Research says folks are kinder to strangers than to the spouses they claim to adore. So perhaps the secret to a loving relationship is to treat your spouse a bit more like a stranger, author Elizabeth Dunn told The Washington Post.
Dunn, author of "Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending," told what happened when she studied hundreds of undergrads to see how they treated their spouses.
"We found that when were around our romantic partners, by default, we tend to not necessarily treat them to the cheerful, pleasant, chirpy tones that we use when talking to people we dont know so well," Dunn said. "When we interact with strangers for whom we do put best faces forward, we actually get a mood boost from this positive behavior."
In the lab, the researchers told half their subjects to be at their very best with their spouse, while the other half were told to just be themselves. The ones who were at their best left happier than those who just behaved as usual.
"I would argue its worthwhile in our romantic relationships to be the person that you would be around someone you were trying to have an affair with except that persons your spouse," Dunn said.
Social scientists have long tried to figure out a secret ingredient that will keep couples not just together, but also happy, in an age of easy divorce. In 1986, a pair of researchers, John Gottman and Robert Levenson, set up what they called "the Love Lab" at the University of Washington and decided based on their research that there are "masters" and "disasters" when it comes to couples.
Emily Esfahani Smith in a 2014 article for The Atlantic described a number of experiments, including one where couples were in a retreat-like setting where their interactions could be noted. He observed that an individual's "bid" for a partner's attention and the response is a critical factor in the health of the relationship.
Wrote Smith: "Say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, 'Look at that beautiful bird outside!' He's not just commenting on the bird here: He's requesting a response from his wife a sign of interest or support hoping they'll connect, however momentarily, over the bird."
The wife, in turn, makes a choice to connect or blow it off. And in connected couples whose relationships lasted over the six years of study, most often the women chose connection, 87 percent of the time, compared with 33 percent in the couples that divorced.
Last year, the Deseret News wrote of another Gottman study that looked at how romantic partners treat each other, focusing on contempt, which was found to be the "death knell" for a healthy, happy relationship.
Dunn, author of "Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending," told what happened when she studied hundreds of undergrads to see how they treated their spouses.
"We found that when were around our romantic partners, by default, we tend to not necessarily treat them to the cheerful, pleasant, chirpy tones that we use when talking to people we dont know so well," Dunn said. "When we interact with strangers for whom we do put best faces forward, we actually get a mood boost from this positive behavior."
In the lab, the researchers told half their subjects to be at their very best with their spouse, while the other half were told to just be themselves. The ones who were at their best left happier than those who just behaved as usual.
"I would argue its worthwhile in our romantic relationships to be the person that you would be around someone you were trying to have an affair with except that persons your spouse," Dunn said.
Social scientists have long tried to figure out a secret ingredient that will keep couples not just together, but also happy, in an age of easy divorce. In 1986, a pair of researchers, John Gottman and Robert Levenson, set up what they called "the Love Lab" at the University of Washington and decided based on their research that there are "masters" and "disasters" when it comes to couples.
Emily Esfahani Smith in a 2014 article for The Atlantic described a number of experiments, including one where couples were in a retreat-like setting where their interactions could be noted. He observed that an individual's "bid" for a partner's attention and the response is a critical factor in the health of the relationship.
Wrote Smith: "Say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, 'Look at that beautiful bird outside!' He's not just commenting on the bird here: He's requesting a response from his wife a sign of interest or support hoping they'll connect, however momentarily, over the bird."
The wife, in turn, makes a choice to connect or blow it off. And in connected couples whose relationships lasted over the six years of study, most often the women chose connection, 87 percent of the time, compared with 33 percent in the couples that divorced.
Last year, the Deseret News wrote of another Gottman study that looked at how romantic partners treat each other, focusing on contempt, which was found to be the "death knell" for a healthy, happy relationship.
