Latest / The XX Lab / Why Does Attraction Change in Relationships? with Dr. Andrea Meltzer | #15

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Why Does Attraction Change in Relationships? with Dr. Andrea Meltzer | #15 · The XX Lab

• speaker-0: So for women, the more attractive their partner is, the less satisfied they are. And this is in the context of a long-term relationship. These are newlywed couples. And so what that's suggesting is that these really attractive men also have the option to be less committed. speaker-1: Welcome to the XX Lab, where we explore the science and stories that matter to you. Today on the XX Lab, I'm sitting down with Dr. Andrea Meltzer. Dr. Meltzer is a psychology researcher and professor at Florida State University, and she's a leading authority on attraction and relationship satisfaction. Today, in our conversation, we're going to be talking about the role of physical attractiveness in mate choice, how birth control can affect who we're attracted to. And why sexual afterglow matters so much in maintaining long-term relationships. We'll also talk about why being married to a hot guy might not be all that it's cracked up to be. You'll walk away from this conversation with a deeper understanding of attraction, hormones, and the role that sex plays in maintaining our long-term relationships. Before we get started, please note that my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of TCU, the College of Science and Engineering, or the Department of Psychology. Instead, this is part of my mission to give women everywhere access to science and stories to help them live well. This is the XX Lab. I'm Dr. Sarah Hill. Let's get started. Andrea Meltzer, welcome to the XX Lab. speaker-0: Thanks so much for having me. speaker-1: Yeah, I'm so excited to have you because you have been studying ⁓ attraction and relationship satisfaction and, you know, everything in between for ⁓ like twenty years now. ⁓ which I'm sure I'm sure surprises you. It always surprises me when I like do the backward math and see how long I've been doing science. It's like, what am I doing? ⁓ and so ⁓ so I I'm just really curious. I wanna kinda start from basics and ⁓ and and know like what brought you into studying relationships and attraction and relationship satisfaction? Like what brought you to that those types of research questions? speaker-0: Yeah, that's a good question. ⁓ if I'm being totally honest, I just kind of stumbled into it. ⁓ you know, I I liked psychology, I liked social psychology, I also kind of stumbled into those. and just the more I read, you know, I was really drawn to relationship science. It's something that applies to everybody. ⁓ it's so integral to our lives. close relationships, romantic relationships are One of the biggest predictors of mental health, physical health as well. And so they're just a really, really important facet of our lives. And I think it's really crucial to understand them. And I just found that the more I read of relationship science, ⁓ the more I enjoyed it. And it's it also goes ⁓ for evolutionary psychology. The more evolutionary psych research I read as you know in grad school, I just loved it. And I loved applying the ideas. to relationship science and thinking about how our kind of evolved processes, like who we would have been in our ancestral environments and and how that plays out in our modern day ⁓ relationships, always just fascinated me. And so that's the direction I went. speaker-1: So to to give people a background who don't have a background in evolutionary psychology, like how would you describe like what that is? Like what what does it mean to use evolutionary principles to study research or to study relationships? speaker-0: Yeah, so it's thinking about our our ancestors, right? Our human ancestors and what kind of world they lived in. ⁓ what things would have been adaptive in that environment, what things would have been maladaptive in that environment. ⁓ and things that would have been adaptive in that environment are likely going to be passed on through our genes ⁓ and in things that would have allowed us to kind of be more successful. So for example, ⁓ attending to partner's physical attractiveness. physical attractiveness can be a sign of ⁓ health and fertility. And so our ancestors who were attracted to physically attractive partners were more likely to have a partner that could reproduce successfully, strong offspring. ⁓ and so those preferences for partner physical attractiveness were carried forward ⁓ from generation to generation through genes. ⁓ and so I think about things through that lens of what would have been adaptive and how does that play out today. speaker-1: Yeah, so when it comes to attraction and attractiveness, like what is attractive? Like what do men and women find attractive and partners and then what role does attraction like it physical