4 Traits for a happy marriage…
Thursday, December 28, 2023.
According to research from just before COVID, the best partners are humans who are:
Emotionally Stable.
Empathetic.
Sociable.
And have a low score in Anxious Attachment?
There’s hard science behind this research because these personality traits are linked to a genetic variation that can be detected from a saliva sample.
Researchers are more boldly asserting that low levels of anxious attachment are also important to relationship satisfaction.
This issue has come up before in research, and my feelings about it have not changed. This is emotional elitism, please stop.
Please stop categorizing study subjects as possessing an “inferior” attachment style.
There is a growing perception in the research community that humans high in anxious attachment are ‘needy’ and worry that their partners do not love them sufficiently. A high score in Anxious Attachment is also linked to a fear of abandonment, according to this research.
So, low levels of anxious attachment are preferable in a partner… the notion of “bestification” again raises its ugly head…
Let’s get back to the idea that these genetic variations can be detected from a saliva sample. The genetic variation affects a neurotransmitter called oxytocin.
Oxytocin — sometimes known as the ‘love hormone’ — is important in social bonding.
Researchers found that when one partner in a marriage had this genetic variation linked to oxytocin, both reported greater marital satisfaction and feelings of security…. wow….
How the study was conducted
The conclusions come from a study of 178 married couples from the age of 37 to 90.
All of these study subjects were asked about their degree of marital satisfaction and had their genotype analysed from a saliva sample.
The results revealed that those with a genetic variation known as the ‘GG genotype’ had higher marital satisfaction.
Dr. Joan Monin, from the Yale School of Public Health, and the study’s first author, said:
“This study shows that how we feel in our close relationships is influenced by more than just our shared experiences with our partners over time.In marriage, people are also influenced by their own and their partner’s genetic predispositions.”
Final Thoughts…
I said it before, and I’ll say it once more. We should avoid “bestification” of traits that contain multitudes.
Human attachment styles are not written in stone. While it may be true that humans with personality disorders may be over-represented in certain attachment styles, I’ve met many wonderful humans in my life with an unabashedly Anxious Attachment style.
One in 5 humans have Anxious Attachment. It’s a lot of humans to have a cognitive bias against.
What makes me laugh is the possibility that Avoidant Attachment on the part of some male researchers might be shaping their assessment of Anxious Attachment, because those two styles can clash viscerally!
We need more relational intelligence on the part of researchers to notice how their gut reactions might be shaping the language of their findings.
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Monin JK, Goktas SO, Kershaw T, DeWan A (2019) Associations between spouses’ oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism, attachment security, and marital satisfaction. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0213083. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213083
