PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. In this video 50 people on the streets of New York City were asked to reveal their biggest secrets, and you'll be shocked by what they shared.
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A Seattle man named Brayden Olson claims many women have reached out to him because they think he is the real-life Christian Grey, the fictional male character in "Fifty Shades of Grey."
Olson is not a billionaire (like Grey), and we don't know if this really happens. We also have no idea if he is interested in S&M (like Grey). Still, we enjoyed his story, so here it is, along with a bunch of pictures Olson sent us.
Olson says he is a 27-year-old Seattle-based entrepreneur behind a holding company called Wilhelm Enterprises. The company, which is derived from Olson's middle name, is involved in education gaming technology and real estate.
During a Skype call from London, Olson told Business Insider that a few years ago a woman he dated pointed out over lunch that he was similar to Grey. He had not yet read the book series, but over time more and more people started making the same association, he said.
"I started getting messages from people I didn't know."
Leading up to the movie, he said, about 1,000 fans of the book reached out over e-mail and through Facebook messages and friend requests.
"I knew the movie would bring more attention, but I continue to be really surprised by the whole matter," he said.
He said some women have even flown out to Seattle to meet him. He acknowledged he had gone on dates with some of them, too.
Olson, who has now read the book and seen the film, said some of the similarities were "pretty mind-numbing."
First, he feels as if he relates to Grey in professional aspects.
"So, I like to point out the professional and bibliographical similarities. I do run a holding company. I live in Seattle. I was voted Seattle's 'best man.' I'm the youngest entrepreneur ever admitted to the entrepreneurs' organization in my region," he said..
In the series, Grey, who runs his namesake firm Grey Enterprises, is a billionaire, which, again, Olson is not.
"Christian Grey has got me beat," Olson said. "He is a character from a book. I don't think a real person can compete. I claim to be the real Brayden Olson. I'm sure you can relate to how strange it would be to have a fictional character made up and so many things true about you in your real life."
Olson, who said he was proud of his professional accomplishments so far, pointed out that it seemed as if Grey never has to actually work.
"I definitely have to actually work."
"I have a successful career; I do not have a Charlie Tango, yet," he said, referring to Grey's helicopter.
Olson would not really have a use for a helicopter in Seattle anyway, as he would have to get laws passed there to fly — only news and medical choppers are allowed within city limits.
One toy Olson has that Grey doesn't is a BMW i8. Grey drives an Audi R8.
"I think it's definitely a Christian Grey type of car," Olson said.
There's a waitlist for the BMW supercar. Olson said this was one way he had been able to capitalize on this association to the character of Christian Grey.
"The guy who owns one of the dealerships in Washington essentially gave up his car so that I could have it because he saw it as an opportunity to associate it with the real Christian Grey," Olson said.
He continued: "There's some things money can't buy — I know at Bellevue BMW they had someone offer $250,000 to skip the waitlist — where influence and power are more important than cash."
He declined to name the price he paid for the BMW. The car starts at about $136,000.
Beyond the professional parallels, Olson pointed out a subtler similarity people close to him have noticed.
In the series, Grey refers to lover Anastasia Steele as "Miss Steele." Olson picked up this habit of using "Miss"and "Mr." back in college.
"It was always Miss and Mr.," he said. "I stopped doing that when the association was brought to my attention."
Olson also said he always had an interest in flying like Grey before he was introduced to the series. He decided to take up scuba diving instead.
As for those other extracurricular activities Christian Grey is drawn to, Olson has used it as an opportunity to advocate a good cause.
"The popularity of this work gives us an opportunity to discuss a different difficult topic — domestic violence," Olson said. "It exists in every community and affects a significant portion of our society. I donate to my local domestic violence program called LifeWire, and I encourage others to become active in the conversation however they can. The line between choosing to show affection more non-traditionally as seen in '50 Shades of Grey' and moving into the category of domestic violence is consent and desire. Remember, Ana and Christian negotiated their contract in the boardroom!"
Right now, Olson is single. He hasn't found his Anastasia Steele, yet.
"This is just a moment in my life," he said. "Christian's story is over a two- or three-year period. This is just the beginning of my career, and this is what I want to do in business and politics and nonprofit work — I want to leave a legacy with someone who is capable of building it with me."
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Sure, having the perfect personality match helps a relationship.
So does the right age difference.
But if you want to have a long-lasting, intimate partnership, you and your boo need to be able to "repair" after conflicts that inevitably come up.
"In every good relationship," says psychologist John Gottman, couples have "repairing skills, and they repair early."
It's the number one commonality in successful relationships, he says.
Gottman's certainty comes from 42 years of studying relationships, both as a professor at the University of Washington and cofounder of the Gottman Institute with his wife Julie. John has authored or co-authored 41 books, and together they've demonstrated that human relationships behave in predictable, replicable, and scientifically verifiable ways.
To err is human, Gottman says, but to repair is divine.
"The thing that all really good marriages and love relationships have in common is that they communicate to their partner a model that when you're upset, I listen," he says. "The world stops, and I listen. And we repair things. We don't let things go. We don't leave one another in pain. We talk about it, and we repair."
That's where gentleness comes in.
"In really good relationships, people are very gentle with the way they come on about a conflict," Gottman says. "They don't bare their fangs and leap in there; they're very considered."
For example, he says: "Instead of pointing their finger and saying, 'You asshole!,' they say, 'Hey babe, it's not a big deal, but I need to talk about it and I need to hear from you.' In bad relationships, it's, 'You're defective, and you need therapy.'"
In this way, the most effective repairs rely on making emotional connections rather than scoring intellectual victories. An effective repair doesn't come from analyzing a problem and being right about it, Gottman says. Instead of turning it into a debate and telling them that they're wrong, you report how you feel.
Gottman says a successful repair might be: "When you walked out of the room, that really hurt my feelings, because I felt like what I was saying was unimportant to you. And I really need you to stay in the room when we talk about an issue."
Resolving conflict gracefully is a skill in itself.
"To get better at conflict, you have to learn how to talk to each other emotionally — listen to each others' conversation," Gottman says. "That's the skill of intimate conversation, and that's the key to sex and romance, too. If they don't have those conversations, over time their relationship will deteriorate. They'll be living in an ice palace."
So if you want to prevent your relationship from freezing over, it's necessary to get comfortable with the perceived heat of conflict.
Miscommunicating, misaligning, and otherwise disagreeing are all natural parts of relating to another human, Gottman says.
It goes against the popularly held belief that people who are "in love" don't hurt each other's feelings and can know what the other person desires without ever talking about it.
Even the most intimate human relationship — that between infant and mother — experiences misalignment.
Mothers and infants don't naturally fall into a beautiful, perfect rhythm of knowing what the other needs and wants. Developmental psychologists have found that mothers and three-month-olds are uncoordinated 70% of the time, and that it's up to the mother — and sometimes the baby — to repair the relationship.
As other psychologists have told us, tension and conflict play a major part in a relationship's maturation.
Gottman says that conflict, or telling the other person how you really feel, is especially difficult for Americans. The American view is that disagreements and conflict are "bad," he says.
That outlook is many generations in the making, stretching all the way back to before the colonies broke away from England. Because of that history, America has an "honor culture," he says, so opposition is seen as disrespectful.
"Anglo-Saxon cultures tend to be honor cultures, where any kind of opposition is viewed as a moral affront," he says. "You don't tolerate disagreement. You think that disagreement is dysfunctional, and agreement is functional. When someone says you're wrong, you take it as a moral affront."
Not every culture is like that.
"In Italy," Gottman says, "if somebody tells you that you're full of shit, you say, 'That's probably true, but so are you.'"
To get better at conflict, we need to shift our cultural perception of it.
Instead of seeing conflict as a sign that you and your partner are incompatible, you can see it as a natural, constructive part of knowing somebody really well.
