Better relationships if true to self

NEWARK, Ohio, March 17 (UPI) -- Men who are more true to themselves have partners who showed more healthy relationship behaviors, U.S. researchers found.

However, there was no significant relationship between women being true to themselves and men's relationship behaviors, the study said.

Typically in dating and marital relationships, women tend to be 'in charge' of intimacy in the relationship," lead author Amy Brunell of Ohio State University's Newark campus said in a statement. "So when men have this dispositional authenticity, and want to have an open, honest relationship, it makes women's job easier -- they can more easily regulate intimacy."

But since men have a lesser role in developing relationship intimacy, they were not affected as much by whether their partners were true to themselves or not. Nonetheless, the study found college students who reported being more true to themselves reported more positive dating relationships.

The study involved 62 heterosexual couples, all college students, who completed a long list of questionnaires in three separate sessions that took place about two weeks apart.

Overall, the study, published online ahead of print in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, found that both men and women who reported being more true to themselves also behaved in more intimate and less destructive ways with their partner, and that led to them feeling their relationship was more positive.