Will Baum, LCSW

Extra motivation for figuring out how to get along better?:   The way you relate to your partner can affect your long-term mental and physical health, study shows (Science Daily).

“We already know from prior research that people in stable, happy marriages experience better overall health than do those in more conflicted relationships,” said Professor Hicks. “We can now further conclude from our current research that individuals who are in insecure relationships are more vulnerable to longer-term health risks from conflict than are others.”

Study Links Empathy, Self-Esteem, and Autonomy with Increased Sexual Enjoyment (jhsph.edu):

Sexual pleasure among young adults (ages 18-26) is linked to healthy psychological and social development, according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Study:  Couples May Not Communicate Better Than Strangers (PsychCentral):

“Although speakers expected their spouse to understand them better than strangers, accuracy rates for spouses and strangers were statistically identical. This result is striking because speakers were more confident that they were understood by their spouse” [...]

“A wife who says to her husband, ‘it’s getting hot in here,’ as a hint for her husband to turn up the air conditioning a notch, may be surprised when he interprets her statement as a coy, amorous advance instead,” said Savitsky, who is lead author of the paper, published in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

 

 

The latest in relationship science relayed by Tara Parker-Pope.

“People have a fundamental motivation to improve the self and add to who they are as a person,” Dr. Lewandowski says. “If your partner is helping you become a better person, you become happier and more satisfied in the relationship.”

A study shows people more accurately assessing personality traits of attractive people.

“If people think Jane is beautiful, and she is very organized and somewhat generous, people will see her as more organized and generous than she actually is,” Biesanz said.  “Despite this bias, our study shows that people will also correctly discern the relative ordering of Jane’s personality traits – that she is more organized than generous – better than others they find less attractive.”

PsychCental: Personal Goal-Setting Strategy Affects Relationships

According to investigators, goal-setting behavior may influence whether people will be comfortable in sharing and communicating. For example, people with “mastery goals” want to improve themselves. Maybe they want to get better grades, make more sales, or land that triple toe loop. On the other hand, people with what psychologists call “performance goals” are trying to outperform others — to get a better grade than a friend or be Employee of the Year.

A study says self-awareness about your flirting style helps dating, helps relationships.

“Knowing something about the way you communicate attraction says something about challenges you might have had in your past dating life,” Hall said. “Hopefully, this awareness can help people avoid those mistakes and succeed in courtship.”

The five styles of flirting named: physical, traditional, polite, sincere and playful (all detailed in the article).

A study likes conversation.

Talking with other people in a friendly way can make it easier to solve common problems, a new University of Michigan study shows. But conversations that are competitive in tone, rather than cooperative, have no cognitive benefits…

Deborah Tannen looks at why having a sister makes people happier.

My own recent research about sisters suggests a more subtle dynamic. I interviewed more than 100 women about their sisters, but if they also had brothers, I asked them to compare. Most said they talked to their sisters more often, at greater length and, yes, about more personal topics. This often meant that they felt closer to their sisters, but not always…

PsychCentral sums up a meta-study, “The Neuroimaging of Love.”

Findings suggest falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain…Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.