Delaying Sex Might Strengthen Marriage

Delaying Sex Might Strengthen Marriage
Study finds waiting on intimacy linked to better communication, stability

From the December 29, 2010 Health Day news release

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) — Having sex early in a relationship may lead to less satisfying marriages because couples can fail to develop important skills to communicate well and resolve conflicts, new research suggests.

The study, done at Brigham Young University in Utah, found that married couples who had delayed sex while they were dating were more likely to communicate, enjoy sex and see their marriage as stable than those who had sex early on. They also were generally more satisfied with their marriage….

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“The take-home message is that sex is a powerful experience,” said Busby. “It really bonds us to one another and so it may be important before we go down that road to take the time to see if you can talk to this other person — see if you have similar personalities and similar directions in life — to see whether or not this is a relationship that can last.”

About 85 percent of Americans report having had premarital sex, according to research cited in the study. Also according to the research, there is a widespread belief that it is important for dating couples to see if they have “sexual chemistry,” because it is key to a good marriage….

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he longer sex was delayed, the more participants in the study reported better quality of sex, communication, relationship satisfaction and perceived relationship stability. Waiting until marriage to have sex had the strongest correlations with positive outcomes.

The study was controlled to eliminate the influence of factors that could impact the timing of sexual intimacy, such as religion, education, relationship length and the number of previous sexual partners.

The study authors cited “relationship inertia,” a theory from earlier research, as a reason poorly matched couples stay together. As time goes on, partners feel “constrained” by the complexities of the situation when they may have more wisely parted company, the research noted.

“You get on this escalator and begin sliding into a relationship, rather than deciding in a thoughtful way to become more involved,” said Busby. “People say, ‘I’ve invested four or five years in this relationship’ or ‘We bought a house together,'” he added, noting that “the relationship becomes too complicated to leave.”

Busby cautioned against concluding that premarital sex necessarily leads to a bad marriage, however.

“Just because someone has sex early in a relationship doesn’t mean the marriage is doomed,” he said. “We’re not saying that.”

Busby also said the study group was more white and educated than a random sample of Americans would be, so more research is needed to draw stronger conclusions.

But the study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, suggests that an early focus on sex may lead to “more brittle marriages.”

“You can have great sex with someone you have an incompatible personality with,” Busby pointed out. “Sex is important, but it is not the only important thing in marriage.”

The study drew praise from another expert on interpersonal relationships.

“The impulse to assess sexual chemistry early in a romantic relationship, if not before, is a popular one,” said Mark Regnerus, author of the bookPremarital Sex in America, due out in 2011. “It just doesn’t work as well as advertised.”

A sexual relationship between two people “is best learned, rather than simply graded,” said Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin.

“A good marriage — including the sex — is something that’s built. It doesn’t come prefabricated,” he said.

And spouses with lots of sexual memories of other partners may find the bar for satisfaction high, said Regnerus. In contrast, people with fewer sexual memories may not expect as much.

“They are as good at sex as they believe themselves to be,” he said.

 

 

Emotional intelligence peaks as we enter our 60s, research suggests

Emotional intelligence peaks as we enter our 60s, research suggests
Older people may have a harder time keeping a lid on their feeings, but they’re better at seeing the positive side of a stressful situation

From a December 16, 2010 Eureka news alert

Older people have a hard time keeping a lid on their feelings, especially when viewing heartbreaking or disgusting scenes in movies and reality shows, psychologists have found. But they’re better than their younger counterparts at seeing the positive side of a stressful situation and empathizing with the less fortunate, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley.

A team of researchers led by UC Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson is tracking how our emotional strategies and responses change as we age. Their findings – published over the past year in peer-review journals – support the theory that emotional intelligence and cognitive skills can actually sharpen as we enter our 60s, giving older people an advantage in the workplace and in personal relationships.

“Increasingly, it appears that the meaning of late life centers on social relationships and caring for and being cared for by others,” Levenson said. “Evolution seems to have tuned our nervous systems in ways that are optimal for these kinds of interpersonal and compassionate activities as we age.”

In the first study, researchers looked at how 144 healthy adults in their 20s, 40s and 60s reacted to neutral, sad and disgusting film clips. In particular, they examined how participants used techniques known as “detached appraisal,” “positive reappraisal” and “behavior suppression.” Heading up that study was Michelle Shiota, now an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University. The findings were published in the journal, Psychology and Aging.

Psychologists identify influence of social interaction on sensitivity to physical pain

From a November 8, 2010 University of Toronto news release

TORONTO, ON – Psychologists at the University of Toronto have shown that the nature of a social interaction has the ability to influence an individual’s sensitivity to physical pain. The discovery could have significant clinical implications for doctor-patient relationships and the general well-being of an individual on a daily basis.

“Dozens of studies over the past several decades have demonstrated the impact of inadequate social connectedness on numerous health outcomes, including cardiovascular health, immune function, post-surgical recovery, and lifespan,” says Terry Borsook, a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at U of T and author of a new study published in PAIN. “Our study is among the first to show in humans that the perception of physical pain can be immediately impacted by the types of social experiences that people have in their everyday lives.”

In the study, healthy participants rated the intensity and unpleasantness of painful stimuli before and after engaging in a structured interaction with a trained actor who was instructed to be either warm and friendly or indifferent throughout the exchange. Participants who experienced the indifferent social exchange reported less sensitivity to pain after the interaction when compared to that measured before the exchange. Participants exposed to the positive social interaction, however, exhibited no change in pain sensitivity….

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“If such everyday mildly unpleasant encounters are enough to provoke pain inhibition, then this suggests that many people may be exposed to chronic fight-or-flight responses, which can have many negative implications for health. This would be the case especially for people who are sensitive to social exclusion, such as those who feel lonely or fear rejection”

Borsook says that the results also have important clinical implications when it comes to seeing your doctor. “Health practitioners who are aloof, lack understanding, or are generally unresponsive to patients may provoke an analgesic response resulting in underestimated reports of pain, with insufficient pain control measures being a possible consequence.”

The findings are presented in a paper titled “Mildly negative social encounters reduce physical pain sensitivity“, published in the November issue of PAIN, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain.

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