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The solution to the age-old problem of understanding others may be as simple as taking the time to improve your active listening skills. Active listening is all about building rapport, understanding, and trust.
Your "likability" factor is largely determined by your ability to effectively listen to client and customer suggestions and successfully respond to their needs, requests, and concerns. But you don't have to be born with the gift of gab to become an expert communicator.
Here are six tips to help you become a better listener and actually hear what others are saying, not just what you think they are saying or what you want to hear.
When you speak to someone, especially in a busy or loud environment, give him or her your full attention. If you find yourself distracted or can't hear them well, ask to move to a quieter area.
Practice empathetic listening. Put yourself in his or her shoes and try to see the situation through his or her eyes. Ask questions and encourage the other person to elaborate. Even if you haven't experienced the same situation, try sharing a personal story about a time when you felt similarly.
Most people will cherish the opportunity to share their stories and experiences. To start a conversation, use the two most powerful words in conversation: "Tell me." Successful conversationalists avoid questions that may be answered with a simple yes or no.
Ask open-ended questions and then listen. For example, you may say, "Tell me, Joe, what prompted you to start your own business?" Or ask for their input, "I'd like to take my family on a vacation this summer. Tell me, do you have a favorite vacation spot?" When you choose a topic of conversation that demonstrates interest in the other person, the discussion will flow more smoothly.
(Related: For Better Conversations, Replace 'How Are You?' With This One Phrase)
Dale Carnegie once said, "A person's name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language." Any business acquaintance will be flattered and impressed if you remember his or her name. If you have difficulty remembering names, set out to practice as frequently as possible.
When you meet someone for the first time, say the person's name immediately. Respond with something like, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Frank." Then use their name a couple of times throughout your conversation. When the conversation ends, say their name one last time: "I really enjoyed meeting you, Jim."
When someone agrees with you, it establishes an instant bond. Suddenly, you both have something in common. However, the strongest professional relationships exhibit mutual respect and admiration, even in disagreements. Tolerance and respect for others, especially when they disagree with you, is vital to successful networking.
If you strongly disagree with someone's opinion, softly communicate that you don't see it the same way. Ask questions and allow the person to fully express his or her reasoning.
(Related: The 3 Qualities of Likable People)
When someone speaks to you, listen with your whole body. Nod, make eye contact, and be fully engaged in what they have to say. Attentive listening will build trust and help you establish a professional relationship. When given the opportunity, ask pertinent questions, which will help demonstrate your sincere interest.
If you don't understand, ask for specifics. You could ask a clarifying question such as, "If I hear you correctly, you're saying…Is that right?" It's best to confirm your assumptions rather than risk a miscommunication.
Many assertive professionals finish others' sentences out of habit. If you jump in and interrupt someone's sentence, you prevent him or her from fully expressing his or her thoughts. Though your intentions may be good, the other person may perceive you to be a know-it-all or in a rush. Or worse, the person may think you are trying to put words in his or her mouth.
Always permit the other person enough time to finish their thought before you respond. Your patience and thoughtfulness will be appreciated.
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Ever been in the middle of a heated argument when suddenly the other person pulls out their phone and starts texting?
If the answer is yes, and if you find it happening constantly, we hope that person isn't your significant other.
This behavior, known as stonewalling, is one of four reactions that John Gottman, a psychologist at the University of Washington and the founder of the Gottman Institute, has identified as a telltale sign that all is not well with a married couple.
In fact, when Gottman and University of California-Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson lumped stonewalling together with three other behaviors — contempt, criticism, and defensiveness — and measured how often they occurred within the span of a 15-minute conversation, they found they could predict which marriages would end in divorce with striking precision.
When the psychologists added questions about things like relationship satisfaction and how many times the research subjects had thoughts about separating to the mix, they could predict which marriages would end in divorce 93% of the time.
The figure, which comes from a 14-year study of 79 couples living across the US Midwest (21 of whom divorced during the study period), was so striking it spurned the researchers to label the four behaviors "the four horsemen of the apocalypse."
While that initial study, published in 2002, was small and focused on a specific population, a decade of research into marriage and divorce has lent further support to the idea that divorce is associated with specific negative behaviors.
One recent study of 373 newlywed couples, for example, found that couples who yelled at each other, showed contempt for each other, or shut off conversation about an issue within the first year of marriage were more likely to divorce as far as 16 years down the road.
So what do these four "apocalyptic" behaviors actually look like in a relationship?
Contempt, a virulent mix of anger and disgust, is far more toxic than simple frustration or negativity. It involves seeing your partner as beneath you, rather than as an equal.
This behavior alone, says Gottman, is "the kiss of death" for a relationship.
Take an everyday argument about buying groceries, for example. When you come home and realize your significant other has picked up habanero peppers rather than bell peppers for tonight's stir-fry dinner, do you listen while he explains that perhaps you didn't ever tell him what type of pepper you wanted? Do you think this over, and, when you realize that maybe he's right, do you apologize? Or do you adopt an attitude and think to yourself, What kind of an idiot doesn't know that bell peppers are for stir-fry and habaneros are for salsa?
The reason contempt is so powerful is because it means you've closed yourself off to your partner's needs and emotions.
If you constantly feel smarter than, better than, or more sensitive than your significant other, you're not only less likely see his or her opinions as valid, but, more important, you're far less willing to try to put yourself in his or her shoes to try to see a situation from his or her perspective.
Like contempt, criticism involves turning a behavior (something your partner did) into a statement about his or her character (the type of person he or she is).
Say your partner has a nasty habit of leaving his or her used cereal bowl — calcified, uneaten cereal-and-milk remnants and all — around the house.
Do you wait until he or she gets home to mention that the behavior bothers you, and gently suggest that he or she put the emptied bowl in the sink or dishwasher instead? Or do you think to yourself, "Why am I dating the type of person who abandons half-eaten cereal bowls around the house?"
Over time, these personal detractions can add up, feeding darker feelings of resentment and contempt.
If you find yourself regularly playing the victim in tough situations with your partner, you might be guilty of being defensive.
Take being late to a cousin's wedding, for example. Are you the first to say, "It wasn't my fault!" when you finally arrive? Or do you think it over before you accuse the other person, realizing you probably shouldn't have taken a 2-hour shower when you only had an hour to get ready?
Taking responsibility for your role in a tough situation can be uncomfortable, but it's often what keeps a bad situation from escalating, says Gottman.
He's found that for couples who divorce within the first several years of their marriage — one of the times when divorce rates are highest — "entering negativity is like stepping into a quicksand bog. It’s easy to enter but hard to exit."
You know when an argument is about to start. You can feel your heart rate increase and your voice get just a tiny bit louder. But the moment things start to get heated, do you pull out your phone, walk away, or simply ignore your partner?
Blocking off conversation can be just as toxic for a relationship as contempt because it keeps you from addressing an underlying issue.
We know: Getting into arguments with your partner is the opposite of a good time. But these temporarily uncomfortable situations are oftentimes the place where you can start to come to big realizations about your own behavior and solve potentially damaging problems.
It's important to keep in mind that occasionally displaying any one of these behaviors — or all of them, even — is completely normal.
It's when these negative behaviors happen so frequently that they replace more positive interactions with your partner that can be cause for concern.
Simply recognizing that you're doing something that could be hurting your relationship is the first step to actively combating it. If you can figure out how to avoid the behavior or replace it with a more positive one, you'll probably make the relationship even stronger.
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This Saturday is not just Valentine's Day — it's also opening night for "Fifty Shades of Grey."
The film is based on the titillating book published in 2011 that attracted over 100 million readers, many of them women.
The raunchy romance novel involves dominance/submission partnerships, sadism and masochism, and other sexual practices that, while not necessarily uncommon, had not previously been the focus of a best-selling book.