attractiveness play in terms of couples initially getting together based on some of the research that you've done? speaker-0: Yeah, so ⁓ when you say attraction, ⁓ it can mean a lot of different things. ⁓ so I tend to focus on physical attractiveness. Those are the objective physical features ⁓ of a person. So ⁓ the the symmetry of their face, ⁓ the you know, definition of their cheekbones, the fullness of their lips, the clearness of their skin, right? These objective physical features. We find lots of things attractive. And so I think it's important to to note the the difference there. ⁓ in terms of physical attractiveness, what do we look for? Well there are some sex differentiated findings here. ⁓ so for the most part males are interested in female partners ⁓ who ⁓ have features that are youthful ⁓ that because youthfulness is tied to fertility. ⁓ so ⁓ suggests that they're going to be more fertile, but then also things that are tied to fertility. So in indicators of estrogen, for example. So full lips, high cheekbones. ⁓ And ⁓ for females, females are ⁓ it's not quite as clear, ⁓ but typically ⁓ females are more ⁓ attracted to markers of kind of strength and ⁓ status, the ability to obtain resources. ⁓ and so that comes in the form of height and ⁓ muscularity, ⁓ you know, strength indicating strength, ⁓ even some ⁓ like brow protrusion, if you will. So indicator things that are associated with testosterone. ⁓ and and kind of dominance. ⁓ and so we do see some sex differentiated things in that way. There are some other things that that both genders ⁓ find attractive. Those are indicators of health. ⁓ so clear skin, bright eyes, ⁓ that sort of thing. for the most part in in my work, I do find that that there is also some sex differentiation in terms of the valuation of partner attractiveness. So physical attractiveness matters a little bit more to ⁓ men than to women. And I should just kind of give a caveat here that most of this work involves different sex relationships, heterosexual ⁓ individuals. But for the most part we find that physical partner physical attractiveness is more attra more important to men than it is to women. ⁓ And you don't always find that in initial attraction research, which is kind of interesting. But what my work finds is that once you look at couples who are more established, that does seem to pan out that that men tend to be more satisfied with their relationships to the extent that their ⁓ female partner is more physically attractive. ⁓ whereas for for women that doesn't seem to matter as much. speaker-1: That's so interesting. So when if men are partnered with somebody that they find physically attractive, then they have better relationship satisfaction? Is that what you're saying? And that is not so much the case for women based on the physical attractiveness of their partners. speaker-0: Yes, ⁓ but ⁓ taking it one step further, it's not just what they see as physically attractive, it's actually the objective physical features. Yeah, so what we do in this re in this res ⁓ research is we ⁓ have photos of ⁓ these couples ⁓ as individuals. We don't take a photo of them as a couple, we take the pictures of the men and pictures of the women. speaker-1: Interesting. speaker-0: And I t ⁓ train a team of research assistants to code them for some of those objective physical features I was talking about before ⁓ and give them a rating, a one to ten rating, much like people talk about, ⁓ wow, he's a 10, right? ⁓ he's an eight. We all kind of know what that means. And so ⁓ I've trained coders to be very reliable, high agreement in terms of who's attractive, who's not attractive, and it's those ratings of attractiveness. That more strongly predict men's satisfaction than women's satisfaction. speaker-1: That's so interesting. And do you like is there a lot of interrater reliability like with that? So like when it comes to ⁓ perceptions of attractiveness, like a lot of times we hear that, you know, ⁓ beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ⁓ and as my former ⁓ graduate mentor David Buss would always say, like beauty is in the adaptations of the beholder, right? Just meaning that your brain possesses, you know, these these algorithms that sort of make decisions about like what rewards your brain and what doesn't reward your brain. And that there's like nothing inherently beautiful about a beautiful woman or nothing inherently sexy about a sexy man. But it's just instead whether it's a set of features that our brain rewards us for seeing or doesn't reward us for seeing. Right. And that we tend to find most beautiful. Like if you were to ask me what is beautiful or ask me what is sexy, that I would say that it's those qualities that then make my brain ⁓ give me a a reward response, right? When I'm when my brain is rewarding me for looking at something, ⁓ that that then is going to be the thing that I say is