New study by Monmouth University Department of Psychology
WEST LONG BRANCH – Everyone experiences stress and anyone who has had a stressful day at work knows how easy it is for that stress to find its way into your romantic relationship. But how does stress impact relationships?
A new study from the Department of Psychology at Monmouth University shows that individuals who experience stress were less likely to give their own partner compliments and were more likely to seek out interactions with attractive strangers.
Previous research had established stress’s negative impact on romantic relationships. However, it was not clear which relationship behaviors stress may influence or if there was truly a causal link. To address these issues, Monmouth University Psychology Professor Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., Ph.D. and Monmouth University alumna Annabelle Pedreiro, a psychology student at the time of the study, along with Brent Mattingly, Ph.D., from Ursinus College designed an experiment to determine ways that stress may undermine relationships.
The results, published in the “Journal of Social Psychology,” indicate that participants in the high stress condition gave their partners fewer compliments and were more likely to want to interact with attractive alternative partners. Specifically, participants under stress gave 15 percent fewer compliments and selected nearly 20 percent more attractive partners for the interaction task than those who experienced minimal stress.
These findings are one of the first to establish a causal link between stress and relationship behaviors. In particular, they show how individuals’ acute stress experiences undermine relationships by being less likely to compliment one’s partner and being more likely to pay attention to other potential partners.