Author Erika Mitchell (who wrote the book under the name E.L. James) may have just recently shown the world exactly how popular fantasizing about S&M is, but scientists have known for decades what men and women like to fantasize about.
Since the 1970s, social scientists have been studying sexual fantasies. And while it is impossible to accurately study the varied fantasies of millions of people across numerous cultures, several studies suggest that when it comes to sexual thoughts and desires, the divide between men and women is strong.
Researchers at the University of Quebec investigated which specific sexual fantasies were most prevalent among a sample of 1,516 men and women living in the province of Quebec, most of whom were between the ages of 20 and 40. They published their results late last year in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The subjects reported whether they had or had not fantasized about numerous scenarios the researchers provided in an online questionnaire. According to the study, the 10 things women fantasized about the most included being dominated sexually and sex in a romantic location. The chart below shows all 10:
In contrast, men fantasized more about different partners and more than one partner at a time:
The fantasies that ranked in the top 10 for both sexes were:
One important distinction that the Quebec team discovered from the survey was that most women said they did not want to experience their fantasies in real life, whereas the men said they did. So while between 30% and 60% of women reported fantasizing about some form of submission (being tied up, spanked, or forced to have sex), most said they preferred to read and think about it rather than to live it.
The Quebec team's results echo the findings of an earlier study published in the Journal of Sex Research in 1990. Regarding the different types of sexual fantasies between men and women, the authors wrote:
The researchers surveyed just 182 females and 125 males — most between 17 and 29 years old — all of whom were attending a California state university or junior college at the time.
From the subjects' responses to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, the researchers found, among other things, that women were more likely to see themselves as the objects of sexual desire in their fantasies. Men, on the other hand, often saw their partners, not themselves, as sexual objects and were more likely to fantasize about different people. In fact, one-third of the males reported having fantasized about more than 1,000 partners over the course of their life.
Both studies surveyed a small, select group who were mostly heterosexual. The results probably don't accurately capture the fantasies of different, more diverse groups.
To learn more about the types of sexual fantasies men and women told the researchers about, check out the list of questions that the Quebec team asked their participants. How do your fantasies compare?
CHECK OUT: What Men Fantasize About
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Most of us can probably admit to doing stupid things in the name of love.
Some mistakes will shortly become a distant memory that can be laughed at, while others, especially those revolving around our bank accounts, can haunt us for many years to come.
Love can be a tricky thing, but it's best to avoid letting it get in the way of your finances.
Here are the money choices you should avoid making to protect your finances and love life.
It may seem romantic to buy a car or home together, but it can really mess up your relationship and finances. Most loans last for quite a long time. Even a car loan can last five to seven years. You don't want your loved one's loan lasting longer than your relationship.
Your significant other might seem financially secure and responsible, but you will be held accountable for repaying back any debt if they decide to stop paying back the loan. If your loved one doesn't have good enough credit to get the loan by themselves, do you really want to risk being stuck with their loan because they can't make their payments?
On your wedding day, you may have vowed to love your spouse no matter what. Well, what if they came with a whole lot of debt to love too? A common misconception is that once you get married, your spouse's debt automatically becomes your debt too. In most states, the debt you take on is the debt you and your spouse incur during the marriage — not before as single individuals. Still, your spouse's debt and poor credit could affect you both when you try to apply for a low-interest rate loan or buy a house, for example.
While debt is not healthy for anyone's finances, bankruptcy is as close to financial suicide as you can get. You and your spouse may avoid paying debt by declaring bankruptcy, but you will also destroy your credit and financial opportunities for up to 10 years. Bankruptcy can also affect your employment. Instead of immediately resorting to filing bankruptcy, get a good financial advisor, and be prepared to take the debt head on.
Think a sign of love is paying for all of your loved one's expenses? Think again. When one person in the relationship pays for everything, it can cause a lot of bitterness and issues. The person who is paying all of the bills might end up feeling used or overwhelmed, while the person getting everything paid for might feel like they have no freedom. Financial problems in a relationship are a serious romance killer.
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A joint account can be a bad idea for unmarried couples. This is especially true if the accounts are only in one person's name. Obviously a joint account is problematic when a breakup happens, but it can also cause relationship woes while you are together. A joint account might lead to frequent arguments if one person spends more than they should or unwisely spends money.
If the one you love has poor credit, you shouldn't set them up as an authorized user on your credit card. Why? Because they will have access to your credit without the responsibility of having to repay the debt. It's as simple as that, yet so many couples make this mistake. If you marry someone with poor credit and want to help them boost their credit score, there are safer ways to do so. For example, name them as a joint account holder or transfer their debt to a low-interest credit card.
Related: Bad Credit? Getting Married Can Fix That
Even if you keep your accounts separate from your significant other and make your own money, you can still experience financial issues in your relationship. This can happen when one person is not aware of how their spending habits affect the other. For example, if you are engaged and one partner is racking up their credit card debt before the big day, that can lead to huge a problem down the line. Another example is if someone in the relationship wants to go on a pricey getaway. The other person in the relationship may pay their half and then have buyer's regret afterwards.
While you don't need to present your credit scores on your first date, it is essential to know where your partner stands financially before you move in together or take your relationship to the next level. They say that love is blind, but you're asking for trouble if you turn a blind eye to each other's financial problems and pasts. Marrying someone with horrible credit or with a heavy amount of debt will put a financial strain on your marriage.
Relationships and finances are hard enough on their own. Avoid these top seven mistakes to keep both your wallet and love life healthy.
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Is love an act of pure fate (as the happy couples surrounding you would seem to suggest) or a simple choice that can be prompted with a series of questions (as a recent Modern Love column in The New York Times implied)?
The truth lies somewhere in between.
As the original paper that inspired the New York Times piece makes clear, any relationship requires effort. That study, by State University of New York psychologist Arthur Aron, aimed to test the idea that two people who were willing to feel more connected to each another could do so, even if they were only given a few minutes to accomplish this feat.
While asking Aron's 36 questions won't make you fall in love with someone, the questions do hit on three key components of any healthy relationship that you can start practicing now.
Do you remember the last time your partner took out the trash? More importantly, do you remember how you reacted to that small act of kindness?
Don't despair if you're drawing a blank — showing gratitude is something you can do right now.
In Aron's study, for example, he prompted participants to demonstrate they were thankful for their partners in question #22, by asking them to share five positive characteristics about other person.
Pointing out your partner's strengths and showing that you're grateful for those things doesn't just make the other person feel good — research suggests it makes both of you feel more satisfied with the relationship and brings you closer together too.
In one recent study of couples, for example, researchers had each member keep a journal of all the things their partner had done for them over the past week that made them feel grateful. They were also instructed to write how connected they'd felt with their partner at that time. As it turned out, on the days when people reported being more grateful for their partner, they also reported feeling more connected to him or her.
The gratitude effect can be long-lasting as well. A series of recent studies found that the more grateful couples were, the more likely they were to still be in the relationship nine months later.
Do you and your partner slide through big decisions, or do you take time to sit down and contemplate the options carefully as a team?
Talking through big decisions is an important component of any serious relationship, and Aron has his participants try it by having them "share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it" (question #36).
Couples who make big decisions as a team tend to be happier individually, feel more closely connected, and stay together longer. One recent study looking at two decades worth of research on more than 1,000 married American couples found that those who shared equally in making decisions were more likely to have happy, low-conflict marriages than those who did not.
When people in a relationship approach decisions as equals, they're more willing to take responsibility for building and maintaining their partnership.
When's the last time you opened up to your significant other and shared something personal with him or her? If you can't remember, try it now.
Aron had his participants open up by having them take turns sharing an embarrassing moment (question #29). While it might seem silly, research shows that couples who are well-versed in speaking openly about their emotions tend to trust one another more and feel more pleased with the relationship overall.
