Women Happier in Relationships When Men Feel Their Pain.

 Men like to
know when their wife or girlfriend is happy
while women really want the man in their
life to know when they are upset, according
to a new study published by the American
Psychological Association.
The study involved a
diverse sample of
couples and found
that men's and
women's perceptions
of their significant
other's empathy, and
their abilities to tell
when the other is
happy or upset, are
linked to relationship
satisfaction in
distinctive ways,
according to the
article published
online in the Journal
of Family Psychology.
"It could be that 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.
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emotionally withdrawn and disengaged in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," said the study's lead
author, Shiri Cohen, PhD, of Harvard Medical
School.
Researchers recruited 156 heterosexual
couples for the experiment. Of those, 102
came from the Boston area and were
younger, urban, ethnically and economically
diverse and in a committed but not
necessarily married relationship. In an
effort to find couples who varied in the
ways they resolved conflicts and controlled
their emotions, they also looked for couples
with a history of domestic violence and/or
childhood sexual abuse. The remaining
participants, from Bryn Mawr, Pa., were
older, suburban and middle-class married
couples with strong ties to the community.
In all, 71 percent of couples were white, 56
percent were married and their average
length of relationship was three-and-a-half
years.
Each participant was asked to describe an
incident with his or her partner over the
past couple of months that was particularly
frustrating, disappointing or upsetting. The
researchers' audio recorded the participant
making a one- to two-sentence statement
summarizing the incident and reaction and
then brought the couples together and
played each participant's statements. The
couples were told to try to come to a better
understanding together of what had
happened and were given approximately
10 minutes to discuss it while the
researchers videotaped them. Following the
discussions, the participants viewed the
videotape and simultaneously rated their
negative and positive emotions throughout,
using an electronic rating device. The device
had a knob that moved across an 11-point
scale that ranged from "very negative" to
"neutral" to "very positive."
Using these ratings, the researchers selected
six 30-second clips from the videotape that
had the highest rated negative or positive
emotions by each partner. The researchers
showed the clips to the participants and had
them complete questionnaires about their
feelings during each segment as well as
their perceptions of their partner's feelings
and effort to understand them during the
discussion. They also measured the
participants' overall satisfaction with their
relationships and whether each partner
considered his or her partner's efforts to be
empathetic.
Relationship satisfaction was directly
related to men's ability to read their female
partner's positive emotions correctly.
However, contrary to the researchers'
expectations, women who correctly
understood that their partners were upset
during the videotaped incident were much
more likely to be satisfied with their
relationship than if they correctly
understood that their partner was happy.
Also, when men understood that their
female partner was angry or upset, the
women reported being happier, though the
men were not. The authors suggest that
being empathetic to a partner's negative
emotions may feel threatening to the
relationship for men but not for women.
The findings also show that the more men
and women try to be empathetic to their
partner's feelings, the happier they are. The
authors suggest that this research should
encourage couples to better appreciate and
communicate one another's efforts to be
empathetic.
The American Psychological Association, in
Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and
professional organization representing
psychology in the United States and is the
world's largest association of psychologists.
APA's membership includes more than
154,000 researchers, educators, clinicians,
consultants and students. Through its
divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and
affiliations with 60 state, territorial and
Canadian provincial associations, APA works
to advance psychology as a science, as a
profession and as a means of promoting
health, education and human welfare.

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