Category: Sex

Emotion, Sex, Social

How Making Sacrifices For A Partner — Or Saying You Will — Affects Wellbeing

By Emma Young

You were hoping to go out with friends on Saturday night, but your partner really wants to have a quiet night at home instead…

Your life’s going great, but then your partner is offered their dream job in a town you’d happily never visit, let alone live in…

So what do you do? Do you stand your ground? Or you do you sacrifice your own goals for the sake of your partner’s?

It’s a dilemma familiar to anyone who’s ever been in a relationship. It would seem reasonable, then, to assume that research could tell us what the likely impacts would be on individual wellbeing, and on the health of the relationship itself. However, as the authors of a new paper published in Psychological Bulletin point out, there are two conflicting hypotheses for how sacrifices should pan out.

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Sex, Sleep and dreaming, Smell

Trouble Sleeping? The Scent Of Your Lover Might Help

By Emily Reynolds

Though some research has challenged the common conception that scent is the most evocative of all the senses, it can be undeniably powerful when you catch a whiff of something that jogs a memory. We also know that scent plays a part in sexual attraction: people with a keener sense of smell often find sex more pleasant and may even have more orgasms during sex, and the scent of a partner can reduce stress and increase feelings of safety.

So new research findings from a team at the University of British Columbia may not come as a complete surprise. In a paper published in Psychological Science, Marlise Hofer and Frances Chen suggest that the scent of your lover may not just be comforting but can also help you drift off to sleep. Continue reading “Trouble Sleeping? The Scent Of Your Lover Might Help” →

Dating, evolutionary psych, Sex

Men’s Tendency To Overestimate Women’s Sexual Interest May Not Have A Direct Evolutionary Basis After All

By Emma Young

Introduce a single man to a single woman and the odds are that he will over-estimate how sexually interested she is in him, while she will under-estimate his sexual interest in her. This sex difference in misperceptions has been found by researchers time and again. The conventional explanation is that these are evolved adaptions — that’s it’s more evolutionarily costly for a man to miss a chance to mate with an interested partner than it is for a woman, and more costly for a woman to engage in sex with an uncommitted man than vice versa. But now a new study, published in Psychological Science, challenges this notion, and provides some alternative explanations.

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Dating, evolutionary psych, Sex, Social

So Grateful For My Ex: Men Hold More Positive Views Of Former Partners Than Women Do

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By Matthew Warren

Break-ups are always hard, with love and companionship giving way to feelings of resentment and the souring of once treasured memories. Yet people often continue to harbour positive feelings towards their exes long after the relationship is over. And that may be particularly the case if you’re a man, according to a recent study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Researchers have found that, in heterosexual relationships at least, men tend to view their exes more positively than do women.

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Dating, Sex, Social

New Romantic Relationships May End Up Following The Same Patterns As Previous Ones

Sad couple having a conflict

By Matthew Warren

Entering into a new intimate relationship can feel exciting and full of possibility. And for many, it may seem to offer the chance to escape the patterns of our previous relationships: perhaps there will be less arguing, or maybe the new relationship will provide a greater sense of satisfaction. But a recent study suggests that once the initial honeymoon period is over, the dynamics of a new relationship may end up being pretty similar to the last one.

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Dating, Sex, Social

Polyamory Offers A “Unique Opportunity” To Enjoy Prolonged Passion And Closeness In Romantic Relationships

Woman choice, friends, man relations line icon concept. Woman choice, friends, man relations flat vector symbol, sign, outline illustration.By Emma Young

As everyone knows, the nature of romantic relationships usually changes over time. An early period of intense attraction tends to develop into a less fiery, deeper attachment bond. According to evolutionary arguments, the early stage, which typically lasts a few years, gives the pair the time and proximity that’s required for developing a deeper nurturing, supportive – and predictable – relationship. While this type of attachment is important for rearing children, and for ongoing wellbeing, it’s not necessarily great news for passion. 