Opening up also prevents misinformation from seeping into a relationship and leaving your significant other with the wrong impression. A recent study of 3,597 couples who participated in a national survey at two different points in time — once during the survey's first wave in 1987-1988 and again about six years later — found that those who accurately assessed their partner's happiness levels were significantly less likely to have divorced over the course of the six year period than those who assumed that their partner was happier than he or she actually was.
In other words, couples who had incorrect perceptions of each other's true feelings were more likely to split than couples who had a finger on their partner's satisfaction levels.
"The more private information there is [and] the more information two people keep hidden from each other, the worse decisions they make," the study author told Business Insider.
Falling in love isn't something that just happens to us, nor is it something we can force with a few simple questions. Any healthy, happy relationship takes effort, collaboration, and work. So the next time you decide you want to fall, remember that you'll probably have to jump first.
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One thing that relationship research has taught us is that good relationships are good for us. Many studies have demonstrated that solid relationships are associated with better health and longer life. In fact, having strong relationships is a better predictor of mortality than any other healthy lifestyle behavior. But why are relationships so beneficial? A new review of the research by Brooke Feeney and Nancy Collins unlocks the secrets of how good relationships help us flourish.
According to Feeney and Collins, there are two ways for us to thrive in life: 1) successfully coping with adversity, and 2) pursuing personal goals and opportunities for growth. Strong relationships can help with both.
Coping With Adversity
There are many ways that those we are closest to can help us cope with the stressors we face, like job loss, relationship break-up, or illness. Relationships can buffer us from the negative effects of these events by providing comfort, reassurance, or acceptance, or protecting us from some of the negative forces of the stressor. But in addition to that comfort and protection, our relationships can strengthen and fortify us against future adversity.
Close others can make us stronger by helping us recognize strengths that we have, or develop the skills we need to cope with a stressor. Feeney and Collins compare this process to rebuilding a home after a storm – Not only is the home rebuilt, but it is built sturdier, so that it can survive the next storm. For example, one may strengthen a friend who has difficulty in her marriage because of her lack of self-assurance by boosting her confidence and helping her find ways to be more assertive with her husband, and this new confidence could help her interact with other people too. Thus the support you receive not only helps you cope with that particular stressor, but also makes you stronger by teaching you new skills that can help in other, similar situations.
Our close others can also help us use those new strengths to come back from adversity in a constructive way, such as finding a new relationship after a break-up or making a positive career change. This can sometimes be accomplished by helping people reframe a negative experience, like giving a friend perspective on a setback at work and reminding her that it’s a common occurrence and not a sign of her incompetence.
Encouraging Thriving
Relationships don’t just help us when we’re down. They can help us when we’re up, by encouraging us to thrive and helping us take advantage of opportunities for personal growth. Our close others can push us to take those chances and encourage us when we do.
This can happen when they encourage us to focus on the positive aspects of these opportunities or help us see opportunities that we missed. Relationship partners can also prepare us to better face these challenges. They can help us develop plans and skills needed to achieve our goals, or gather information that we need in order to tackle the tasks at hand. For example, a man might help research graduate programs or financial aid for his wife who is considering going back to school.
Close others can also serve a “launching function” for us as we pursue our goals. Effective supporters provide encouragement and are available for help without interfering unnecessarily. They can also ensure that we don’t neglect other important life priorities, like spending time with our kids or taking care of our health. They can also support us through “capitalization” – that is, celebrating our successes along the way.
Why Is This Support So Effective?
How exactly does this support enable us to thrive? Feeney and Collins propose that there are eight ways that support from our relationships helps us to flourish. It improves 1) our emotional state; 2) our resilience and our acceptance of ourselves; 3) how we interpret situations or events, so that we see them as more manageable; 4) our motivation to overcome adversity and strive toward our goals; 5) the adaptiveness of our responses to specific situations, such as our coping strategies and our ability to learn from experience; 6) our relationships themselves in terms of closeness, trust, and feeling loved; 7) our physiological functioning, such as improved immune response; and 8) behaviors that comprise a healthier lifestyle, like better eating habits and self-care and less substance abuse.
How Can We Make Our Relationships More Supportive?
Given that support from significant others is so important to our overall well-being, how can we cultivate it? According to Feeney and Collins, both provider and recipient are responsible for creating a supportive environment.
There are three key factors that can make you a more effective support provider:
1. Skills: First, you must have the skills to provide effective support. You must know how to provide support, be able to take another person’s perspective, and be able to interpret others’ emotions and control your own.
2. Resources: Skills alone will not make you a good support-provider. You must also have the resources to use those skills. These resources can be tangible, such as material resources like money, or social resources like having your own support system. These resources can also be emotional or cognitive. A lack of resources can be chronic – For example, if you are chronically burnt out because you’re overanxious or depressed, you may not have the emotional energy to be an effective supporter of others. Or a lack of resources could be temporary and situation-specific – For example, you had a tough day at work, you’re going through a personal crisis of your own, or you have competing pulls on your resources.
3. Motivation: In order to provide effective support, you must be motivated to do so. First, you must feel responsible for helping your close others. You need to see it as your job to help them through the hard times and encourage them through the good times. You’ll also be more effective if you’re motivated by altruism, a genuine desire to improve the other person’s welfare, rather than more selfish motives.
The recipient doesn’t need to be passive in this process. It is also possible to be a better recipient of support, and there are several ways to accomplish that:
1. Make your needs known: If you want support from others, you need to reach out to them and clearly express your needs. And when you see others trying to help you, be open to those attempts.
2. Ensure that support is available: Make sure you do not overtax any one person, particularly someone who has many competing demands and won’t be able to give you adequate attention. That also means you can’t rely on only one or two people to provide all the support need. It is important to build up a strong network of close others whom you can turn to.
3. Reciprocate support: Remember that a healthy, supportive relationship is not one-sided. You must make yourself available to provide aid to others when they need it, if you expect them to do the same for you.
According to Feeney and Collins, the behaviors that create a supportive environment involve “mutual responsiveness” to need - Being able to accept help when you need it and being willing and able to help others in return. Thus, if you want to reap the benefits of strong relationships, you and your loved ones must support each other in both good times and bad.
A version of this article orginally appeared on Psychology Today.
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NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization
Insecurities: we've all got a few.
They're those intrusive thoughts people have about mistakes they might have made, flaws they might have, and negative opinions that others might have about them.
Insecurities can be frustratingly persistent, and they can really interfere with close relationships 1,2 ("You looked at that girl, I saw you looking!"). It's not realistic to expect people to simply ignore these insecurities. So the question becomes: what is the healthiest way to deal with these nagging thoughts and feelings?
One seemingly obvious solution might be to reveal your insecurities to someone you're close to — such as a friend or a romantic partner — so that this person could help you to feel better. However, recent research has revealed a way that this approach can sometimes fail to work, and can even backfire. 3
Basically, revealing insecurities to other people has the potential to generate a whole new kind of insecurity: the concern that these individuals perceive you to be an insecure person. For example, say I'm worried that I gave a boring lecture for my relationships class, and so I decide to disclose this to my good friend and fellow relationships researcher, Bonnie Le. Being the responsive friend she is, Bonnie would of course respond by saying reassuring things ("You rocked that lecture, Sam!"). But after doing this a few times, I might start to think, "Wow, I've been acting pretty insecure around Bonnie lately. She probably thinks I'm an emotionally fragile individual who desperately needs approval and can't handle criticism or rejection." Unfortunately, those concerns are going to make me doubt every nice thing Bonnie says to me from then on. I'll think that she's just "walking on eggshells” around me, trying to spare my ego, and not telling me what she really feels. Her encouraging words will be less likely to make me feel good about myself because I'll dismiss them as being insincere. So, paradoxically, showing my friend that I feel insecure has just made the problem worse.
Dr. Edward Lemay and Dr. Margaret Clark have laid out an elegant model for how this unfortunate cycle unfolds.
