Category: Relationships

— Being a 'happy' teenager is linked to increased well-being in adulthood, new research finds.

Much is known about the associations between a troubled childhood and mental health problems, but little research has examined the affect of a positive childhood. For the first time, researchers from the University of Cambridge and the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing have analysed the link between a positive adolescence and well-being in midlife.

Using information from 2776 individuals who participated in the 1946 British birth cohort study, the scientists tested associations between having a positive childhood and well-being in adulthood.

A 'positive' childhood was based on teacher evaluations of students' levels of happiness, friendship and energy at the ages of 13 and 15. A student was given a positive point for each of the following four items — whether the child was 'very popular with other children', 'unusually happy and contented', 'makes friends extremely easily' and 'extremely energetic, never tired'. Teachers also rated conduct problems (restlessness, daydreaming, disobedience, lying, etc) and emotional problems (anxiety, fearfulness, diffidence, avoidance of attention, etc).

The researchers then linked these ratings to the individuals' mental health, work experience, relationships and social activities several decades later. They found that teenagers rated positively by their teachers were significantly more likely than those who received no positive ratings to have higher levels of well-being later in life, including a higher work satisfaction, more frequent contact with family and friends, and more regular engagement in social and leisure activities.

Happy children were also much less likely than others to develop mental disorders throughout their lives — 60% less likely than young teens that had no positive ratings.

The study not only failed to find a link between being a happy child and an increased likelihood of becoming married, they found that the people who had been happy children were actually more likely to get divorced. One possible factor suggested by the researchers is that happier people have higher self-esteem or self-efficacy and are therefore more willing and able to leave an unhappy marriage.

"The benefits to individuals, families and to society of good mental health, positive relationships and satisfying work are likely to be substantial," said Professor Felicia Huppert, one of the authors of the paper and Director of the Well-being Institute at the University of Cambridge. "The findings support the view that even at this time of great financial hardship, policymakers should prioritise the well-being of our children so they have the best possible start in life."

Dr Marcus Richards, co-author of the paper from the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, said: "Most longitudinal studies focus on the negative impact of early mental problems, but the 1946 birth cohort also shows clear and very long-lasting positive consequences of mental well-being in childhood."

For the study, the researchers adjusted for social class of origin, childhood intelligence and education.

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Journal Reference:

1. Marcus Richards, Felicia Huppert. Do positive children become positive adults? Evidence from a longitudinal birth cohort study. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2011; 6 (1): 75 DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2011.536655

Afraid of becoming disabled in old age, not being able to dress yourself or walk up and down the stairs? Staying physically active before symptoms set in could help. But so could going out to eat, playing bingo and taking overnight trips.

According to research conducted at Rush University Medical Center, higher levels of social activity are associated with a decreased risk of becoming disabled. The study has just been posted online and will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.

"Social activity has long been recognized as an essential component of healthy aging, but now we have strong evidence that it is also related to better everyday functioning and less disability in old age," said lead researcher Bryan James, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the epidemiology of aging and dementia in the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. "The findings are exciting because social activity is potentially a risk factor that can be modified to help older adults avoid the burdens of disability."

The study included 954 older adults with a mean age of 82 who are participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of common chronic conditions of aging. At the start of the investigation, none of the participants had any form of disability. They each underwent yearly evaluations that included a medical history and neurological and neuropsychological tests.

Social activity was measured based on a questionnaire that assessed whether, and how often, participants went to restaurants, sporting events or the teletract (off-track betting) or played bingo; went on day trips or overnight trips; did volunteer work; visited relatives or friends; participated in groups such as the Knights of Columbus; or attended religious services.

To assess disability, participants were asked whether they could perform six activities of daily living without help: feeding, bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring and walking across a small room. They were also asked whether they could perform three tasks that require mobility and strength: walking up and down a flight of stairs, walking a half mile and doing heavy housework. Finally, they were asked about their ability to perform what are referred to as "instrumental" activities of daily living, such as using the telephone, preparing meals and managing medications. Difficulties with household management and mobility are more common and represent less severe disability than difficulty with self-care tasks, so the measures represented a range of disability.

Results showed that a person who reported a high level of social activity was about twice as likely to remain free of a disability involving activities of daily living than a person with a low level of social activity, and about 1.5 times as likely to remain free of disability involving instrumental activities of daily living or mobility.

Why social activity plays a role in the development of disability is not clear, James said. Possibly, social activity may reinforce the neural networks and musculoskeletal function required to maintain functional independence.

Future research is needed to determine whether interventions aimed at increasing late-life social activity can play a part in delaying or preventing disability, James said.

