate.
Commitment: If one partner perceives the other to be less committed to the relationship, the relationship flounders. Commitment makes or breaks a relationship. Partners with a high degree of perceived commitment experience greater intimacy and lesser conflict.
Note the word is ‘perceived’ – perception is far more important than reality.
Character
An individual having certain character is likely to make a great partner. When two such individual get together, relationship rocks!
Here are the four that stand out:
Attachment style – secure, anxious, confused, or avoidant. An attachment style is influenced by an individual’s upbringing. For instance, those with a secure attachment style tend to be warm, open, and easy-going. They trust others and are comfortable about seeking and giving emotional support. They respect, value, and feel good about themselves – regardless of whether they’re alone or in relationships. Read more about attachment styles here.
Satisfaction with life. Our satisfaction with life creeps into our relationships. Dissatisfaction with life hurts relationships. According to renowned life satisfaction scholar, Ruut Veenhoven, “Life satisfaction is the degree to which a person positively evaluates the overall quality of his/her life as a whole. In other words, how much the person likes the life he/she leads.” It is our general feeling about our life and how pleased we are with how it’s going. Dissatisfaction with life leads to…
The negative effect. Don’t we all hate those who are constantly negative? Negativity hammers a relationship down.
Depression. No matter what the cause of depression, it hurts a relationship. Those who are depressed have great difficulty in having a meaningful relationship with anyone.
Joel and Eastwick’s research concludes that relationship and individual character traits can predict a person’s likelihood of having a great romantic relationship.
With up to 75% accuracy.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of bestselling, data-driven self-help book, Don’t Trust Your Gut, encapsulates these into an individual’s four character traits that could predict the quality of our romantic relationship. These are:
- Satisfaction with life
- Attachment style
- Conscientiousness
- Growth mindset
If you read the list carefully, you’ll connect how our relationship behavior or orientation is influenced by the four character traits listed by Davidiwitz. In other words, if partners score positively on the above character traits, their relationship is most likely going to rock, irrespective of their personalities, likes, dislikes or preferences.
