10
Jan
Five Predictors of Relationship Success
Based on the results of the meta-analysis, here are five good markers of relationship success:
- Commitment, or one’s long-term orientation and attachment to one’s partner is a very good predictor. It’s not surprising that those intending to stay in their relationships are less likely to break up.
- Positive illusions – We’ve written about it before, but viewing your relationship as better than it really is can be beneficial for its success.
- IOS – The “Inclusion of Other in the Self” Scale, developed by Dr. Art Aron and colleagues,4 is a really ingenious way of assessing relationship closeness using a series of overlapping circles (i.e., Venn diagrams).
- Love is especially interesting because of the diversity in how love is defined across different studies. It’s conceptualized and measured in many different ways, but what the various definitions of love have in common is their utility in predicting relationship stability.
- Network support – Although this technically wasn’t in the Top 5, I want to highlight it because it was a surprisingly good predictor of break-up. Having friends and family approve of and support relationships is associated with their long-term success. As a social psychologist, I shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that external influences are important in relationships, but I admittedly didn’t anticipate the strength of this finding. More
Dr. Benjamin Le – Science of Relationships
Dr. Le's research focuses on commitment, including the factors associated with commitment and its role in promoting maintenance. He has published on the topics of breakup, geographic separation, infidelity, social networks, cognition, and need fulfillment and emotions in relationships.
