Qualities admired in another from far away can be threatening as that person approaches

 

What people believe they want and what they might actually prefer are not always the same thing. And in the case of being outperformed as an element of romantic attraction, the difference between genuine affinity and apparent desirability becomes clearer as the distance between two people gets smaller. In matters of relative performance, distance influences attraction. For example, someone of greater intelligence seems attractive when they're distant or far away in your mind. But less so when that same person is right next to you, according to a new study by a University at Buffalo-led research team published in the latest edition of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. "We found that men preferred women who are smarter than them in psychologically distant situations. Men rely on their ideal preferences when a woman is hypothetical or imagined," said Lora Park, associate professor in the UB Department of Psychology and the study's principal investigator. "But in live interaction, men distanced themselves and were less attracted to a woman who outperformed them in intelligence." Previous research has shown that similarities between individuals can affect attraction. This new set of studies suggests that psychological distance -- whether someone is construed as being near or far in relation to the self -- plays a key role in determining attraction. "It's the distinction between the abstract and the immediate," says Park. "There is a disconnect between what people appear to like in the abstract when someone is unknown and when that same person is with them in some immediate social context." Even though the research focus of the current study was on romantic attraction and, specifically, men's interest in women, Park says the result might potentially be a broader phenomenon, extending to other interpersonal situations. "That's a question for future research," she said. "But presumably, anyone who is outperformed by someone close to them might feel threatened themselves. We just happened to look at men in a romantic dating context." Park's team conducted six separate studies involving 650 young adult subjects. The studies ranged from presenting subjects with hypothetical women, to women they expected to meet, to actually engaging in an interpersonal interaction. "In each case, how much you like someone or how much you are attracted to them is affected by how intelligent that person is relative to you and how close that person is relative to you," said Park. But the area of performance has to be something important to the individual. "The domain matters," says Park. "If you don't care about the domain, you might not be threatened. Yet, if you care a lot about the domain, then you might prefer that quality in somebody who is distant, then feel threatened when that person gets close to you." Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University at Buffalo. The original item was written by Bert Gambini. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151030161339.htm

Intimate partners with low self-esteem stay in unhappy relationships

People with low self-esteem are more likely stay in unhappy relationships, suggests new research from the University of Waterloo. Sufferers of low self-esteem tend not to voice relationship complaints with their partner because they fear rejection. "There is a perception that people with low self-esteem tend to be more negative and complain a lot more," says Megan McCarthy the study's author and a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology. "While that may be the case in some social situations, our study suggests that in romantic relationships, the partner with low self-esteem resists addressing problems." The study is important for understanding how intimate partner communication can help improve the love lives of people around the world. "If your significant other is not engaging in open and honest conversation about the relationship," says McCarthy, "it may not be that they don't care, but rather that they feel insecure and are afraid of being hurt." In her research focused on intimate partner communication, McCarthy tests the impact on a relationship when one partner suffers from low self-esteem. "We've found that people with a more negative self-concept often have doubts and anxieties about the extent to which other people care about them," she says. "This can drive low self-esteem people toward defensive, self-protective behaviour, such as avoiding confrontation." The study was presented this week in California at The Society for Personality and Social Psychology's 16th Annual Meeting. The research suggests that people with low self-esteem's resistance to address concerns may stem from a fear of negative outcomes. Sufferers may believe that they cannot speak up without risking rejection from their partner and damage to their relationship, resulting in greater overall dissatisfaction in the relationship. "We may think that staying quiet, in a 'forgive and forget' kind of way, is constructive, and certainly it can be when we feel minor annoyances," says McCarthy. "But when we have a serious issue in a relationship, failing to address those issues directly can actually be destructive." McCarthy, along with her research colleagues, have plans for a second study that will look at how increasing a low-self-esteem partner's sense of power or influence in a relationship can promote more open disclosure. "We all know that close relationships can sometimes be difficult," says McCarthy. "The key issue, then, is how we choose to deal with it when we feel dissatisfied with a partner." Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by University of Waterloo. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Distance from conflict may promote wiser reasoning

 

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If you're faced with a troubling personal dilemma, such as a cheating spouse, you may think about it more wisely if you consider it as an outside observer would, according to research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"These results are the first to demonstrate a new type of bias within ourselves when it comes to wise reasoning about an interpersonal relationship dilemma," says psychology researcher and study author Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo in Canada. "We call the bias Solomon's Paradox, after the king who was known for his wisdom, but who still failed at making personal decisions."

Grossmann and Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan asked study participants, all of whom reported being in monogamous romantic relationships, to reflect on a relationship conflict. They were asked to vividly imagine a scenario in which either their partner or a friend's partner had been unfaithful, and were then asked to answer a set of questions about the scenario.

The questions were designed to tap into dimensions of wise reasoning, such as the ability to recognize the limits of one's own knowledge, search for a compromise, consider the perspectives of others, and recognize the possible ways in which the scenario could unfold.

Results from the experiments indicated that participants who were asked to reason about a friend's relationship conflict made wiser responses than those who were asked to reason about their own relationship conflict.

In a second experiment, Grossmann and Kross investigated whether personal distance might make a difference. The procedure was similar to the first experiment, but this time they explicitly asked participants to take either a first-person perspective ("put yourself in this situation") or a third-person perspective ("put yourself in your friend's shoes") when reasoning about the conflict.

The results supported those from the first experiment: Participants who thought about their own relationship conflict from a first-person perspective showed less wise reasoning than those who thought about a friend's relationship conflict.

But taking an outsider's perspective seemed to eliminate this bias: Participants who thought about their own relationship conflict through a friend's eyes were just as wise as those who thought about a friend's conflict.

Interestingly, results from a third experiment that compared data from younger adults (ages 20-40) and older adults (ages 60-80) indicated that, contrary to the adage that wisdom comes with age, older participants were wiser in reasoning about their own relationship conflict than their younger counterparts.

Together, these findings suggest that distancing oneself from a personal problem by approaching it as an outsider may be the key to wise reasoning:

"We are the first to demonstrate that there is a simple way to eliminate this bias in reasoning by talking about ourselves in the third person and using our name when reflecting on a relationship conflict," says Grossmann. "When we employ this strategy, we are more likely to think wisely about an issue."

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The above story is based on materials provided by Association for Psychological Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.