First, the researchers propose that a person doesn't have to directly express their insecurities in order for the cycle to be set in motion. There are lots of indirect ways people broadcast that they're feeling vulnerable. For example, say that right around the time I'm beating myself up about my boring lecture, my husband James makes an innocuous comment about his work colleague giving a fantastic presentation. Even without directly admitting that this comment has made me feel bad about myself, I could lash out in other ways. I might wind up criticizing James, storming off in a huff, sulking in my bedroom, or generally acting distant or bothered. At a later point when I've gotten a grip on my insecurity, I would of course look back on this behavior with embarrassment, realizing that my reaction was out of proportion and unfair to James. It's at this point that I would start to worry: how did my behavior in this instance affect James's perception of me? (“He must think that he really has to watch what he says around me…").
And so, although I never actually admitted to James that I was feeling insecure, the cycle of insecurity would be perpetuated nevertheless.
The researchers further posit that these worries about other people's perceptions are likely to be way off-base. Research shows that we tend to believe that other people pay more attention to our own behaviors and emotions than they actually do. 3
It's a classic perspective-taking fail: we think that whatever is really salient to us at the moment is also what's salient to others, and we ignore the possibility that other people are focused on completely different things. So while I'm off sulking about that lecture, I may believe that James is acutely aware of what I'm thinking and feeling. Meanwhile, he may have failed to notice my reaction to his comment altogether, and may instead be wondering if his work colleague received that g-chat message about tomorrow's meeting. In this case, any worries that I have about James’s perceptions of me are totally unfounded, because he isn't currently observing my behavior at all, let alone observing my behavior in a negative light. Furthermore, even when our social blunders are noticed by other people, they tend not to affect other people's opinions of us nearly as much as we think they do.4 Even if James notices that I'm in a bad mood, he would probably infer that I'm just having a bad day, instead of inferring that I'm a chronically insecure person. Therefore, although I'm left with this unfortunate meta-perception (I perceive that my partner perceives that I'm an insecure person), that meta-perception is likely inaccurate.
Finally, the researchers propose that this pattern of insecurity could happen to anyone. Even if you're generally a secure person, feeling temporarily insecure could trigger this chain of events. By expressing your insecurities to a close friend or a romantic partner, you may subsequently worry that this person thinks of you as an insecure person, which could then lead you to doubt the nice things they tell you.
The researchers tested this model across six studies. Altogether, they found strong support for each component of the model. For example, in one study, the researchers asked people to think of someone important to them — either a romantic partner or a close friend.
Participants rated how often they expressed vulnerabilities to this person (e.g., "I often ask this person how he/she truly feels about me", "I have frequently expressed hurt or angry feelings toward this person"), as well as how much they believed this person viewed them as insecure (e.g., "This person views me as vulnerable and easily hurt"). Finally, participants rated how much they doubted the authenticity of their partner's kind words and reassurances (e.g., "This person censors his/her thoughts and feelings in order to avoid hurting my feelings"; "This person often says things he/she doesn't mean in order to make me feel good"). Results showed that when people believed that they expressed a lot of insecurities to their partner, they tended to also believe that their partner viewed them as vulnerable and insecure, which in turn led them to doubt their partner's authenticity.
In another study, participants again rated how much they doubted the authenticity of their partner's reassurances (e.g., "This person often says things he/she doesn't mean in order to make me feel good"), as well as how negatively they thought their partners viewed them (e.g., "This person thinks I have a number of significant flaws"). The more that participants believed their partners "walked on eggshells" around them, the more rejected they felt by their partners.
Most impressively, the researchers conducted a longitudinal study with dyads (pairs of people) to see what happens to people's perceptions over time, and to see how they stack up to reality. In this study, 38 dyads—mostly pairs of platonic friends, but also a few romantic couples—completed the measures described above, twice, five months apart.
For example, if Bonnie and I were participating in this study, I would rate how many vulnerabilities I express to Bonnie, how much I think Bonnie sees me as an insecure person, and how much I doubt Bonnie's authenticity when she says nice things to me. I would also rate my care and regard for Bonnie, and perceptions of how much Bonnie cares about me, Bonnie would rate the same measures about me. Then, five months later, we would both complete these same measures a second time.
By surveying both members of each pair, the researchers were able to examine how accurate people's perceptions actually were about how their friends or partners viewed them. Furthermore, by surveying each pair of individuals twice over a five-month period, the researchers were better able to examine causal direction: what leads to changes in what? Again, the researchers found strong support for their model: People who expressed more vulnerabilities to their friend/partner tended to believe that this person saw them as insecure, which in turn led them to doubt that person's authenticity, which in turn led them to believe that this person viewed them more negatively.
Over time, this belief that the person viewed them more negatively led the person to express even more vulnerabilities, and thus the whole cycle would continue to worsen over time. Furthermore, these effects occurred independently from the friends' partners' views. According to these results, if I express my insecurities to Bonnie, I am likely to subsequently believe that Bonnie perceives me to be insecure regardless of her actual perceptions of me. Similarly, my belief that Bonnie perceives me as insecure will lead me to doubt Bonnie's authenticity regardless of how authentic she actually is. And, in all of the studies, these effects emerged above and beyond self-esteem, suggesting that all of this occurs relatively independently from chronic insecurities.
Overall, this paper presents a useful explanation for how feelings of insecurity can be perpetuated over time, especially in the context of close relationships. Revealing your insecurities to a person you care about—for example, by seeking reassurance from them, or by taking the insecurities out on them—may lead you to doubt the reassurance that the person provides, thus making the insecurities worse. That said, suppressing insecurities may not be very healthy either, as the researchers discuss at the end of the paper. So how do you go about dealing with insecurities in a healthy way?
Maybe, rather than trying to change how we express our insecurities to close others, we should instead try to change our perceptions of how those close others are reacting to our insecurities. If you believe that someone sees you as insecure or that they're walking on eggshells around you, those beliefs are more likely a projection of your own feelings than they are an accurate assessment of how the person feels. You are far more aware of your own insecurities than anyone else is. In fact, research shows that it's precisely when you're feeling the most insecure that you're most likely to underestimate how much the close people in your life care about you and how positively they feel about you. So, the next time a close friend or a romantic partner tells you something complimentary, try taking it at face value. In all likelihood they do mean it, or they wouldn't be saying it.
Finally, another strategy would be to take the less positive things close others say and do as evidence of their authenticity. Think about it: if your friend is highly concerned about tiptoeing around your feelings, why would they ever say or do anything inconsiderate? So the next time your friend forgets to call you back, or your partner acts grouchy around you, take it as a sign that you really are seeing the real them, warts and all. Because if you're willing to accept that your close others' slip-ups are authentic, then you should be willing to accept that their love, their compliments, and their all-around positive feelings toward you are authentic as well.
Interested in learning more about relationships? Click here for other topics on Science of Relationships. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get our articles delivered directly to your NewsFeed. Learn more about our book and download it here.
1 Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., Griffin, D. W., Bellavia, G., & Rose, P. (2001). The mismeasure of love: How self-doubt contaminates relationship beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 423-436.
2 Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., MacDonald, G., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1998). Through the looking glass darkly? When self-doubts turn into relationship insecurities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1459-1480.
3 Lemay, E. P., & Clark, M. S. (2008). "Walking on eggshells": How expressing relationship insecurities perpetuates them. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 420-441.
4 Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1999). The spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency: Egocentric assessments of how we are seen by others. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 165-168.
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Last August, exactly two years after my partner and I met, we got engaged.
But unlike most soon-to-be newlyweds, we have not yet lived together. In fact, we will be engaged for almost a year before moving into our own place.
