Whether you’re looking for a potential partner by swiping right in an app, or flipping through biodata stacks to Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking,” there may be some wisdom for you in the researchers’ findings.
Scientists have tried to understand what a good relationship does for decades. But most of those studies only measured a few variables at a time, Samantha Joel, lead author of the study. and an assistant professor at Western University in London, Ontario, told CNN.
Joel and colleagues analyzed information on more than 11,000 couples, drawn from 43 data sets that tracked those associations for an average of a year, to determine to what extent they could predict the quality of relationships and what measures would best predict that.
What they discovered is that their own judgment about their relationship, that is, how satisfied they are with their partner or how grateful they are to their partner, says more about the quality of their relationship than any of their personalities.
“When it comes to a successful relationship, the partnership you build is more important than the partner you choose,” Joel wrote in an email to CNN.
In other words, don’t focus so much on whether a person matches your type or if you check all of their boxes. Instead, think about how they relate to each other and whether their relationship leaves them satisfied.
What makes a good relationship
And it turns out that some measures can more reliably predict the quality of a relationship than others.
The researchers assessed the quality of the relationship by looking at individual characteristics, including age, gender, income, and personality traits, and the characteristics of the relationship itself, meaning affection, conflict, support, etc.
A person’s own perception of their relationship represented approximately 45% of their current satisfaction with their relationship at the start of a study, and approximately 18% at the end of the study.
Specifically, the relationship characteristics that best predicted a person’s satisfaction were:
- Partner’s Perceived Commitment
- Appreciation
- Sexual satisfaction
- Couple’s perceived satisfaction
- Conflict
A person’s individual characteristics, meanwhile, explained approximately 21% of their satisfaction with their relationship at the beginning of the study, and approximately 12% at the end.
The individual characteristics that best predicted a person’s relationship satisfaction were:
- Life satisfaction
- Negative effect
- Depression
- Avoid attachment
- Attachment anxiety
Interestingly, her partner’s personality or perception of her partner’s relationship seemed to matter relatively little, Joel said.
And while factors like your personality or whether you experience depression or anxiety could affect the quality of your relationship, building a relationship in which you feel satisfied and confident could overcome those things, the study authors wrote.
“The fact that individual characteristics predicted relationship quality but did not provide unique predictive power beyond relationship factors suggests that individual characteristics are important, but their effects on relationship quality are largely attributable its effects on relationship dynamics, “Justin Lavner, a psychologist at The University of Georgia, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email to CNN.
However, what the researchers couldn’t determine was how the quality of a relationship could change over time.
The study also relied on participants’ self-report to reach those conclusions, and Joel said future research should explore whether the results would be different if those characteristics were measured through observational or physiological studies, as well as whether the findings were apply to couples outside the west.
Lavner added that it would be helpful to know how many external factors, such as financial stress or external stress, affect the quality of a relationship.
What this means for your love life
According to some experts, there are some conclusions to apply to your own life.
For one thing, pay attention to the dynamics of your relationship.
“It seems to me that the relationship is more than the sum of its parts,” Joel said. “It is that relationship dynamic itself, rather than the people who make up the relationship, that seems to be more important to the quality of the relationship.”
It’s also worth paying attention to your current feelings about the relationship.
“Another takeaway is that although these perceptions were more predictive of relationship quality measured at the same point in time, the same pattern was found at follow-up,” Lavner said, “suggesting how you feel. now it can be a diagnosis of how you will feel later “.
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