How did the US government save marriages with pictures of puppies?
Monday, September 11, 2023.
Last year I presented on the latest research on infidelity to hundreds of couples therapists in mainland China. It was simultaneously translated, and then we had an extensive Q& A.
What I learned from the questions was how governments, under the right circumstances, can be super-protective of marriage security. I think that’s a good thing.. sort of.
They might even be willing to enhance marital quality with some of the cheesiest tropes known to neuroscience.
Military with families sometimes struggle to keep positive feelings towards their partner in a long-term because of the stress of frequent separation. This problem of “accordion families” is a concern for all warriors and their loved ones.
But new research funded the US Department of Defense has a solution…puppies!
Dr. Jim McNulty, the study’s first author, explained:
“The research was actually prompted by a grant from the Department of Defense — I was asked to conceptualize and test a brief way to help married couples cope with the stress of separation and deployment.
We would really like to develop a procedure that could help soldiers and other people in situations that are challenging for relationships.”
Here’s what troubles me. The intervention they created had no therapeutic basis. It was not based on attachment science. No skills of self-regulation were taught.
The government was not invested in the slightest in anyone’s personal growth. They just wanted you to be content with your partner, and shut the fu*k up. The specs required a “brief way” to help married military couples cope better.
Because we need military personnel to have positive associations with their partners, they reprogramming their partners’ mind using images of cute puppies.
The idea being that we need to have positive associations with our partners… and who doesn’t love puppies? I can’t make this sh*t up.
How the study was conducted
The military recruited 144 married couples for this study. Half watched a stream of images, with many positive ones (such as cute puppies) appearing next to images of their partner.
The control group repeatedly saw their partner’s image linked to neutral image instead of an image with a smiling puppy.
They study subjects experienced this visual intervention 3 days a week for 6 weeks.
What did we learn? That personal growth is superfluous. Noble struggles to become our best selves are not efficient from a military perspective. From their perspective… all we need is pictures of puppies.
I used to sometimes feel a little sheepish warning my clients how powerfully stupid our brain and nervous system can be. LOL… never again.
The intervention worked…humans who saw pictures of puppies linked to their partner reported higher marital quality during the stress of separation!
Dr. McNulty reported on his success with appropriate bewilderment:
“I was actually a little surprised that it worked!
All the theory I reviewed on evaluative conditioning suggested it should, but existing theories of relationships, and just the idea that something so simple and unrelated to marriage could affect how people feel about their marriage, made me skeptical.”
Of course, our nervous systems are so pliant, there are many other more everyday ways to create these positive associations, however, Dr. McNulty said:
“One ultimate source of our feelings about our relationships can be reduced to how we associate our partners with positive affect, and those associations can come from our partners but also from unrelated things, like puppies and bunnies.”
I have conflicted feelings about this study. On the one hand, it worked, and that matters.
Dr. McNulty suggests that this neurological slight of hand might become perfected and streamlined to such an extent that it might even be a positive assist to traditional talk therapies. I’m, of course, intrigued by the use of video, art, and technology as therapeutic tools.
On the other hand, am I the only one who’s bothered by such a manipulative approach to solving human heartbreak on a large scale?
Be well, stay kind, pet your puppies, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Automatic Associations Between One’s Partner and One’s Affect as the Proximal Mechanism of Change in Relationship Satisfaction: Evidence From Evaluative Conditioning
James K. McNulty mcnulty@psy.fsu.edu, Michael A. Olson, […], and Laura M. Acosta+1View all authors and affiliations
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617702014
The work was funded by Department of Defense Grant No. W81XWH-10-2-0181 to J. K. McNulty and M. Olson.
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (McNulty et al., 2017).
