Why do people stay in unsatisfying romantic relationships? A new study suggests it may be because they view leaving as bad for their partner. The study, being published in the November 2018 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, explored the possibility that people deciding whether to end a relationship consider not only their own desires but also how much they think their partner wants and needs the relationship to continue……
“When you’re riding a guy, don’t go up and down like a pogo unless your sitting straight up, you have to lean forward, rock your hips back and forth and if you go up, come down at a curve toward his hips, having a landing pad behind your booty gives you a push so you bounce rather than destroy your quads trying to ride him, it makes it easier when he has his legs bent rather than starfished out so his hips cup your butt. Ask him to just push up when you come down so you have extra bounce when you go up…….
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Sexually active people over the age of 50 are more likely to have a better memory, a study has claimed. Drawing pictures of past experiences and eating turmeric once a day have been said to have a beneficial impact on one’s cognitive abilities.
According to a recent study published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour, engaging in regular sexual activity in middle age could also be linked to an improved memory.
Mark Allen, a lecturer in the school of psychology at the University of Wollongong in Australia, carried out research on 6,016 individuals, all of which were over the age of 50.
The data, which was collected by the English Longitudinal Study of Aging in 2012 and 2014, questioned 2,672 men and 3,344 women on a number of aspects of their lives including their health, diet and sexual activity.
The participants also completed an episodic memory test in 2012 and 2014, with Allen able to compare the results from both.
Allen came to the conclusion that while all of the adults across the board exhibited signs of memory loss, those in more sexual and intimate relationships were able to perform better at the memory tests.
This demonstrates that in the short term, frequent sex could have a positive effect on memory retention.
However, the notion that increased sexual activity can slow down the decline of memory in the long run was unfounded.
“These findings build on experimental research that has found sexual activity enhances episodic memory in non-human animals,” the study stated in conclusion.
“Further research using longer time frames and alternative measures of cognitive decline is recommended.”
In 2016, a study conducted by a team from McGill University in Canada claimed that women who have more sex have better memories.
The researchers found a correlation between the growth of the hippocampus, the area of the brain the controls emotions, memory and the nervous system, and sex.
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The idea that some of us experience “imposter syndrome” was first mooted in the 1970s by two US clinical psychologists who noticed the preponderance of high-achieving women who felt they had somehow cheated or fluked their way to success and feared being found out.
Research on the syndrome has since exploded and it’s become clear that many men also experience similar fraudulent feelings. In fact, in their new exploratory paper in Personality and Individual Differences, a team of US and German researchers claim that, under pressure, imposter syndrome may hit men harder than women, triggering more anxiety and worse performance – a difference they speculate may be due to traditional gender norms that place a greater expectation on men to be competent.
Rebecca Badawy and her colleagues recruited hundreds of female and male undergrads studying communication or business in northeastern USA. They measured their levels of imposter syndrome with an established scale that includes items like “Sometimes I’m afraid others will discover how much knowledge or ability I really lack”.
In one study, the researchers gave the students two sets of five verbal and numerical Graduate Record Exam questions (the GRE is used in the US to select students for graduate programmes). After the first set of questions, the researchers ramped up the pressure for half the students, giving them fake feedback that stated they had answered all of the first five questions incorrectly.
Although imposter feelings were overall higher among women, this harsh feedback seemed to especially affect male students with high imposter feelings – they reported higher anxiety, made less effort (as measured by time taken on the task), and showed a trend towards poorer performance, as compared to others given positive feedback. In contrast, female students with high imposter feelings responded to harsh feedback by increasing their effort and showing superior performance.
It was similar in a second study in which heightened pressure was placed on half the students by telling them that their results on five Graduate Record Exam questions would be shown to a professor on their course (the researchers called this a “high accountability” situation).
In this context, men with higher imposter syndrome scores again showed increased anxiety, reduced effort and a tendency toward worse performance, as compared with others who were told their scores would be shown anonymously to a stranger. In contrast, women with imposter feelings were largely unaffected (in terms of anxiety, effort or performance) by the increased accountability situation.
The increase in anxiety, and reduction in effort, shown by men with imposter feelings could be interpreted as reflecting their fear of being found out, combined with a “self-handicapping” strategy – reducing their effort so that they can use this as an excuse to explain the poor performance that they are anticipating.
“Assuming that traditional gender norms hold, males [with imposter syndrome] may have exhibited stronger negative reactions because they believe that society at large values males who demonstrate high competence and at the same time, do not believe that they can fulfil this standard,” the researchers said.
In contrast, the women with imposter feelings appeared less sensitive to the negative feedback and expectation of review by a professor – if anything, they arguably responded to negative feedback in an adaptive way by increasing their effort. The researchers linked this with the traditional cultural expectation that women should be warm rather than competent.
“Being less constrained by gender norm violations and backlash (i.e. they were already expected to perform poorly on competence-based tasks like exam questions), females [with imposter feelings] may have felt freer to attempt to improve their performance (and risk failure) rather than excusing it with lack of time or effort invested,” they said.
