Psychology News
Canadian Researchers at Queen’s University and the University of Waterloo explored how lovers predict their relationship stability incorrectly, as opposed to their friends and family. The study is published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
The Study
To understand how correctly friends and family evaluate your romantic relationships, the researchers asked university students and their roommates and parents to assess the quality and forecast the longevity of the students’ dating relationships.
The Findings
The results revealed that the “observer groups” aka the parents and the roommates provided accurate evaluations of the participants’ romantic relationships.
As the researchers put it, “students assessed their relationships more positively, focusing primarily on the strengths of their relationships, and made more optimistic predictions than did parents and roommates.” However, their forecasts tended to be less accurate.
In a way, the insights provided by your parents, friends, or roommates into the longevity of your dating relationships are more unbiased and real, compared to your own.
To Know More You May Refer To
MacDonald, T. K., & Ross, M. (1999). Assessing the accuracy of predictions about dating relationships: How and why do lovers’ predictions differ from those made by observers? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(11), 1417-1429. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167299259007