Will Our Marriages Work Out? We May Know in Our Gut

By Carol Church, Writer, Family Album
Reviewed by Victor Harris, PhD, Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences, University of Florida

As that happy music plays and the newly married couple walks down the aisle, we all want to believe that the marriage we’ve just seen take place will last for life. Of course, in reality, about half of American marriages still do end in divorce. But is there any way to tell which couples are headed for their silver anniversaries and which are destined to struggle?

In fact, a recent study published in the journal Science suggests that the bride and groom themselves might have some idea…even if they don’t realize that they do. In the study, about 130 heterosexual couples who had been married for less than six months first answered a brief survey about the state of their marriage. Then they took part in a computer task designed to capture their subconscious feelings about the relationship. In the task, the men and women first saw a picture of their spouse on the screen, which was then followed by either a positive or negative word, such as “terrific” or “awful.” They then had to quickly press a key to indicate whether the word they saw had good or bad associations. This is called an automatic-attitude study, and the speed at which we press the correct keys can show how we feel about the images we’ve seen.

These same couples were then asked about their marital satisfaction over the next four years. The relationship surveys the men and women had taken as newlyweds turned out to be pretty worthless at predicting their marital satisfaction as time went on. However, their performance on the simple computer task did have some predictive power. People who had more easily associated their spouses with positive words like “amazing” turned out to be more likely to remain satisfied over time.

So what insights do these findings offer to those who may be considering marriage? Though we can’t really perform an experiment like this at home, the lead researcher does suggest that couples take some time to tune in to their “gut” feelings before tying the knot. If there are hesitations or uncertainty, it may be best to wait, or to consider premarital counseling.

Further Reading

Before You Tie the Knot (from UF-IFAS)

Two of Us: Advice for Engaged Couples (from the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center)

(Photo credit: Bride and groom wedding cake figurines by David Precious. CC BY 2.0.)

References:

McNulty, J., et al. (2013). Though they may be unaware, newlyweds implicitly know whether their marriage will be satisfying. Science, 342, 1119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1243140

Elish, J. (2013). Follow your gut down the aisle, new study says. Retrieved from http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/610956/?sc=c148

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Posted: March 14, 2014


Category: Relationships & Family, Work & Life
Tags: Health And Wellness, Healthy Relationships


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