It’s hard to know if and how these findings might relate to real-world situations in an academic setting or workplace. Badawy and her team admit their findings are exploratory and may not generalise. In particular, if their explanation based around gender norms is accurate, one can imagine these norms might vary not just across international cultures, but even between different sub-cultures in the same country – depending, for instance, on the specific gender-based attitudes, beliefs and pressures in different occupations.
These issues aside, Badawy and her colleagues suggest their key finding – of particular male vulnerability to imposter syndrome under pressure – may have practical implications for managers. “If managers of organisational specialists observe evidence of imposter syndrome in male workers currently performing at high levels, they may benefit from making attempts to restore those workers’ sense of agency if they are placed under high accountability situations,” they said.
They added that mentoring by professors or managers, skills training and stretch assignments could be potential beneficial strategies (find more ways to combat imposter syndrome in this 99U article). However, they warned these will only work “if mentors are trained to down regulate their own gender role expectations”.
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First of all, consult someone who’s messed it up horribly at least a couple of times. They will offer some mature and very wise counsel, not at all tinged with bitterness and regret. They won’t simply spout generic “good advice” about kindness, understanding and listening; they’ve lived.
They will know that, in certain instances, it’s better just to get out and not think about the other person’s feelings; it’s thinking about their damn, stupid feelings the whole time that’s landed you in this decade-long misery-fest. If this is your case, just pack your stuff and do your thinking later. In the end you will both be glad. (See? Very sophisticated.)
If, however, it’s you that’s the scoundrel – you’re having an affair or have just “gone off” someone nice who seems to love you – try not to be too much of a twit about it. It can be really shameful to be on the wrong side of this one, and shame can push you either to be dishonest or to try to redistribute the blame.
Don’t attempt to convince yourself, and especially not your mutual friends, that the other person isn’t exactly a paragon of partnerhood either. Of course they aren’t, nobody is, but that doesn’t mean you have to highlight their flaws in order to make yourself feel better. Then again, there’s no need to make a massive show of self-flagellation. A touch of stoicism will do just fine. Take them out to dinner, take their feelings seriously, and let them shout at you a bit if they want to.
It’s awful to leave someone who doesn’t want to be left, but it can also be awful to stay with them. If you let them go, you will at least be giving them a chance to find someone else who is actually capable of loving them. And when you hear, 20 years later, that they are living in Brooklyn with their partner and child, you will almost cry with happiness.
(At the same time as wondering, self-indulgently, whether their romantic good fortune has made it possible for them to forgive you at least a little bit. Wow, Anouchka, you really can’t let go of the idea of being a “good person”!)
Come to think of it, kindness, understanding and listening might have been quite a good idea, at least if you’re the scoundrel. There’s nothing more stupid than acting out rather than trying to articulate yourself.
It’s got to be kinder to say you’re unhappy than to sleep with some passer-by (whom you then marry). The problem is that, when you start to talk and listen, you often find you can’t help liking, even loving, the other person – and that makes it very difficult to abandon them.
The one advantage of dumb acting out is that it can at least give the abandonee an opportunity to hate you. If you’re absolutely sure that leaving is essential then why spend loads of time trying to make it possible for them to continue to think well of you? This could even be considered a little vain. Attempting to do something horrible to someone in a polite way is inherently problematic. (Just look at the government.)
While there might be a free-floating cultural ideal that tells us to try to be on good terms with everyone at all times, sometimes this just isn’t possible. Of course there’s no need to be nasty for the sake of it, but neurotically trying to be perfect can be time-consuming and messy. Some breakups take years.
There are people who can, apparently, bring about the ideal disunion, but if everyone expects to do the same they might find themselves having a lot of very long, sad and frustrating conversations when they could have been out enjoying the sunshine. But, then again, sunshine gives you cancer and serious dialogue can make you more humane and insightful.
It’s hard to feel good about ending a long-term relationship, even when it’s ultimately for the best. Not only are you choosing to throw yourself into the void, but you are also chucking someone else in involuntarily. Whether they are an angel, a devil, or even just an ordinary human being, you might feel dreadful about what you’re about to do to them. That’s not a sign that you’re making a bad choice, it’s just a register of the fact that you do still care about them. So that’s nice.
On a more practical note, if you’re married to someone who does properly terrible things, consider divorcing on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour rather than waiting two years and calling it irretrievable breakdown. (But do bear in mind that it’s probably unwise to be too idealistic about divorce courts; #freetiniowens.)
It’s so common for these things to be lost to history; the perp wants to go about their life as usual, find another hostage ASAP, and pretend none of it ever happened. Or if it did, it was just as much your fault as theirs. This sort of whitewashing can leave you with a disconcerting feeling of unreality. Possessing a legal document that acknowledges what actually went on might help.
Having said that, if you’ve stayed in a long-term relationship with someone who’s demonstrably bad news you’ve probably lost your mental coordinates enough to find it difficult to fight for justice or recognition. If so, re-read the first paragraph, pack, and don’t forget to throw cress seeds on their sofa on the way out (or seek other good revenge advice on Mumsnet). It’s more important to be out than to be “right”.
As you can see, this is all very considered and impartial. Sometimes it’s them, sometimes it’s you (but don’t ever actually say: “It’s not you, it’s me”, obvs). And now I think it’s time for me to finally get round to doing that thinking.
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