Other researchers at Rush involved in the study were Patricia Boyle, PhD, Dr. Aron Buchman and Dr. David Bennett.

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Journal Reference:

1. B. D. James, P. A. Boyle, A. S. Buchman, D. A. Bennett. Relation of Late-Life Social Activity With Incident Disability Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 2011; DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glq231

An Oxford University study suggests that nearly one in three of us who use the internet have visited online dating sites. An international survey of 24,000 men and women who are presently online found that just six per cent had gone to dating websites in 1997 but by 2009, 30 per cent of the sample had tried them with 15 per cent finding their current partner that way.

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) conducted an online questionnaire with 12,000 couples from 18 countries, all of whom had regular access to the internet. They were asked a series of questions about whether they had visited dating websites, other online services and where else they might go looking for a partner. The questions related to the period 1997 to 2009.

Middle-aged men and women (aged 40-69) looking to start new relationships after 1996 were the most likely to use online dating sites, with 36 per cent of them revealing that they had found their current partner online. The study dispels the myth that social networking and online dating is primarily for the young with just 23 per cent of 18-40-year-olds saying they had started a relationship through the internet. However, only two people in the sample started a relationship in their 70s and neither did this through the internet.

The study reveals to what extent chat rooms and social network sites have played a role in introducing people to their partners. For people who began their relationship before 2000, less than 10 per cent said they had met on a social networking site. But by 2005 that had doubled to 21 per cent, while the popularity of chat rooms declined over the same period.

Study co-author Dr Bernie Hogan, Research Fellow at the OII, said: 'Finding your partner online was once regarded as a bit of a novelty, but this survey suggests it has become a common if not dominant way of meeting new partners, particularly if you are between 40 and 70 years old. Our questionnaire also reveals that people who know others who date online are more likely to try it and approve of it. Our study gives us some insight into the significance and impact of the internet and how it is affecting intimate relationships both online and offline.'

Church events, family gatherings or activities based around a shared hobby are experiencing a slight decline in popularity as ways of finding a partner and this could be because they are viewed as less successful hunting grounds, says the study. For example, only one in 15 people who said they were looking through their church found someone that way. Despite the recent spike in online dating, most of the sample said they had met their partner through traditional offline channels — through friends of friends (67 per cent) or meeting at clubs or bars (69 per cent).

Co-author and OII Director, Professor William Dutton, said: 'When you ask the question "How did you meet?" the most likely answer is still "through mutual friends" or "at a club or bar." But this study suggests there has been a noticeable shift in dating strategies. Men and women are seeing the internet as a new place to meet — another option for the networked individual. A growing number now view dating as a distinct and intentional activity with its own set of contexts and conventions. The popularity of online dating seems largely down to its accessibility and the fact that people seem comfortable disclosing what appear to be personal details in a "pseudo-anonymous" online setting.'

The study reveals there might be national differences in attitudes to online dating. Users in Northern European countries are slightly but significantly more likely to rely on one-to-one dating websites while those in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking nations are more likely to use social networking sites as well. The most gregarious online nation appears to be Brazil — more than eight of out ten (83 per cent) of those interviewed who had access to the internet said they had met someone who had been first introduced to them online, but this was not just limited to personal relationships. By contrast, in Japan, a country known for embracing technology in so many ways, internet users were rather reluctant to engage with online dating.

The paper, A Global Shift in Relationship Practices: Patterns of Meeting and Dating in the Online World, by Bernie Hogan and William Dutton is based on the 'Me, My Spouse and the Internet Project' at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, supported by a grant from eHarmony, an online dating service.

— Whether you are married or cohabiting with your partner, the vast majority of couples in the UK are happy in their relationship. Initial findings, from Understanding Society, show that around 90 percent of individuals who are living with a partner are happy with their relationship.

Researchers at the Institute for Social and Economic Research asked both individuals in the couple to rate their happiness on a seven point scale; from the lowest score of 'extremely unhappy' to the middle point of 'happy', the highest point being 'perfect'. The self-reported happiness rating revealed that 90 percent of married women and 88 percent of cohabiting women are happy in their relationships. Ninety-three percent of married men and 92 percent of cohabiting men said they were happy in their relationship.

The findings indicate the happiest couples are those in which both are educated to degree level, have no children, have been together for less than five years and the man is employed. Factors such as being married or cohabiting, age of the individuals and duration of the partnership all have an effect on the level of happiness in a relationship.

Professor John Ermisch, one of the authors of a book due to be published later this month that showcases a range of findings from the survey, commented: "Understanding Society has opened up many new avenues of research in studying both marriage and family life across the UK's population and will continue to do so over the years to come."

