How Facebook Can Make You Less Likable

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The scientific community has been conducting extensive research lately into the effects that social networks have on our health and psychology. Facebook just revealed their own secret study where they determined that your mood can be altered for days based on the posts you see from others. They call this “emotional contagion” and it may indicate why someone’s Facebook status might make you sick.

According to research by Lydia Emery and her colleagues at Haverford College, couples that post the most “highly disclosing” status updates are the least likeable says Gwendolyn Seidman, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at Albright College, who studies relationships and cyberpsychology. She concurs with the study in a blog for Psychology Today but also adds that “in general, showing off your relationship on Facebook is a habit that happier couples are more likely to engage in.” So where do you draw the line?

Seideman writes that people whose Facebook profiles indicate they are coupled, who have profile pictures of them and their significant others, and post couple photos and affectionate comments on their own and their partner’s timeline, are in fact the happiest and most satisfied couples online. However, she has also concluded through a study of her own that disclosing your most intimate thoughts on Facebook makes you less likable. Clearly there is a fine line between seeming satisfied, “trying too hard” and “showing off”.

My advice for all the happy couples on Facebook is to maintain a healthy balance between your overtures online and your otherwise ordinary activity. What you say in your status update to your significant other could sicken someone who had no intentions of seeing it. I think its perfectly fine to celebrate your relationship with pictures, posts and updates that others might like to see but I suggest saving the most intimate of sayings for just yourselves.

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To read the original article for Psychology Today, click HERE.

Proof That Soul Mates Don’t Exist

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According to a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology scientists concluded through a series of experiments that:

• Framing love as perfect unity can hurt relationship satisfaction.

• It hurts relationship satisfaction only in conflicts, not in celebrations.

• This content dependency supports metaphorical framing, not metaphorical transfer.

• Metaphorical framing effects are limited to targets to which frames are applicable.

What does that mean in laymen’s terms? It means that when you fight, and you’re the kind of person who considers someone your “soul mate”, your relationship satisfaction will be negatively impacted much more than if you simply had an idealistic frame of your partnership – you’re two individuals on a parallel path. This makes perfect sense. Why?

If you truly believe in the Myth of Romantic Love you will have a greater crisis of confidence and question your faith whenever a fight occurs. When you frame your partnership more realistically and fight, you’ll simply wonder whether or not this person is right for you. So what are we to do?

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology concluded, “that satisfaction is associated with idealistic, rather than realistic, perceptions of one’s partner”. In other words, it is imperative to focus on the positive and train yourself to idealize your partner. You must intentionally marginalize their shortcomings. But that doesn’t mean you should turn a blind eye to obvious issues. In this study researchers concluded that people who idealized their spouses when they married (focused primarily on their good qualities) were more likely to still be happy with their partner years later.

In my opinion these two studies suggest how important it is to maintain positivity, optimism and hope. However, considering the relationship preordained can detrimental. Balance your expectations and desires carefully or beware of the consequences.

SBW

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To read the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology study please click HERE.

To read the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study please click HERE.

To read about The Myth of Romantic Love please click HERE.