Tag: Andrea L. Meltzer

The Independent: The key to marital bliss? Use your gut instinct

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date December 5, 2013

Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes

Journalist Steve Connor reports in The Independent about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was co-author on a four-year longitudinal study of 135 newlywed couples that found that a spouse’s implicit feelings about their partner predicted marital satisfaction later.

The article, “The key to marital bliss? Use your gut instinct,” was published Nov. 28.

Meltzer, co-author on the study, is an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.

Read the article.

EXCERPT:

By Steve Connor
The Independent
Oscar Wilde once said that marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Now scientists have shown that the best advice for people contemplating matrimony is to put their gut instinct ahead of wishful thinking.

A study of 135 newly-wed couples who were followed over a four-year period found that what people say about their partner is not always what they think deep down – but it is this gut reaction that matters for future marital happiness.

The optimism shown by all the couples at the outset of their marriage generally declined over time but the level of growing dissatisfaction with their spouse was directly related to the inner-most feelings at the outset – which they actively suppressed, the scientists found.

Those who harboured the most negative gut reaction to their partners after six months of marriage were also the ones who felt the most dissatisfied and unhappy after four years of marriage, according to Professor James McNulty of Florida State University in Tallahassee, who led the study published in the journal Science.

“Everyone wants to be in a good marriage and in the beginning many people are able to convince themselves of that at a conscious level,” Professor McNulty said.

“But these automatic, gut-level responses are less influenced by what people want to think. You can’t make yourself have a positive response through a lot of wishful thinking,” he said.

Measuring gut feelings was not straightforward and the researchers used an established psychological technique for determining someone’s subconscious thoughts by measuring the time it took for them to react to photographs of a spouse.

The experiment involved flashing a photograph of someone’s partner on a computer screen for just one third of a second, followed by a positive word such as “awesome” or “terrific” or a negative word such as “awful” or “terrible.

Read the article.

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Tags Andrea L. Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

Culture, Society & Family Mind & Brain

Gut reaction of marital partners could foretell their marriage satisfaction

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date December 3, 2013

Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes

Unconscious gut reactions may predict happy, and not-so-happy, marriages, a new study suggests.

Results of research published Nov. 29 found that spouses’ implicit attitudes toward their partners predicted changes in their marital satisfaction over four years. The study was published in the scholarly journal Science, “Though they may be unaware, newlyweds implicitly know whether their marriage will be satisfying.”

Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples, who were recruited within the first six months of marriage and completed measures of implicit attitudes toward their partners and explicit attitudes toward their relationship.

Researchers flashed the faces of participants’ spouses and asked the newlyweds to quickly, and unconsciously, determine if words such as awesome or horrible were positive or negative.

Individuals who responded the quickest to positive words after seeing a picture of their spouse were happier over the 4-year-study period.

Conscious attitudes were not accurate predictors of happiness
Questionnaires asking about couples’ conscious attitudes were not accurate predictors of the happiness of the pairs, but people’s automatic responses could foretell the course of the couple’s relationship, the researchers found.

Andrea L. Meltzer, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology, is one of four co-authors on the study on newlywed marital satisfaction.

The study, one of the first to apply implicit attitudes to relationships, found that spouses’ implicit attitudes toward their partners predicted changes in their marital satisfaction over four years.

Spouse was exposed to partner’s image, then responded to positive, negative words
To measure their implicit attitudes, spouses were briefly exposed to an image of their partner and then asked to indicate as quickly as possible whether a word was either positive (e.g., “wonderful”) or negative (e.g., “horrible”). The difference between the time it took them to respond to the positive and negative words was an index of their implicit satisfaction. Spouses who responded quicker to the positive words and slower to the negative words indicated higher satisfaction with their partner.

To measure their explicit attitudes, couples reported the extent to which various adjectives described their marriage. Following this initial assessment, couples reported their marital satisfaction every six months for four years.

The study found that newlyweds’ automatic, implicit attitudes were an accurate indicator of changes in marital satisfaction across the first four years of marriage whereas their explicit attitudes were not an indicator of changes in marital satisfaction. Consistent with other studies of newlywed couples, this study found that marital satisfaction decreased over time.

