We sifted through recent research to find out four things that may affect longevity of your relationship
Still from Crazy Stupid Love
Flowers, romance, candle-lit dinners. Compliments, compassion, understanding. Desire, passion, fluttering heartbeats. Arguments, name-calling and fighting dirty. You’ve long had strong ideas about what helps and what hurts when you’re trying to attract a partner, or trying to keep a relationship strong. And most of your ideas would be right. Except — there are also some strange factors that can influence the strength of our attractions or relationships. And it’s not just us who’re saying it. We sifted through four studies published in science and psychology journals to find out four factors that may be inadvertently influencing your desirability or your relationship’s longevity. Want to find out what these are? Read on…
Being friends — helps
You may have moped about (or known someone who did) about being “friend-zoned” by the object of your attention. But the latest research at the University of Texas shows that being friends with the guy or girl you want to woo is not necessarily a bad thing. Why is that? Because friendship actually interferes with the principle of “assortative mating” that we frequently follow — we (unconsciously) are drawn to people who share the same genotype or phenotype as us. To put it very simplistically, assortative mating is why you see tall people being attracted to other tall people; and it is also why most people who pair up usually have more or less similar levels of attractiveness. But get this — the longer and better you know someone (before initiating a relationship), the more the chances are that there will be a greater discrepancy in your levels of attractiveness. Using a crude scale to “quantify” attractiveness, being friends can make possible, a pairing between a person who ranks as a “7” and another who ranks as a “10”. Numbers and psychobabble aside — it’s common sense. When you truly get to know and like someone well, they become lovelier to you. Sigh!
Overconfidence — helps
Ever heard of the saying, “Nice guys finish last”? Well, here’s one empirical study that shows why that may be true: People who are overconfident are actually perceived as more romantically desirable by others! In a five-part study at the University of Queensland, it was found that people who are overconfident in their assessments of themselves are more successful in attracting mates. How does this work? In several ways actually: 1. Perceived confidence is a predictor for increased romantic desirability. 2. Overconfidence gives a person an advantage against the rest of the competition other people are simply more reluctant to take on an overconfident competitor. And 3. that overconfidence helps you “acquire a mate” in the face of other competition. Finally, we may have a reason for why Carrie dumped the perfect-in-every-way Aidan for arrogant Mr Big in Sex and The City.
Being in debt — hurts
This one’s more straightforward than the rest. Bringing debt into a relationship makes its chances of succeeding a little less than otherwise. Experts have said credit card debit, car, home or student and personal loans are the debts that young couples tend to bring into their relationship, and it exerts a considerable strain in the sense that it makes the already tough conversation about finances, tougher. They point out that this is also because men and women have different attitudes towards debt: Men tend to be less ready to accept help/expert intervention to sort out their debt-related issues, while women are not. Paradoxically, men get deeper into debt (than women) as they try to pick up the accoutrements of being seen as desirable, suitable partners.
Being physically unsteady — hurts
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh tell us that if you’re in a physically unstable environment, this leads you to think of your relationship as being more unsuitable than you otherwise would. And what counts as a physically unstable environment — sitting at a wobbly desk, standing in a posture where you’re not properly balanced, say the experts, to which we add, maybe even sailing in particularly choppy waters? The field of study is one called “embodied cognition” where it has also been established that feeling warm or cold influences how warmly or coldly you behave with others.
For the “shaky study”, scientists found that experiment subjects who sat at a wobbly desk and chair rated their relationships on a questionnaire as less likely to last than subjects who sat on steady furniture. The same was also the case when subjects were asked to stand on one foot or on both feet and rate the suitability of their relationships.
( Source : agencies )
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