A few of my friends were surprised that my fiancé and I could commit to a life together without first sharing an apartment. In their eyes, cohabitation is important for allowing dating couples to "test drive” being married and identify lifestyle incompatibilities before making a formal long-term commitment. My grandparents and parents, on the other hand, were unfazed that we hadn’t yet lived together, and they even encouraged us to wait until the timing was right.
These conflicting messages made me question whether living together as a dating couple makes for a more well-adjusted marriage if the relationship is headed that way. Most researchers agree that living together before getting engaged has potential advantages and drawbacks, but are certain approaches to cohabiting better than others? To answer this question — and to understand why my friends (but not the older generations) expected my partner and I to live together sooner — I examined the latest research on cohabitation and its consequences for relationships.
Research shows that in today's age, living together is not a definite step towards marriage (see Figure 1) 1. In fact, only 40% of people between 2006 and 2010 got married to the first person they lived with 2. This number will likely continue to drop because it is becoming increasingly normal for people to live with different partners across their dating history ("serial cohabiting").
Although fewer co-habitaters are eventually getting married, it is more and more common for romantic partners to live together before tying the knot. In fact, one study found that two thirds of first marriages between 2005-2009 involved premarital cohabitation 3, an all-time high compared to years prior (see Figure 2).
Collectively, these data indicate that although cohabitation occurs before most marriages nowadays, marriage is becoming less and less of an end goal of co-habitating. 1
The growing popularity of cohabitation explains why my friends deemed it a requisite for marriage. But for the goal of sustaining happiness as a semi-serious relationship potentially turns into a lifelong commitment, is there a benefit to cohabiting early on? One recent study of 280 cohabiting individuals found that people's primary reasons for living together mattered for their relationship quality. 4
Specifically, cohabiting for the purpose of spending time together was linked with greater relationship satisfaction, higher commitment, and lower conflict. In contrast, other reasons for cohabiting were associated with less desirable outcomes. People who reported living together to "test the relationship" reported greater ambivalence about the relationship, while those citing “convenience" as the main reason reported lower commitment — a risk factor for cheating. These findings mean that identifying specific motives behind wanting to live with someone is important in deciding whether cohabitation will likely help or harm the relationship.
Another study suggests that it's important for both partners to be clear about their goals when it comes to making relationship decisions like moving in together.
The researchers found that regardless of whether partners were dating, cohabiting, or married, those who reported engaging in more thoughtful decision-making processes (e.g., reflecting on the risks and benefits of the decision; communicating intentions) were more dedicated to their partners, more satisfied with their relationships, and less likely to cheat.5 In other words, cohabitation is more likely to confer positive relationship outcomes when partners are on the same page about the decision and they engage in proactive discussions about potential challenges.
The bottom line: Cohabitation is increasingly seen as a relationship milestone, but it doesn't mean that engagement is around the corner.
In fact, moving in with a dating partner for shortsighted reasons or just because you've been with them for awhile may invite problems later on. There may be value in cohabiting to spend more time with your partner on a daily basis, but when you anticipate spending a lifetime together, why rush?
Check out all of our articles on cohabitation here.
Interested in learning more about relationships? Click here for other topics on Science of Relationships. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get our articles delivered directly to your NewsFeed. Learn more about our book and download it here.
1 Guzzo, K. B. (2014). Trends in cohabitation outcomes: Compositional changes and engagement among never‐married young adults. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 826-842. doi:10.1111/jomf.12123
2 Copen, C. E., Daniels, K., & Mosher, W. D. (2013). First premarital cohabitation in the United States: 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth. National Health Statistics Reports, No. 64. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
3 Manning, W. D. (2013). Trends in cohabitation: Over twenty years of change, 1987–2010. Family Profile FP-13-12, Center for Family & Marriage Research, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH.
4 Tang, C., Curran, M., & Arroyo, A. (2014). Cohabitors' reasons for living together, satisfaction with sacrifices, and relationship quality. Marriage & Family Review, 50, 598-620. doi:10.1080/01494929.2014.938289
5 Owen, J., Rhoades, G. K., & Stanley, S. M. (2013). Sliding Versus Deciding in Relationships: Associations With Relationship Quality, Commitment, and Infidelity. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 12, 135-149. doi:10.1080/15332691.2013.779097
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Dating is hard.
Once you finally find someone you're pretty compatible with, you'll might just throw in the towel and settle into a long-term relationship.
It turns out that humans may be programmed to do this — or at least, this approach is the savviest move for the survival of the human species.
Settling for someone we're happy with, even though there might be a better match out there somewhere, could be a learned behavior that's been passed down for generations, recent research suggests.
From an evolutionary standpoint, settling for Mr. or Ms. Right Now is a better strategy than waiting around for Mr. or Ms. Right. It's far less risky.
Researchers from Michigan State University figured this out by creating a computer model that simulated the risk-taking behavior of thousands of generations of digital organisms. Each digital organism was programmed to make decisions in a way similar to humans. Each organism in the simulation had to take one high-stakes gamble that mimicked real life-altering decisions, like choosing a mate.
Organisms in the simulation only evolved to take fewer risks when they were faced with a rare, once-in-a-lifetime decision that came with a potentially huge payoff.
"If the stakes are sufficiently high, people prefer the safe option,"the researchers write in in their paper. "They are therefore risk sensitive (risk averse)."
If organisms in the simulation were faced with lots of little decisions with small payoffs (like betting $50 on the outcome of a sports game), they did not evolve to take fewer risks.
The researchers also discovered that the simulated organisms were more likely to play it safe and settle on the first available mate when living in small groups. Populations with less than 1,000 members, or groups with less than 150 people were much more likely to avoid taking risks. Smaller populations meant fewer resources and fewer mate choices, so the simulated organisms were more likely to settle for the first available mate.
Many of our ancient ancestors lived in small groups with less than 150 people. That means they were much more likely to settle for Mr. or Ms. Right Now rather than Mr. or Ms. Perfect.
This kind of play it safe behavior evolved because our ancestors had a lot more at stake than we do now. They spent most of their time searching for food and shelter, and their primary goal was to pass on their genes to the next generation. They learned to take the safe road and choose the first available mate to guarantee they could successfully carry on their lineage.
"[Our ancestors] could either choose to mate with the first, potentially inferior, companion and risk inferior offspring, or they could wait for Mr. or Ms. Perfect to come around,” Chris Adami, one of the authors on the new paper, said in a statement. “If they chose to wait, they risked never mating."
Even though circumstances are very different now, we could still be genetically programmed to settle.
"This behavior [avoiding risks] will still give your genes a higher probability to move to the future, which is evolution's goal," Adami said. "Your goal today may not be the same."
So even though we don't live in such small groups anymore, and passing on our genes may not be our number one priority anymore, the behavior may have stuck with us.
Of course not everyone is equally likely to risk holding out for the perfect match. Some of us are naturally more gutsy than others. And there are many other factors that influence how likely we are to take a risk, like age, individual circumstances and how much value we personally give each outcome. A simulation can't possibly capture all this nuance, and it's a simulation, not a time machine that can explain exactly how we evolved or what's in our genes (versus our culture and our environment).
But while some admire the most daring among us, the ones who refuse to settle, being risk-averse has its benefits — especially for the species as a whole.
"There will always be some agents that are extremely risk-seeking," the researchers write. "Such agents can do extraordinarily well by chance and persist, but their genes are ultimately destined for extinction."
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(Reuters) - A California couple, married 67 years, died hours apart while holding hands this month, their daughter said on Thursday.
Floyd Hartwig, 90, and wife Violet, 89, died on Feb. 11 in their home in Easton, California, outside Fresno, their family said.
The couple had known each other since they were children and married in 1947 while Floyd was on leave from the Navy, going on to settle in a ranch in Easton.
"They enjoyed working side by side their entire lives," said daughter Donna Scharton. "They were very loving. Very hard-working. Not into materialistic things."
Each had battled illnesses in recent years. Violet had dementia and had suffered strokes. Floyd, who survived bladder and colon cancer, had been diagnosed with kidney failure, family said.
