A new research suggests that gut feelings in newlywed couples may help their marriage work.
A study led by James McNulty, a psychologist at the Florida State University, suggest that a person's unconscious feeling (gut feelings) about his or her partner is an indicator on how their marriage will work. The study was published in the journal Science.
For the purpose of the study, 135 newlywed couples from eastern Tennessee were initially asked to rate their attitude toward their partner. The researchers also gave the couples a test to measure their unconscious feelings. The researchers also showed the volunteers a picture of his or her partner and asked them is a series of words were positive or negative. The words included "awesome" or "awful," which is simply recognized as good or bad. The participants of the research were also timed to see how long they take to say if the word is positive or negative.
The researchers asked the couples to answer the questions in every six months for a four-year period. The results showed that some people took more time to identify a word like "awesome" as positive. Over a period of time these people also told researchers that they are less happy in their married life.
On the other hand, some people took longer to say that a word like "awful" was negative. Results say that these people were happy with their partners in general.
"The theory suggests why that would happen - it's not necessarily the answers that they're giving," explains McNulty. "Everybody recognizes that 'awesome' is a positive word. It's the speed with which they did it, because their positive attitude interfered with their response time."
McNulty added the test was originally designed by social psychologists with the aim of studying racial prejudice. They thought that the test will get people's deeply held beliefs, even if volunteers were not willing to report their beliefs to the researchers, or even to themselves.
McNulty also says that the human mind takes time to switch from positive or negative thoughts. When people see a picture of their partner it usually brings out some negative or positive attitude.
The study concluded that if someone is feeling negative about their relationship, it does not mean that the relationship is over. If a person has a positive gut feeling about his or her partner, he or she can still work towards improving their relationship.
