Is a date with your partner as important to you as a meeting at work? A study recommends that couples develop a relationship work ethic that rivals — or at least equals — their professional work ethic.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Relationships News — ScienceDaily!
Science of Relationships has a great new post on what women wear and how they may be perceived by men on a first date.
Definitely worth a look:
It probably won’t shock you to hear that psychologists have discovered that how much skin your outfit reveals influences what others think of you. Perhaps, back in high school, your dad told you that you were not allowed to leave the house with that mini skirt on. (Or was that only me?) Long before high school you probably knew that what others wore and how they looked influenced what you thought of them.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Science of Relationships!
Have you ever heard that the average man thinks about sex every seven seconds? We (and most people) have, which is why we were so interested in this recent post from Science Daily. The reality (according to a study in the Journal of Sex Research) turns out to be quite different from this old piece of folk-wisdom. True, men did think about sex more often than women, but both think about it exponentially less frequently than we commonly believe.
Check it out:
Men may think about sex more often than women do, but a new study suggests that men also think about other biological needs, such as eating and sleep, more frequently than women do, as well. And the research discredits the persistent stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds, which would amount to more than 8,000 thoughts about sex in 16 waking hours.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit ScienceDaily: Relationship News!
Here is a really cool (or possibly scary) thing: we can judge certain characteristics of people rather accurately based solely on our brief first impressions. This is by no means a new idea. College students have been able to predict the ratings of professors from 10 second video clips of their lectures (without sound, no less). A new study actually suggests that some of our first impressions, such as the trustworthyness, kindness, and compassion of others, may have a basis in our DNA.
Have a look at the original article from Science Daily:
There’s definitely something to be said for first impressions. New research suggests it can take just 20 seconds to detect whether a stranger is genetically inclined to being trustworthy, kind or compassionate. The findings reinforce that healthy humans are wired to recognize strangers who may help them out in a tough situation. They also pave the way for genetic therapies for people who are not innately sympathetic, researchers said.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit ScienceDaily: Relationship News!
Jean Smith of Flirtology just authored a great post on Science of Relationships about initiation in flirting. According to a recent Psychological Science (a very prestigious journal of scientific psychology) article, we are less receptive to others’ attempts to flirt with us than we might think. The article found that we are more selective when others approach us than we are when we do the approaching.
Have a look at the the post:
Ladies, consider the following setting: It’s a Friday night. The place is buzzing. Across the room, a handsome stranger has caught your eye. You want to attract his attention, but how? If one were to follow traditional protocol, you would bat your eyelashes, flash a well-toned calf, sit and wait, hoping he will somehow get the message and make the journey across the room. However, it is 2011. Surely, sitting and waiting is not the only way for a woman to make contact with a man.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Science of Relationships!
Science of Relationships has a great post on the characteristics of places where people tend to meet each other. This is a topic we’ve been thinking about for a while at Interpersonal Science: the media and popular culture tell us that people meet in bars, but how often does this really happen? This post suggests that three characteristics (repeated exposure, similar interests, and shared social networks) play an important role. And what about bars? They aren’t by default likely to have these three things working in your favor (sure you can find a bar for folks with similar interests, like a sports bar that supports your local team, but this is an exception, not the rule).
Have a look at the original post and give these three characteristics a thought next time you are looking for a new girlfriend/boyfriend:
There are lots of places where you can find a partner. Online, offline, next door, or at a bar, coffee shop, supermarket, etc. etc. Really the list is endless. A lot of sites will try to give a “top ten list of where individuals meet.” But really, it isn’t the place that matters but rather the interpersonal dynamics. So here are the top 3 basic principles at play during initial encounters. If you have these, it you can meet someone anywhere.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Science of Relationships!
We just saw this on The Spark (the official blog of Chemistry.com). We’ve thought of some of these before, and agree that there is tons of bad advice out there. So much of it is based on guesses and spurious correlations. We’re glad to see others interested in this important topic.
Be sure to check out the list on The Spark:
In the spirit of Halloween, we scared up a few links to some of the worst dating advice for men and women we’ve EVER heard. Feel free to share your own horror stories about the worst advice you’ve been given in your own life — whether you read it in a book, heard it from […]
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit The Spark!
Some great new research out of Univ. of VA and Harvard was just summarized in a post on Science of Relationships. As we pointed out in a Web Serial, we tend to be more attracted people who like us back (all other things, such as physical attraction, held equal). This new research adds an interesting twist: women (men were not included in the study) are more attracted to men who show some ambiguity when initially getting to know each other.
Have a look at the post:
Are you more likely to be attracted to someone who is into you? Or do you like those that don’t reciprocate your interest? This is one of those cases where your intuitions might be wrong. You need to be cool and downplay your interest in someone to get them to like you, right? Nope; it turns out that there’s a lot of research showing that we tend to like those people who like us right back.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Science of Relationships!
A recent Science of Realtionships post by Dr. Benjamin Le includes a great summary of his research. He looks at predictors of relationship success over time; in other words, what factors influence whether a couple breaks up or stays togeather. His results are somewhat surprising. As it turns out, personality and attachment style are not predictors. Although knowing these things may not help individual couples to strengthen or protect their relationships from meeting an untimely end, this research will likely eventually help therapists to better assess and treat couples with troubled relationships.
Read the entire post on the Science of Relationships site:
Last week ago we posted a quiz to see how much our readers knew about predicting relationship stability or success. Overall, it looks like we’ve got some work to do; the average score on the quiz was 48% (remember, random guessing should average 50% right). The questions in the quiz were inspired by some of my work on understanding relationship outcomes. One of my main research areas is the role of commitment in predicting the “success” of dating relationships (using the term loosely; i.e., staying together vs. breaking-up).
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Science of Relationships!
This new Science of Relationships post about physical warmth is interesting; they summarize some research in which physical warmth (such as a warm drink) translated to feelings of interpersonal warmth towards another person. This is especially relevant considering how important we know interpersonal warmth to be. In a brief study we presented last year at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, we found that warmth is an important factor in dating: heterosexual men with a warm interpersonal style were more likely to be in a relationship, and reported greater satisfaction with their love-lives. Warmth is by no means the only factor determining dating success, but it is important.
Check out the original post:
If you want to be perceived as warm and friendly on your next date, bring your date a hot cup of coffee or encourage him or her to order the soup. Researchers have found that physical warmth can influence our perceptions of another person’s psychological warmth.
Read the rest of the post at the original site, and be sure to visit Science of Relationships!
