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Women feel happy when their husband or partner is upset
24 April 2012
New research suggests that women feel happy when they see their husband or partner upset.
The study found that wives or girlfriends were pleased when their partner showed emotion because they believed it demonstrated a healthy relationship.
The study by Harvard Medical School found that when men realised their wives were angry the women reported being happier, although the men were not.
Apparently women enjoy spotting when their partner is dissatisfied because it shows his strong “engagement” or “investment” in their time together.
The study’s lead author, Dr Shiri Cohen, said: “For women, seeing that their male partner is upset reflects some degree of the man's investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during difficult times”.
He also says, “This is consistent with what is known about the dissatisfaction women often experience when their male partner becomes emotionally withdrawn and disengaged in response to conflict.”
Another very interesting study done by the American Psychological Association on 156 heterosexual couples revealed how couples varied in the way they resolved conflict and controlled emotions.
During the study, each participant was asked to describe an incident with their partner over the previous two months that had been frustrating or upsetting, while they were filmed.
Then the couple was brought together to view each other's admission and were told to discuss for 10 minutes what had happened, which was also filmed.
The video recordings were then shown back to them while they rated their negative and positive reactions using an electronic device.
Later, six, 30-second clips of the most emotive discussions were shown to the participants, who completed questionnaires about their feelings on watching the recordings. Overall satisfaction with the relationship was also measured, and whether those surveyed considered their partner's efforts to be empathetic.
The study revealed that men may be more satisfied in their relationships when they can accurately read their partners’ positive emotions, while women’s relationship satisfaction may uniquely benefit when they can accurately read their partners’ negative emotions.
Women’s satisfaction was more strongly related to the perception that their partners were trying to understand their negative emotions than to men’s actual accuracy in reading those emotions.
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