MANHATTAN, Kan., Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Young U.S. adults who easily engage in rewarding conversations with their partners are more likely to be satisfied with the relationship, U.S. researchers said.
Brenda McDaniel, assistant professor of psychology at the Kansas State University, and colleagues arrived at that conclusion after working with more than 50 couples ages 18-20 who had been dating for a least six months but were not engaged, married or living together.
"These relationships are, by nature, unstable to begin with," McDaniel said in a statement. "They are early dating relationships. Sometimes it is hard to even get the couples to engage in conflict. Conflict does exist but, because the relationship is so new to them, they don't want to cause a breakup."
The researchers had participants spend 20 minutes talking about a topic that continually causes relationship tension such as flirting with someone else.
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After the stressful discussion, couples spent 20 minutes discussing a positive shared time during their relationship such as their first date.
The researchers examined levels of the stress hormone cortisol before the conflict discussion, after the conflict discussion and after the "happy times" discussion. Participants whose cortisol levels stayed high instead of coming back down after the happier discussion reported lower relationship satisfaction and less relationship closeness.
"We saw recovery being related to conversation flow," McDaniel said. "Those individuals whose stress hormone levels remained high didn't enter into that state of flow."
Flow is like being "in the zone," McDaniel said, "they are so engaged they lose track of time, or get a sense of enjoyment or creativity from an experience just as an athlete who is 'hot' during a basketball game or they are so engaged they lose track of time."
The findings were presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in San Diego.