Floyd and Violet had been given hospice care in the last weeks of their lives, and with the end near, family members pushed their beds together, Scharton said.
Floyd died first, holding Violet's hand. She passed away five hours later, she said.
"They were very devoted to each other and had a lot of respect for each other," Scharton said of their long marriage.
The couple had three children, four grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, family said.
Violet, known as "Vi," would wake up at 4 a.m. through much of her life to tend to her family and the ranch, "sewing, cooking, gardening, and volunteering for the PTA," according to her daughter and her obituary.
Floyd spent six years in the Navy and served in World War Two, his obituary said.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
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Who should I hang out with if I want to look the most attractive? And how many of said people must I acquire?
The basic idea of research published in the journal Psychological Science is that our asymmetries and disproportionalities tend to "average out" amid a group of faces, and our weird little faces are perceived as slightly less weird.
Drew Walker and Edward Vul of the University of California, San Diego, did five experiments wherein subjects rated the attractiveness of people in photographs.
Some people were pictured alone, and others were in groups. (Sometimes the "groups" were actually collages of people alone.)
In every case, for men and women, the people in groups got higher attractiveness ratings.
Walker reasoned: "Average faces are more attractive, likely due to the averaging out of unattractive idiosyncrasies." They refer to this as the "cheerleader effect."
The cheerleader effect was first entered into Urban Dictionary in 2008, where it is defined by exemplary, hyperbolic premises: "Altogether the cheerleading team looks attractive ... [however] on closer inspection [each person] is quite ugly, [another heteronormative example might be] the spice girls, [or] the group of women who dance in a circle at the bar-usually with a pile of purses in the middle [Ed. note: What?], [or the sort of situation that] occurs at any Canadian fraternity common room [Ed. note: Gross generalization] where all together the men look hot but when checked out are actually bunk-ass."
The cheerleader effect is apparently familiar to watchers of the popular TV show "How I Met Your Mother," where it was introduced in the seventh episode of the fourth season.
Neil Patrick Harris' character, leaning on a barstool "unimpressed with the talent in here tonight," refers to a group of women in a bar as collectively attractive but individually "sled dogs."
Sled dogs are actually gorgeous, but it was meant as an insult.
Then from boorish observation to scientific postulate, Walker and Vul say the effect is borne of "the fact that the visual system represents objects as an ensemble, individual objects are biased toward the ensemble average, and average faces are perceived to be more attractive than faces in isolation.
Together, these phenomena should cause faces in a group to appear more like the group average than when presented alone, and that group average should tend to be more attractive than the individual faces, on average."
Notably, though, the effect did not depend on the number of faces in the group. Any size group should do. "Having a few wingmen or wingwomen," Walker and Vul conclude — writing in the academic journal article — "may indeed be a good dating strategy, particularly if their facial features complement and average out one’s unattractive idiosyncrasies."
Maybe! Good only if it's serendipitous of course, and not because you're consciously cultivating a friend group that mitigates your physical insecurities. Nervous laughter.
The nice part of the idea is that it might give us another excuse to socialize and travel in numbers. For almost all people, relationships are integral to health, and time spent socializing offline correlates with quality of life. Maybe we actually look more attractive among friends not solely because of complementary bone structures, but because we're happier.
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Thursday during the sexuality preconference, Gurit Birnbaum and Eli Finkel gave a talk about how the functions of sexual cues and desire change across different phases of a relationship.
People in relationships tend to think about sex as having several different functions. Sex feels good, helps us to intimately connect with our partners, and is necessary for reproduction--these are just a few examples.
But the truth is that these functions matter more or less depending on how long a couple has been dating. Sex, the presenters argued, is more crucial to building a relationship at the beginning stages compared to later stages. Their reasoning is that in the early phases of a relationship, other aspects of a relationship that make people feel secure and safe--like trust and commitment--have not yet been built. These qualities simply take more time to develop, so early on in the course of dating, sex plays a bigger role in relationship building.
Later in a relationship, sexual desire may serve as more of a coping strategy in the face of relationship-related stressors. The presenters theorized, for example, that when couples experience a threat to their relationship--maybe an attractive stranger flirts with one member of a couple-- this event activates pro-relationship motivations that include sexual desire.
The meaning of specific behaviors (sexual cues) also changes over the course of a relationship. For example, what if you walked into a room and found your partner naked and sweaty after an intense workout? This event is much more likely to be sexually arousing if you're in the beginning stage of a relationship compared to after you've been together a while. What about if one partner suggests that they bring in a third person to have a threesome? This is more likely to increase sexual desire in a later stage (perhaps with older couples looking to spice things up in the bedroom) compared to an early stage where sex is still relatively new.
Sexual cues can also inhibit rather than boost sexual desire. For example, the belief that people should develop an intimate relationship before engaging in sexual behavior is more likely to inhibit sexual desire at the beginning of a relationship, but will have little effect on sexual desire in a later stage. Conversely, if one partner has a major work deadline coming up, that event is more likely to inhibit sexual desire at a later stage of the relationship. In essence, couples are inclined to think, "Well, we can have sex anytime, let's take care of work stuff first" compared to an early stage, in which couples are more likely to let sex distract them from work duties.
So to summarize, sexual cues and behaviors may change significantly across the course of a relationship. What turns you on after 5 months may not be the same thing that turns you on after 5 years.
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NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization
Relationship expert Melissa Schneider, author of The Ugly Wife Is A Treasure At Home, explains the names for the different types of love in China.
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The first two years of a relationship are usually considered to be the most exciting. After that, according to psychotherapist and author M. Gary Neuman, couples have to work to maintain that initial level of intimacy and excitement.
Neuman conducted a research experiment with 400 women who were either happily or unhappily married to find out how much sex happy couples should have every month.
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In a previous New York Times article, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Wharton professor Adam Grant pointed out that men can benefit from contributing to the "office housework" that often gets delegated to women — things like taking notes in meetings and mentoring junior colleagues.
It turns out that men can also benefit — in the bedroom — from doing actual housework.
Sandberg and Grant reported in the fourth installment of their New York Times series, Women at Work:
Research shows that when men do their share of chores, their partners are happier and less depressed, conflicts are fewer, and divorce rates are lower. They live longer, too; studies demonstrate that there’s a longevity boost for men (and women) who provide care and emotional support to their partners later in life.
If that isn’t exciting enough, try this: Couples who share chores equally have more sex. As the researchers Constance T. Gager and Scott T. Yabiku put it, men and women who work hard play hard.
Sandberg recommended that men pass on buying flowers the next time they want to do something nice for their partner, and do laundry instead.
In addition to benefiting in the bedroom, the simple action of contributing to more housework will provide the next generation with a template for how equality should look. "When children see their mothers pursuing careers and their fathers doing housework, they’re more likely to carry gender equality forward to the next generation," wrote Sandberg and Grant.
The move towards equality means a move towards a more prosperous society: "Today, economists estimate that raising women’s participation in the workforce to the same level as men could raise G.D.P. by another 5% in the United States — and by 9% in Japan and 34% in Egypt."
It is crucial to understand that everyone benefits from gender equality, and even the smallest of steps can be powerful, such as nixing the flowers and choosing to load the dishwasher instead.
SEE ALSO: Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant explain why men have no reason to fear gender equality
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With a guest in town occupying the second bedroom of our Manhattan apartment, my three-year-old son, a notorious sideways sleeper, bunked with my pregnant wife and me. Too many snores and little feet in the back of my neck, I relocated to the sofa, where I was blessed with the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months.
As a self-diagnosed insomniac, a good night’s rest for me lasts anywhere from three to five hours. I generally break up the slumber with walks around the apartment, followed by lying awake and unearthing inconsequential paranoia that, come morning, will not live up to the hype. When I hear people claim they get eight hours of sleep each night, they might as well be talking about the Loch Ness Monster, or alien life. All three are things I suppose it’s possible someone may have encountered, but I cannot personally confirm their existence.
