Relational Research Round-Up, Wintry Edition

And a discussion on baby-proofing your marriage.

This winter has been among the coldest and gloomiest in my New England memory. The ice is… so very icy.¹ Thank goodness for books, movies, baking, and… interesting research!²

In this relational research round-up, I’ll share some useful, even optimistic, findings on topics of helping others feel better, using inclusive pronouns, and sexual afterglows. Then, I’ll link you to a fun conversation with economist, best-selling author, and, apparently, a person who loads a dishwasher like a raccoon on meth:

Emily Oster

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First, the research.

1. Helping others feel better helps us feel better.

You might feel depleted when your friend asks you to listen to their difficult situation. Or when your child cries on your shoulder. Or, if you’re a therapist like me, maybe you feel worn out and burned out after a long day of therapy.

Then again, maybe helping others helps you out, too.

In a recent study in the journal Emotion, researchers collected diary data over a week-long period from almost 1500 participants and another 200 participants for a laboratory-based observational study. They found that despite the inherent demands of helping others manage their difficult emotions, we tend to feel better when we engage in these kinds of efforts. That is, helping others feel better helps our well-being.

Apparently, becoming a therapist is more than just a good business decision! And it’s a decision that, therapist or not, we can make that helps others, and helps ourselves.

2. A new way to use our pronouns inclusively.

In recent years, we’ve been talking a lot about pronoun use and getting more sensitive about the way we refer to people’s genders. But there’s another way that pronouns matter, according to a study from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The premise of this study is that signaling receptiveness prompts those we are engaging with to be more open to us and to see us as being both smarter and more trustworthy. And we can do that with our pronoun use. Across five studies that included almost 300,000 participants (several of these studies were online, hence the huge sample size):

Messages containing “you” pronouns were perceived as less receptive than messages containing “we” pronouns. This effect was observed across multiple contexts and issues including reading a persuasive speech from a politician, relaying feedback from a co-worker, and moderating online comments on immigration and abortion. This effect was also observed regardless of whether we measured perceived receptiveness of the source of a message (i.e., the person who delivered the message; Study 1) or perceived receptiveness of the message itself (e.g., Study 3).

This finding reflects the well-known piece of advice from the couples’ therapy room to shift from “me versus you” to “us versus the problem.” Better still, it offers a concrete way to do it.

3. The truth about sexual afterglow.

Most people recognize that sex offers a way to build intimacy. Research confirms this intuition, with earlier research revealing that a “sexual afterglow” tends to leave partners feeling more connected. But there’s been some controversy over exactly how long this afterglow effect is likely to last.

A newer study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, attempted to clarify how long sexual afterglows last, and whether the glow was impacted by whether or not sex was mutually initiated. Using daily diary data from almost 600 participants, this study showed that sexual afterglows reliably lasted a day, particularly when sex was mutually-initiated or initiated by a participant’s partner. Afterglow didn’t depend on how much rejection mattered to the participant.

Perhaps recognizing that the sexual afterglow has some science behind it provides us³ with both an incentive and an opportunity to notice and savor the way that sexual intimacy feels great and leaves us feeling more connected with our partners. Glow on!

Baby-Proofing Your Marriage

Glow on, that is, unless your sex life has hit rock bottom thanks to the baby-shaped hole in your partnership.

Image by serrano1004 from Pixabay

A little while back, I wrote an article for Emily Oster’s ParentData⁴ discussing one of the best-known findings in marital research: that marital satisfaction drops after partners become parents. The thing I focused on in this article is that the average findings hide a lot of nuance. Many (if not the majority) of partners making the transition to parenthood don’t experience a decline in relationship happiness.

Yet many couples do experience this decline. We can learn a lot from both the couples that do well, and from the research on interventions for couples transitioning to parenthood. Emily invited me on her podcast to discuss guidance from research and from the clinical room for protecting our marriages during what is often both a beautiful and highly stressful time.

I hope you check out the episode because, among all of her awesome attributes, Emily is hilarious. Here are a few of the key pieces of guidance we discussed:

1. Make an early investment in the relationship… before the baby arrives.

2. Have explicit conversations about co-parenting responsibilities. Make sure to distinguish between understanding conversations and problem-solving conversations (read more on how to do this here).

3. Strive to view one another with compassion and benefit of the doubt.

4. Build, but then maintain healthy relationship habits like expressing appreciation and affection.

This post is free to all, so please share it and/or hit the like button!

1. There’s nothing like a slick, icy road to make me feel so very middle-aged as I walk the dog.

2. Ok, that last one makes me feel a little brighter, but admittedly does very little for my three kids, who are basically climbing the walls this long winter.

3. Who is noticing my liberal use of the “us” and “we”?

4. Emily Oster is the famed economist and writer of science-backed parenting books, Expecting Better, Cribsheet, Expecting Better, and Family Firm, and an awesome newsletter. I love Emily’s books and had her on my podcast to discuss two of them. You can check out those conversations here and here.