Mom & Dad, 49 years

This month my parents celebrated their 49th anniversary, and it got me to wondering what makes some relationships last while others wither away or crash and burn. Relationships aren’t all wine and roses, though that doesn’t hurt. So how do you know if yours will last?

Ronald D. Rogge, at the University of Rochester, has been doing research on relationships, and in particular, on the early years of marriage.  In a study recently published in Psychological Science, the journal for the Association for Psychological Science, Rogge and two colleagues (Soonhee Lee and Harry T. Reis) examined if it was possible to predict the likelihood of a relationship lasting, or ending, within the next year.

The challenge with most “relationship prediction” studies is that they rely on the participants telling the researchers how they feel about their partner. The problem, of course, is that not everyone knows themselves well enough to be  accurate. There’s also the challenge of being able to honestly share their feelings. For example, someone may be beginning to feel less happy in a relationship, but might not be able to identify the feelings as having to do with the relationship vs. something else, or may be reluctant to admit their changing feelings for any number of reasons.

This research goes beyond what someone might say about their partner, to how they actually respond to positive and negative associations with their partner.  To do this, the researchers used a technique often used to assess racism and bias (feelings people definitely have trouble admitting to themselves and to researchers).

The study included 222 volunteers, all of whom were involved in a romantic relationship. The volunteers supplied their partner’s first name and two other words that related to the partner, like a pet name or a distinctive characteristic. Then they watched a monitor as three types of words were presented one at a time – good words (like peace, vacation, or sharing), bad words (such as death, tragedy, and criticizing), and partner-related words (names or traits).

This was a word association method, with two different tasks. In the first task, volunteers were to press the space bar whenever they saw either good words or partner-related words, and in the second, where the combination was bad words and partner words. The premise is that this would get at people’s automatic reactions to the words – before they really “thought” about it and had a chance to censor themselves. If they have generally good associations with their partners, they should be able to do the first task more easily than the second.

The researchers found that volunteers who found it easy to associate their partner with bad things and difficult to associate the partner with good things were more likely to separate over the next year. The researchers also asked volunteers to report on the strength of their relationships at the start of the study – and found that the new test (the word association)  did a much better job of predicting breakup. “It really is giving us a unique glimpse into how people were feeling about their partners – giving us information that they were unable or unwilling to report,” says Rogge.

What does this mean for the average person not engaged in a research study? Well, it’s probably not all that handy to give your partner a word association test – at least not in a controlled situation. Of course that may not be so far away. Even so, I’ll bet you have an intuitive sense of the truth anyway, right? The question is…are you listening to your intuition?

What do you think about this research and what it tells us? Let us know in the comment section below.

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The frustrating paradox is that self-doubt actually creates unwavering certainty – certainty that you cannot do/say/be what you want, that you aren’t good enough, or that the risks far outweigh the possible gains.

This is because of the nasty self-perpetuating cycle self-doubt creates. You doubt yourself in a particular area so you hold yourself back from doing/saying/being something. This in turn gives you evidence that you don’t “have what it takes”, which usually gets translated to “See? I’m not good enough”.

When asked about what affects or feeds their self-doubt, readers generally pointed to two things. Given the commitment to personal growth and self-improvement members and readers at PersonalGrowthPrincess.com have I wasn’t surprised at the insight. But because this seems to be a fairly universal issue, I also was not surprised that there were very few suggestions for what to do about it.

The first element feeding self-doubt is not trusting your inner guidance, your intuition. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the problem is not knowing whether what you are experiencing is really inner guidance, or a fear or anxiety speaking.

We often “know” something but don’t trust that knowing. After all, how do you know when you know? This is usually a result of not practicing using this information, but can also come from trusting your intuition and ending up with negative consequences. That can magnify self-doubt.

The key distinction is that inner guidance always brings relief (sometimes coupled with excitement), almost always whispers, and never criticizes. If you hear a yelling voice in your head – and you aren’t in imminent physical danger – chances are it’s your fear talking, not your intuition.

Inner guidance can have a strong and assertive voice, but will not have an ounce of self-judgment in it.

The second element feeding self-doubt is that of being overly influenced by other people – letting their opinions – or what you imagine their opinions might be – outweigh your own perspective.

It’s important to note that there is a significant difference between seeking input from someone who has experience and skill in an area you are not familiar with, and altering your behavior or feelings about yourself based solely on what someone else thinks – or what you imagine they will think.

In fact, the imagination is often the crux of the matter. Research by Thomas Gilovich, Justin Kruger and Victoria Medevec (Journal of Personal and Social Psychology), found that most of us exaggerate the perception others will have about us – both positive and negative – or even what they will remember about us at all. We don’t just exaggerate it a little, we double it. In other words, people are half as likely to have a judgment about us as we think they are.

Talk about setting ourselves up for failure…

But wait, there’s even more…if we are contemplating someone’s opinion of us just after experiencing a failure or poor performance (in our own assessment), we exaggerate the perceived judgments even more. As if it weren’t bad enough that we are not pleased with our performance, add to the intensity of our self-doubt by imagining others’ judgments far, far beyond what is true.

Can you see how this distorted judgment can add to the slippery slope of self-doubt?

It may be hard to believe that other people actually think about us very little, but that’s the truth. So how do you change this?

Knowing you do this can provide some relief from self-doubt. People who are overly anxious about how they will come across will tend to hold back from taking action. This is generally followed by regret about not taking the action, and we’re back at the same self-perpetuating cycle. (Sound familiar?)

Just recognizing this is part of the path to greater self-confidence and self-esteem. Instead of over-exaggerating what you think people’s perceptions will be, intentionally reduce what you think they will think by at least half. Probably more. Don’t worry – you aren’t likely to underestimate.

So quit worrying about what others think about you – chances are they haven’t even noticed.
And start listening to the quieter, calmer voice when looking for inner guidance.

Put these two strategies into action and you will begin to see a shift in your self-doubt almost immediately.

If you have ideas or suggestions you can share with others, please share them in the comments section below!

Related posts:

1. How Your Authentic Archetype Helps You Navigate Self Doubt So That You Are Free to Embody Your Brilliance…
2. Is Dr. Phil a Personal Growth Princess?
3. Famous Failures…how do you deal with adversity?

Enjoy!

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1. Princess Expectations: How to Raise Your Expectations of Yourself
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