Laugh and the world laughs with you, the saying goes, and this is especially true for couples and roommates, the results of a new study suggest. It seems that couples and roommates tend to have similar emotional reactions as time goes by. So if your roommate or lover laughs out loud at movies or gets weepy over hurt puppies, you may too -- given time. This so-called emotional convergence seems to be beneficial to friendships and romantic relationships, making them stronger and longer lasting. Everyday experience suggests that people are capable of "catching" the mood of a spouse or friend, said lead author Dr. Cameron Anderson. But he said that he was surprised by the extent to which peoples' emotions converged in his study, which is reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "The romantic partners and roommates were virtually becoming the same emotional person over time," said Anderson. In the first part of the study, 60 heterosexual couples at the University of Wisconsin in Madison answered questions about their personality, their satisfaction with their relationship and the balance of power within it. To test emotional convergence, partners discussed positive and negative situations -- such as a recent success or an ongoing worry. Then each partner privately reported his or her feelings regarding the issue. Six months later, the 38 couples that were still together repeated the experiment. The couples maintained distinct personalities, but they were more closely attuned emotionally than they had been at the start of the study, the researchers found. Although couples' emotions converged over time, similar emotions might have drawn them together in the first place. Couples that stayed together during the study were more emotionally similar than couples that broke up, the researchers point out. Anderson's team also found that the partner who had less power in the relationship did most of the changing in terms of emotions. In other experiments, which involved college students who lived together in dormitories, the researchers found that roommates tended to have more similar emotional responses toward the end of the school year. The researchers gauged emotion by having students watch film clips that tend to elicit laughs or tears. Roommates whose emotions converged the most during the school year tended to become closer friends than roommates whose emotions did not become as similar, according to the report. The study also found that the roommate who had a lower social status in the dormitory tended to change more than popular roommates. Anderson said these results show that "people's emotional responses to events are not completely fixed and rigid." According to researcher, emotional similarity could be helpful in assembling the most productive corporate team, and might be an important consideration when searching for love or friendships.
(Agencies) | 一項(xiàng)新的研究結(jié)果表明,正如那句諺語所說:歡笑,整個(gè)世界伴你歡笑。人們的感情是相互傳染的,特別是在夫妻和室友之間,更是如此。 隨著相處時(shí)間的增加,夫妻和室友之間逐漸會(huì)產(chǎn)生相類似的情感反應(yīng)。所以,如果你的室友或者伴侶在看電影的時(shí)候開懷大笑或者為受傷的小狗傷心哭泣的時(shí)候,你也許會(huì)和他們一樣--只不過這需要一些時(shí)間。 這種所謂的情感交匯對(duì)友誼和愛情來說是大有益處的,有益于增進(jìn)感情和使之天長(zhǎng)地久。 這項(xiàng)研究報(bào)告的作者卡麥隆·安德森博士說,我們從每天的日常生活中可以體會(huì)到,人是可以"捕捉"到伴侶或者朋友的情緒的。但是他又說,在他的研究中,他很驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)人們情感交匯的范圍竟然如此之廣。安德森博士的研究報(bào)告發(fā)表在《人格與社會(huì)心理》雜志上。 安德森博士說:"隨著相處時(shí)間的增加,夫妻或者室友實(shí)際上會(huì)逐漸在情感上變?yōu)橐惑w。" 在研究的第一階段,60對(duì)異性夫婦在位于麥迪遜市的威斯康辛大學(xué)接受了測(cè)試。他們回答了有關(guān)個(gè)性、對(duì)夫妻關(guān)系的滿意度以及夫妻間控制力平衡的問題。 為了測(cè)試情感交匯,這些夫婦分別討論了積極和消極兩方面的話題。比如,最近一次的成功或者正在憂慮的事情。然后夫妻倆分別私下將自己對(duì)所討論問題的感受告訴研究者。 6個(gè)月后,研究者發(fā)現(xiàn),38對(duì)仍然在一起的夫婦還在繼續(xù)這項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)。這些對(duì)夫婦有著截然不同的性格,但是他們這段時(shí)間以來,同實(shí)驗(yàn)剛開始的時(shí)候相比在感情上更為融洽了。 研究者指出,盡管夫婦之間的情感隨著時(shí)間趨于交匯,但是很可能是最初的相似情感吸引他們走到一起的。在實(shí)驗(yàn)的這段時(shí)間里,仍然在一起的夫婦同離異的夫婦相比,情感上更為接近。 安德森博士的研究小組還發(fā)現(xiàn),夫妻雙方中控制力較弱的一方在情感交匯方面變化最大。 在其他實(shí)驗(yàn)關(guān)于同宿舍大學(xué)生的實(shí)驗(yàn)中,研究者發(fā)現(xiàn),住在一個(gè)宿舍的室友到了學(xué)年末的時(shí)候會(huì)有情感反應(yīng)類似的趨勢(shì)。研究者是通過讓學(xué)生們觀看喜劇或者悲劇電影的片斷來測(cè)試他們的情感反應(yīng)的。 根據(jù)研究結(jié)果,同那些沒有產(chǎn)生相似情感的室友相比,在一學(xué)年中情感交匯最多的室友往往最終就會(huì)成為親密的好朋友。 此外研究結(jié)果還發(fā)現(xiàn),在宿舍中處于較低地位的人同受歡迎的同學(xué)相比,會(huì)有更大的改變。 安德森說,這些研究結(jié)果表明"人們對(duì)事情的情感反應(yīng)并非完全是固定不變的。" 根據(jù)研究者的研究結(jié)果,情感上的相似可以有助于組成最有工作效率的合作小組,而且還可以成為尋找伴侶或者結(jié)交朋友過程中的重要考慮因素。
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