“Though passion can still be experienced in the later stages, it tends to decline, on average,” note the authors of a new study, published in Social Psychology. They go on, however, to report that there is a group of people who experience higher sustained levels of both supportive warmth and nurturance and eroticism than is typical in relationships – only, they don’t get both from the same partner. 

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Dating, Sex

The Dissatisfaction of Being Sexually Rejected By A Partner Lasts Longer Than The Pleasure Of Having An Advance Accepted

GettyImages-478896468.jpgBy Matthew Warren

Sex is an important part of most romantic relationships – and when couples are not on the same page about their sex life, it can become a source of frustration. Research has found that couples have sex about 1 or 2 times a week, but about half of sexual advances between partners go unfulfilled. 

A preprint uploaded recently to PsyArXiv sheds some light on how responses to sexual advances influence individuals’ feelings of sexual and relationship satisfaction. The study suggests that while having an advance accepted leaves partners feeling more content, this effect may be short-lived compared to the dissatisfaction of being rejected.

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Dating, Developmental, evolutionary psych, Sex

Researchers Say Growing Up With A Troubled Or Harsh Father Can Influence Women’s Expectations Of Men, And, In Turn, Their Sexual Behaviour

By Emma Young

The power (or powerlessness) of parents to shape their children for good or ill continues to preoccupy psychologists and the public alike. Among evolutionary-minded developmental psychologists, one specific idea is that girls’ later attitudes to relationships is influenced by their fathers’ behaviour. For instance, US research has found that girls with disengaged, harsh, and often absent fathers are known to start having sex at a younger age, and to have more sexual partners. However many questions about these findings remain. For example: might other aspects of the girls’ childhoods be involved; what about genetic effects; and which aspects of poor-quality fathering are the most consequential?  

A new study of pairs of sisters, published in Developmental Psychology, provides some specific answers, particularly that it is contact with a poor-quality father, not paternal absence, that affects their daughters’ later relationships, including their expectations of men, and, in turn, their sexual behaviour.  

Continue reading “Researchers Say Growing Up With A Troubled Or Harsh Father Can Influence Women’s Expectations Of Men, And, In Turn, Their Sexual Behaviour” →

Developmental, Gender, Mental health, Sex

There Are Sex Differences In The Trajectory Of Depression Symptoms Through Adolescence, With Implications For Treatment And Prevention

By Matthew Warren

It’s well known that teenagers’ moods go through drastic changes. In particular, depressive symptoms – like feelings of low mood or self-loathing – tend to increase as they grow older. Now researchers have plotted out the exact trajectory of these depressive symptoms. In their recent paper in Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Alex Kwong and colleagues from the University of Bristol report for the first time the points during teen development when symptoms increase most rapidly, on average – and they find that these timings differ between young men and women.

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Dating, evolutionary psych, Sex

A New Study Supports Evolutionary Psychology’s Explanation For Why Men And Women Want Different Attributes In Partners

By Jesse Singal

When it comes to the heated subject of differences between how men and women behave, debate in psychology has centered on mate preferences and general interests. The available research shows that when it comes to (heterosexual) mating preferences, men are relatively more interested in physical beauty, while women are relatively more interested in earning capacity. As for general interests, men are more interested in physical things, while women are more interested in people.

Even the staunchest evolutionary psychologists would acknowledge these are partially overlapping bell curves: There are plenty of men who are fascinated by other people, and plenty of women looking for physical beauty in a partner above all else. Yet the findings have been met with fierce resistance in some quarters. One of the more sophisticated rejoinders is known as social roles theory: The differences do exist, but they’re entirely or largely the result of gender roles imposed by society on individuals. However, a new study released as a preprint at PsyArXiv and involving participants from 36 countries has failed to replicate a key finding that’s previously been cited in support of social roles theory.

Continue reading “A New Study Supports Evolutionary Psychology’s Explanation For Why Men And Women Want Different Attributes In Partners” →