UK Wedding News
29/11/2013
Published in the journal Science, researchers found that we are more able to predict the long-term success of a relationship on a subconscious level, rather than letting our heart or head rule our choices.
For example, the often-referred to 'wedding jitters', could be a good indicator that there will be trouble in the future for that relationship.
As part of the study, psychologists conducted tests on 135 newlywed couples then kept a track of their progress over a four-year period. The found that the emotions participants shared when answering a questionnaire about their marriage actually had little bearing on their consequent satisfaction with their relationship. Interestingly, however, their gut instinct – revealed in a series of tests – accurately reflected their future level of happiness.
The study looked at the emotions that are usually kept hidden and whether they could affect an individual's responses.
Photographs of volunteers' husband or wife were shown on a computer screen for a fraction of a second. They were then followed by a positive word, such as 'awesome', or a negative word, like 'awful'. The participants had to choose whether they viewed the word as positive or negative.
Commenting , lead researcher Dr James McNulty of Florida State University, said: "Although they may be largely unwilling or unable to verbalise them, people's automatic evaluations of their partners predict one of the most important outcomes of their lives – the trajectory of their marital satisfaction.
"People who have really positive feelings about their partners are very quick to indicate that words like awesome are positive words and very slow to indicate that words like awful are negative words."
Those behind the experiment added that the opposite was also true, as those who had negative feelings about their partner took longer to respond to positive words, and less time to respond to negative words. This trend continued even when the individuals were not aware of their conflicting emotions.
In addition, the couples were questioned about their level of relationship satisfaction every six months afterwards, and those who had given negative reactions towards their partner where the ones who reported the most marital dissatisfaction four years later.
Dr McNulty explained: "Everyone wants to be in a good marriage. And in the beginning, many people are able to convince themselves of that at a conscious level.
"But these automatic, gut-level responses are less influenced by what people want to think.
"You can't make yourself have a positive response through a lot of wishful thinking.
"If they can sense that their gut is telling them that there is a problem, then they might benefit from exploring that, maybe even with a professional marriage counsellor."
(JP/MH)
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Wedding Jitters Could Suggest Later Marital Problems
The key to discovering if a person will have a happy marriage, is down to "gut instinct", a new study has suggested.Published in the journal Science, researchers found that we are more able to predict the long-term success of a relationship on a subconscious level, rather than letting our heart or head rule our choices.
For example, the often-referred to 'wedding jitters', could be a good indicator that there will be trouble in the future for that relationship.
As part of the study, psychologists conducted tests on 135 newlywed couples then kept a track of their progress over a four-year period. The found that the emotions participants shared when answering a questionnaire about their marriage actually had little bearing on their consequent satisfaction with their relationship. Interestingly, however, their gut instinct – revealed in a series of tests – accurately reflected their future level of happiness.
The study looked at the emotions that are usually kept hidden and whether they could affect an individual's responses.
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Photographs of volunteers' husband or wife were shown on a computer screen for a fraction of a second. They were then followed by a positive word, such as 'awesome', or a negative word, like 'awful'. The participants had to choose whether they viewed the word as positive or negative.
Commenting , lead researcher Dr James McNulty of Florida State University, said: "Although they may be largely unwilling or unable to verbalise them, people's automatic evaluations of their partners predict one of the most important outcomes of their lives – the trajectory of their marital satisfaction.
"People who have really positive feelings about their partners are very quick to indicate that words like awesome are positive words and very slow to indicate that words like awful are negative words."
Those behind the experiment added that the opposite was also true, as those who had negative feelings about their partner took longer to respond to positive words, and less time to respond to negative words. This trend continued even when the individuals were not aware of their conflicting emotions.
In addition, the couples were questioned about their level of relationship satisfaction every six months afterwards, and those who had given negative reactions towards their partner where the ones who reported the most marital dissatisfaction four years later.
Dr McNulty explained: "Everyone wants to be in a good marriage. And in the beginning, many people are able to convince themselves of that at a conscious level.
"But these automatic, gut-level responses are less influenced by what people want to think.
"You can't make yourself have a positive response through a lot of wishful thinking.
"If they can sense that their gut is telling them that there is a problem, then they might benefit from exploring that, maybe even with a professional marriage counsellor."
(JP/MH)
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