The study also showed that after taking into account a variety of factors, including age, gender, number of children, relationship duration, employment status and education married people are happier than their cohabiting counterparts.

One of the unique strengths of this study is that the researchers are able to study all members of a household. This means that both partners' responses can be matched up with one another to give a richer and more detailed analysis than if the information was collected for only one of the partners.

Background

The findings above are taken from chapter 2 of ‘Understanding Society: Early findings from the first wave of the UK’s household longitudinal study’. Chapter 2 ‘Family Relationships” by John Ermisch, Maria Iacovou, and Alexandra Skew.

NewsPsychology (Feb. 14, 2011) — People searching for fulfilling and stable romantic relationships should look for a romantic partner who recovers from conflict well. Yes, it turns out that if your romantic partner recoups well after the two of you have a spat, you reap the benefits, according to results of a new study by the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development's Institute of Child Development.

The research looks at how people recover or come down after a conflict with their romantic partner, said Jessica Salvatore, the lead researcher in the study "Recovering From Conflict in Romantic Relationships: A Developmental Perspective." The article is set to appear in the journal Psychological Science, and has been released online. Co-authors of the study are university researchers Sally Kuo, Ryan Steele, Jeffry Simpson and W. Andrew Collins.

Salvatore and her colleagues' research digs into a new area. In the past, marriage researchers have focused on how people resolve conflicts, but they never looked at what happens after the conflict ends and how people recover, Salvatore said.

"What we show is that recovering from conflict well predicts higher satisfaction and more favorable relationship perceptions. You perceive the relationship more positively," Salvatore said.

The interesting finding is that you don't have to be the one who recovers well to benefit.

"If I'm good at recovering from conflict, my husband will benefit and be more satisfied with our relationship," Salvatore said.

The study's participants were 73 young adults who have been studied since birth and their romantic partners.

"Several decades of marriage research show that what happens during a conflict matters. What we show is that what happens in the time following a conflict also matters," she said.

A partner who recovers well doesn't let remnants of the conflict spill over or leak into other parts of the relationship, Salvatore said. He or she is able to separate conflict from other types of interactions, such as deciding how to parent their children or providing support to one another.

The study's findings are relevant to everyone in relationships, Salvatore said.

"I especially think this will be important for marital therapists and other people who are working with couples who are experiencing some relationship distress," Salvatore said.

Results of the study also show that infant attachment security plays a role in how someone recovers from conflict.

"Having a caregiver who was more in-tune and responsive to your emotional needs as an infant predicts better conflict recovery 20 years later," Salvatore said. This means that if your caregiver is better at regulating your negative emotions as an infant, you tend to do a better job of regulating your own negative emotions in the moments following a conflict as an adult.

But not all is lost if you were insecurely attached as an infant. "We also show people who were insecurely attached as infants but whose adult romantic partners recover well from conflict are likely to stay together. What this shows is that good partners in adulthood can help make up for difficulties experienced early in life," Salvatore said.

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Journal Reference:

1. J. E. Salvatore, S. I.-C. Kuo, R. D. Steele, J. A. Simpson, W. A. Collins. Recovering From Conflict in Romantic Relationships: A Developmental Perspective. Psychological Science, 2011; DOI: 10.1177/0956797610397055

 Romantic relationships often start out as enjoyable or even exciting, but sometimes may become routine and boring. A Wayne State University study reveals that dating couples that integrate other couples into their social lives are more likely to have happy and satisfying romantic relationships.

Richard B. Slatcher, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology in WSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a resident of Birmingham, Mich., specializes in social and health psychology. His recent research suggests that spending quality time with other couples may be an important way to improve long-term dating relationships.

His study, "When Harry and Sally met Dick and Jane: Experimentally creating closeness between couples," which recently appeared in Personal Relationships, investigated 60 dating couples in a controlled laboratory setting. The object was to better understand how friendships between couples are formed, and to learn how these friendships affected each couple's romantic relationship.

Each couple was paired with another couple and given a set of questions to discuss as a group. Half of the groups were given high-disclosure questions intended to spark intense discussion, while the other half were given small-talk questions that focused on everyday, unemotional activities.

"In this study, we discovered that those couples who were placed in the "fast friends" group felt closer to the couples they interacted with, and were more likely actually to meet up with them again during the following month," said Slatcher. "We also learned that these same couples felt that this friendship put a spark in their own relationships, and they felt much closer to their romantic partners."