The sleeping conditions were sublime on that couch: a slight rain outside, the muffled traffic of Amsterdam Avenue, and the epiphany that I was sleeping alone—cushions, pillows, and silence all to myself. By the time I awoke, the pigeons were cooing on the windowsill. I had slept through an entire night.
“It’s called enlarged mucus membranes. That’s what happens when you’re pregnant,” my wife will explain on nights I reference her snoring. Her job in pregnancy is obvious. Mine is to lie awake, keep quiet, and never, ever Google “pregnancy mucous membranes.” And I cannot confess to her that I slept better on the couch than in our bed. After all, we’re married, and married people sleep together.
“People don’t want to talk about it. It’s a dirty little secret,” says Lee Crespi, a New York City-based couples therapist. “There are people who say sleeping apart is not good because it fosters distance, but I think you can argue both ways. People do, in fact, sleep more soundly when they sleep alone.”
Years ago during a dinner with friends, the topic turned to a married couple that not only slept in different beds, but different rooms. They were parents, they loved each other, and that was the arrangement that clicked. My wife and I agreed that would not work for us, that it was important to sleep in the same bed no matter the challenge. One of the perks of being in a relationship is waking up next to someone. Also, more practically, we lived in Manhattan and could not afford separate bedrooms.
Sleep, much like running a marathon or chewing food, is a solitary activity. We physically lie next to each other, but we sleep alone. So why did this custom originate? According to Virginia Tech professor Roger Ekirch, an historian and author of the book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, there used to be a financial incentive to sleeping together, as recently as the 1800s.
“Even livestock often resided under the same roof, because there was no other structure to put them in, and they generated welcome warmth. Among the lower classes in preindustrial Europe, it was customary for an entire family to sleep in the same bed—typically the costliest item of furniture—if not to ‘pig’ together on a straw pile,” Ekirch says. “Genteel couples, for greater comfort, occasionally slept apart, especially when a spouse was ill.”
Television affirms this, but only partially. Charles and Caroline Ingalls shared a bed in the late 1800’s on Little House on the Prairie, the cabin of which, true to the program’s title, was far too small for a family of six.
But Robert and Cora Crawley, who certainly had the funds to support separate snoozing quarters at Downton Abbey circa the early 1900’s, still chose to toss and turn on the same mattress.
It appears our history of bunking together runs much deeper than just financial necessity. We human beings are also scared of the dark.
“Night, man’s first necessary evil, inspired widespread fear before the Industrial Revolution,” Ekirch says. “Never did families feel more vulnerable than when they retired at night. Bedmates afforded a strong sense of security, given the prevalence of perils, real and imagined—from thieves and arsonists to ghosts, witches, and the prince of darkness himself.”
We cuddle, we laugh and at the end of each day we remove the onerous cloaks we’ve donned to face the world, and we want to do this lying next to our best friends, to know we’re not in it alone
Borrowing from another television genre, horror movie fans know the safety of sleeping with a partner, under the covers, with the door shut.
It’s when one bedfellow goes on solitary reconnaissance to investigate a midnight noise that the chainsaw-wielding madman leaps out of the shadows. In modern times, sleeping together has less to do with being afraid of witches or burglars, but rather the fear of a different, social demon.
“The main issue is if you’re not sleeping in the same bed, the perception is you’re not having sex and people are afraid to admit to sleeping apart,” Crespi says. “I’ve seen it be problematic and not problematic. And a lot really depends on what is going on in the relationship.”
Witches, murderers, and marital sex aside, sleeping together has long been a bonding experience.
“Often a bedmate became your best friend. Not just married couples, but sons sleeping with servants, sisters with one another, and aristocratic wives with mistresses.
Darkness, within the intimate confines of a bed, leveled social distinctions despite differences in gender and status,” Ekirch says. “Most individuals did not readily fall sleep but conversed freely. In the absence of light, bedmates coveted that hour when, frequently, formality and etiquette perished by the bedside.”
We sleep together not because it’s fiscally responsible, but because we are affectionate beings. Our minds need rest, but our minds also need camaraderie and intimacy and whispering. Anxiety and stress seem less intimidating when discussed with a partner while wearing pajamas. It’s important to talk about our days lying side by side, discuss children and household situations, gossip about neighbors and colleagues, plan for tomorrow in the confines of private chambers. We cuddle. We laugh. At the end of each day we remove the onerous cloaks we’ve donned to face the world, and we want to do this lying next to our best friends, to know we’re not in it alone.
“We are creatures of attachment,” Crespi says. “We like to have someone close, to be in proximity to other people.”
Even when they snore. Especially when they sleep sideways.
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I've never seen my coworker Allen use a phone. I know he has one; I've called and texted him, and he asked my opinion on the iPhone 6 versus the Plus. But those are my only clues to its existence, because Allen has a strict no-phones-around-others policy.
That means he will not touch his phone, under any conditions, unless he's alone.
When Allen first revealed his boycott, I thought he was crazy. I check my phone all the time, whether I'm with other people or not — out of necessity. How else am I supposed to stay on top of a constant flood of emails, social media updates, texts, and calls?
However, when I started watching Allen interact with the other people in our office, I thought maybe he was onto something. No matter who Allen was talking to — a client, our boss, another professional — that person seemed really engaged in the conversation.
So I decided to (literally) pocket my phone for a week. Here's what happened.
I spent four hours straight with one of my colleagues finishing an extremely important project. It was incredibly difficult, but I kept my phone in my pocket the whole time. And for the most part, so did she.
This particular coworker is a pretty active social media user, so I was really surprised to see her be so hands-off. However, over the course of the week, I saw this effect again and again — when people pull out their devices and you don't, not only do they feel pressured to put them away again more quickly, but they're also far less likely to re-check them.
We ended up finishing our project sooner than anticipated, in part because without the interruptions of our screens, we were able to find a flow and maintain it. The productivity boost was totally worth responding to emails a few hours later than I would have normally.
The take-away: Putting away your phone makes everyone more efficient.
I didn't tell anyone about my phone ban, and no one said anything. Whether or not they consciously noticed, however, people really seemed to respond.
They could tell they had my undivided attention — not only was I not doing that half-nod, half-scroll thing, but I wasn't even thinking about checking my phone. My listening skills went through the roof.
As a result, people were much more engaged. When we were discussing something light-hearted, they smiled and laughed more. When we were talking about something serious, they were more honest and thoughtful.
I even noticed people initiating conversations with me more. Instead of just saying, "How's it going?" as they passed by me in the hall, they'd stop and ask what project I was working on or what my plans were the weekend were.
The take-away: Putting away your phone makes people feel appreciated and respected.
Well, according to the research. Studies show using your phone around someone else makes you seem less trustworthy and less empathetic.
In addition, even having a phone in view hurts our relationships — whether you check it or not.
According to the scientists who conducted the study, "Cell phones may serve as a reminder of the wider network to which we could connect," which leads to "lower relationship quality and less closeness."
The take-away: Putting away your phone will help deepen your relationships.
Since discovering these benefits, I've decided to follow Allen's lead all the time. I'm not going to lie, it's challenging!
These strategies make it a little easier:
If I know someone is waiting to hear back from me (or vice versa), while I'm still alone, I'll send a quick email explaining how long I'll be unavailable. If something is really urgent, I'll keep my phone in my pocket, excuse myself to the restroom, and check it in there. It's not ideal, but at least the people I'm with don't see me using it.
Occasionally, I'll miss an important email or return a call a little late. However, nothing has happened that's made me regret not checking my phone. I may be a little harder to reach virtually, but in-person? I'm all yours — and my personal and professional relationships have never been better.
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