Findings demonstrate implicit positive attitudes predict less decline in satisfaction
But the findings demonstrated that those partners with more positive implicit attitudes toward their spouse experienced less-steep declines in marital satisfaction across the four-year course of the study.

Notably, many factors predict marital satisfaction; this study covers just one component. Therefore, it likely would not be ideal to use implicit attitudes as a compatibility indicator or as a way to predict a long and happy marriage, the researchers cautioned. — SMU, Science

Tags Andrea L. Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

Culture, Society & Family Researcher news SMU In The News

Business Times: Love And Marriage — Wife’s Attractiveness Essential, Study Says

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 21, 2013

Journalist Roxanne Palmer reports in the International Business Times about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.

The article, “Love And Marriage: Wife’s Attractiveness Essential, Study Says,” was published Nov. 20.

Meltzer, lead researcher on the study, is an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.

Read the article.

EXCERPT:

By Roxanne Palmer
International Business Times
Men place a higher value on the attractiveness of their life partners than women, one group of psychologists says.

Southern Methodist University psychologist Andrea Meltzer and colleagues drew on four different studies with a pool of more than 450 newlywed heterosexual couples. At the start of the studies, independent researchers scored the attractiveness of the husband and wife in each pair. Experimenters then interviewed the newlyweds and followed up later, asking them to rate their marital satisfaction on eight separate occasions over the next four years.

“Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive husband,” Meltzer and colleagues wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Read the article.

Tags Andrea L. Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

Culture, Society & Family Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

CBS Houston: Study: Men With Attractive Wives More Satisfied In Marriage

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 21, 2013

Journalist Benjamin Fearnow reports on CBS Houston about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.

The article, “Study: Men With Attractive Wives More Satisfied In Marriage,” was published Nov. 20.

Meltzer, lead researcher on the study, is an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.

Read the article.

EXCERPT:

By Benjamin Fearnow
CBS Houston
The physical attractiveness of one’s spouse plays a major role in marital satisfaction for men, while women’s happiness in their marriage was not affected by their husband’s looks.

A study of more than 450 newlywed couples over the course of four years found that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men who did not. However, the attractiveness of a woman’s husband played no part in the satisfaction that women felt from their marriage.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, first rated each member of the couples by “objective,” independent researchers, and then asked up to eight times over the first four years of marriage to rate their satisfaction.

The study strengthened support that there is a gender gap for how much physical attractiveness corresponds to (self-reported) marriage happiness.

Husbands with attractive wives in all four independent, longitudinal studies analyzed were more satisfied than their wives at the beginning of each marriage. As the marriage progressed, the husbands with the attractive wives remained more satisfied, and the attractive wives in these couples also reported being more satisfied.

“Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive husband,” wrote researcher Andrea Meltzer, of Southern Methodist University’s Dedman College of Humanities & Sciences.

“Most importantly, a direct test indicated that partner physical attractiveness played a larger role in predicting husbands’ satisfaction than predicting wives’ satisfaction,” reported the researchers.

The researchers attributed this to the concept that the self-reported happier husbands led to a happier marriage as a whole.

Read the article.

Tags Andrea L. Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

Culture, Society & Family Researcher news SMU In The News

UPI: Husbands with hot wife more satisfied, wives not so much

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 20, 2013

UPI wire service reported about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.

The article, “Husbands with hot wife more satisfied, wives not so much,” was published Nov. 20.

Meltzer, lead researcher on the study, is an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.

Read the article.

EXCERPT:

UPI
A direct test indicated a partner’s physical attractiveness played a larger role in predicting husbands’ satisfaction than wives’, U.S. researchers say.

Andrea L. Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas and colleagues analyzed the data of four independent, longitudinal studies to examine sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness and marital satisfaction.

In all four studies, both partners’ physical attractiveness was objectively rated at baseline, and both partners reported their marital satisfaction up to eight times over the first four years of marriage.

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, while wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive husband.

Read the article.

Tags Andrea L. Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Psychology

Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes

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Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes

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