The couples in the high-disclosure group reported greater increases in positive feelings after the intense interaction. They also felt the interaction was more novel and that they learned new things about their romantic partner compared to couples in the small-talk group. In addition, one-third of the couples in the high-disclosure group contacted the other couple they met in the study, while none of the couples in the small-talk group initiated contact with the couple they had met.

"This study suggests that if your romantic relationship has a case of the doldrums, having fun with another couple may help make your own relationship more satisfying," said Slatcher.

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Journal Reference:

1. Richard B. Slatcher. When Harry and Sally met Dick and Jane: Creating closeness between couples. Personal Relationships, 2010; 17 (2): 279 DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2010.01276.x

College students who arrange with friends to "get their backs" are less likely to engage in risky spring break behavior, according to a new study.

The University of Michigan study, published this month in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, says about 60 percent of more than 650 college freshmen surveyed reported having an understanding with their friends about using alcohol during spring break.

Nearly 24 percent agreed with friends that they would get drunk and 18 percent agreed with friends not to get drunk. More than half the students said they had no understandings with friends about sexual behavior, while about 16 percent said they had agreed with friends to use a condom if they had sex.

Men were significantly more likely than women to have understandings with friends to engage in risky behavior. For instance, more men than women reported having understandings that they would get drunk on break (29 percent of men compared to 18 percent of women), and four times as many men as women reported that they had an agreement with friends to have sex with someone new (9 percent compared 2 percent).

Women were more likely than men to report having understandings about safer behavior, such as agreeing not to get drunk (23 percent of women compared to 14 percent of men). About twice as many women as men reported agreements with friends not to have sex with someone new during break (17 percent compared to 8 percent). However, men were more likely than women to have understandings to use condoms if they had sex (19 percent of men compared to 13 percent of women).

"Students who went on a spring break trip were nearly four times as likely as other students to engage in binge drinking," said developmental psychologist Megan Patrick, lead author of the paper and a Faculty Research Fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR). "Understandings students had with their friends were also important predictors of alcohol use and sexual behavior."

Patrick and colleagues at Penn State surveyed 651 college freshmen both before and after spring break. They were able to control for student behavior before spring break, which was a strong predictor of behavior during break.

According to the study, about 31 percent of 651 college freshmen surveyed reported binge drinking during spring break, and about nine percent reported having unprotected sex.

"It's important to encourage young people to talk with their friends about being safe during spring break," Patrick said. "Agreeing that they won't drink too much or have unprotected sex may have an important protective effect. It's also important to talk about looking out for each other in case someone does drink too much."

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

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Journal Reference:

1. Megan E. Patrick, Nicole Morgan, Jennifer L. Maggs, Eva S. Lefkowitz. “I Got Your Back”: Friends’ Understandings Regarding College Student Spring Break Behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2010; 40 (1): 108 DOI: 10.1007/s10964-010-9515-8

 Being successful in school requires a combination of social, emotional, and academic competencies. A new analysis of more than 200 school-based social and emotional learning programs has found that such programs improve students' attitudes and behaviors, and in some cases, even boost academic performance.

The study appears in the January/February issue of the journal, Child Development. It was conducted by researchers at Loyola University Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In the first large-scale meta-analysis of school programs that enhance students' social and emotional development, researchers reviewed 213 school-based, universal social and emotional learning programs involving more than 270,000 K-12 students. (Universal programs are offered to all students in participating classes or schools rather than to select groups.)

These programs aim to promote students' abilities in one or more areas, including recognizing and managing emotions, establishing and maintaining positive relationships, setting and achieving positive goals, making responsible decisions, and constructively handling interpersonal situations. The programs examined included classroom-based instruction by teachers, classroom-based instruction by others (such as university researchers), and comprehensive programs featuring a combination of classroom-based teaching with additional programming at school or in families.

The researchers found that, compared to students in the studies' control groups, students in the programs that were considered showed significantly improved social and emotional skills, caring attitudes, and positive social behaviors. In addition, students' disruptive behavior and emotional distress declined. In the small group of studies that examined academics, the researchers found that students performed better on achievement tests, tantamount to an 11-percentile-point gain in achievement.

Programs were effective for students of all ages and from different ethnic groups, regardless of whether their schools were in urban, suburban, or rural areas, the analysis found. And not surprisingly, the researchers found better results in programs that followed recommended practices for training school personnel in promoting skills among children than in those that didn't follow these practices.

"The findings highlight the value of incorporating well-designed and carefully conducted social and emotional learning programs into standard educational practice," according to Joseph A. Durlak, emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago, the study's lead author. "Such programs do not detract from but can enhance academic achievement, while providing students with stronger skills in areas that are important to their daily lives and future functioning."

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Journal Reference:

1. Joseph A. Durlak, Roger P. Weissberg, Allison B. Dymnicki, Rebecca D. Taylor, Kriston B. Schellinger. The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions. Child Development, 2011; 82 (1): 405 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x

 Talking with your hands can trigger mental images that help solve complex problems relating to spatial visualization, an important skill for both students and professionals, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Spatial visualization is the ability to mentally rotate or move an object to a different position or view. An air traffic controller uses spatial visualization to mentally track planes in the air based only on a two-dimensional radar screen. An interior decorator needs spatial visualization to picture how a living room will look with a sofa in different positions without actually moving the sofa.

"Hand gestures are spontaneous and don't need to be taught, but they can improve spatial visualization," said psychologist Mingyuan Chu, PhD, who conducted the research with psychologist Sotaro Kita, PhD, at the University of Birmingham in England. "From Galileo and Einstein to da Vinci and Picasso, influential scientific discoveries and artistic masterpieces might never have been achieved without extraordinary spatial visualization skills."

The research findings appear in the February issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Three studies examined the relationship between hand gestures and spatial visualization using various mental rotation tests:

• In the first experiment, 132 students at the University of Birmingham were tested individually. Using a hidden camera, researchers recorded the number of hand gestures and found that spontaneous gestures increased as the problems became more difficult.

• A second experiment divided 66 students into three groups. One group was encouraged to use gestures, the second was given no instructions, and the third had to sit on their hands to prevent any gestures. The gesture-encouraged group performed significantly better on the tests than the other groups and also fared better on later tests where all of the participants had to sit on their hands, showing that the benefits of gestures may become internalized.

In a final experiment with 32 students, a gesture-encouraged group performed better on several tests, which demonstrated that gestures may help solve a range of spatial visualization problems.

Hand gestures may improve spatial visualization by helping a person keep track of an object in the mind as it is rotated to a new position. Since our hands are used so much in daily life to manipulate objects, gestures also may provide additional feedback and visual cues by simulating how an object would move if the hand were holding it, said Chu, who now works as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands.

Spatial visualization is important in many scientific fields, including mathematics, physics and engineering, but it also helps in any occupation that requires the use of images or diagrams. The research should have practical implications for education, according to Chu and Kita.

Students in a physics class could be encouraged to use hand gestures to help understand invisible forces such as magnetic fields. Art students could talk with their hands in a still-life class to picture a bowl of fruit or a nude model from a different angle to create a more vivid painting that creates the illusion of three dimensions on a flat canvas.

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Journal Reference:

1. Mingyuan Chu and Sotaro Kita. The Nature of Gestures’ Beneficial Role in Spatial Problem Solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology, General, Vol. 140, No. 1. DOI: 10.1037/a0021790

Will Academy Award nominees Nicole Kidman and Annette Bening be at higher risk for a divorce if they win the Oscar for best actress next month? A long line of best actress winners including Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Halle Berry and Kate Winslet experienced the end of their marriages not long after taking home their awards. A study by researchers at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University finds that Oscar winners in the Best Actress category are at a higher risk of divorce than nominees who do not win.

By contrast, Best Actor winners do not experience an increase in the risk of divorce after an Oscar.

"Research has shown that, in the general population, gender differences have historically given roles with greater power and status to men and roles with lesser status and power to women. Studies have demonstrated that breaching this social norm within a marriage — for example, when a wife earns more than her husband — can strain the relationship," says Tiziana Casciaro, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Rotman School, who co-authored the study with Colleen Stuart, a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, and Sue Moon, a PhD student at the Rotman School.

"It appears that even the marriages of Hollywood actresses at the top of their careers are not immune to the consequences of violating social norms that affect the wider population. Our results suggest that the sudden success reduces the longevity of their marriages," says Stuart.

The study looked at the 751 nominees in the best actor and actress categories of the Academy Awards between1936 to 2010. The results show that Best Actress winners have a 63% chance of their marriages ending sooner than the marriages of non-winners. The median marriage duration for Best Actress winners was 4.30 years, substantially lower than the 9.51 year marriage duration for non-winners. By contrast, the difference between Best Actor non-winners (median = 12.66 years) and Best Actor winners (median = 11.97 years) was not statistically significant.

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Journal Reference:

1. Stuart, H. Colleen, Moon, Sue and Casciaro, Tiziana. The Oscar Curse: Status Dynamics and Gender Differences in Marital Survival. Social Sciences Research Network, January 27, 2011 [link]