attractive. Right. And so, ⁓ and so presumably there's some level of agreement on this. Is this right? Like with the Raiders about like what is attractive? speaker-0: Yes, I have very high agreement. And it's actually what's kind of interesting is it's easy to get agreement. It's really easy to train coders on ratings of attractiveness and it's really easy to get high agreement. ⁓ so we just kind of do a a brief training session and within a few hours I have reliability that is quite high above point nine ⁓ at a scale of zero to one. and it it's it's quite easy. Now It is interesting because when you look at those objective ratings of physical attractiveness and you compare them to people's own ratings of their partner's physical attractiveness. ⁓ so kind of to your point, you know, what's attractive is attractive and and it just ⁓ signals you know, kind of your it makes your brain fire. I like that, right? That's not necessarily true in relationships. And that's because there's a lot more to your partner, right? ⁓ when you see somebody on the street, all you see is their physical attractiveness. And I think it's really easy to kind of agree because everyone's paying attention to physical features. But when it comes to your partner, you know so much more about your partner than just their physical appearance. And on top of that, we have a tendency to see our partners as more positive than our partners actually are and even more positive than our partners see themselves. And so if you ask people how attractive do you find your partner, they tend to rate their partners as more attractive than objective observers. speaker-1: It's it's ⁓ does is that influenced by ⁓ context at all? So like I so I would imagine that people who are more committed to their partners, for example, would have a greater exaggerated, you know, positive perception of their partners than somebody who's like less committed to their partners. Do you find those types of contextual effects? speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. And satisfaction is actually a big one. absolutely. So yes, commitment, but also satisfaction. So people who are more satisfied globally with their partners tend to rate their partners as more attractive than their partners actually are. speaker-1: ⁓ that's yeah, that's yeah, that's so cool. And then with ⁓ do you find because you said that there is this positive impact between the attractiveness of a female partner, right? And then ⁓ relationship satisfaction of her male partner, right? And and this is of the objective ratings of how attractive this person is. Is this like is this in the is this in the short term or is this like a like is this something that you've studied longitudinally and like and how ⁓ how long does that affect last? Is that like more important early on in the relationship or do you think that it has a lasting impact? speaker-0: Yeah, it so we have looked at it ⁓ over time. We've looked at it over four years. And these are newlywed couples. So these are couples we ⁓ get them right at the start of marriage and we follow them over time, up up to four years. ⁓ so I can't speak beyond four years, but what we can see is that yes, it does matter over time. ⁓ that that they're how attractive they are at the time of marriage predicts their satisfaction four years later, more so for men than for women. speaker-1: Yeah, that's so it so interesting. And okay. I wanna talk to you now about because we're talking about attraction and attractiveness, and I wanna talk to you about hormonal birth control and the role that hormones play in attraction. So I guess we can start there. Like let's just talk about ⁓ women's sex hormones and how they influence ⁓ attraction and, you know, coupling, and then we can kind of use that as a starting point to then Talk about what happens ⁓ when women experience a hormonal change, either because they go on or off of hormonal birth control. Let's talk about sex hormones and attraction. All right. And so, and and and folks, I wrote the book. ⁓ Andrea has done a lot of the research that's in the book. So ⁓ speaker-0: Great book. Read it. Read it. I encourage everyone to read it. speaker-1: Yeah, well thank you. No, I but so so let's talk about let's talk about sex hormones and attraction. So, you know, there's been ⁓ research and and and it's that's been done now for several decades, two to three decades, that's been ⁓ chronicling ⁓ the impact of ⁓ women's cycling hormones on ⁓ partner choice and attraction. And you know, and there's been a little bit of messiness in that in that literature and you know, where people fall under fire for saying that you know, ⁓ women's sex hormones influence attraction and that estrogen predicts ⁓ heightened preference for cues to masculinity. and then you have other people saying, No, no, it doesn't. ⁓ and there's sort of this, you know, debate in the literature. This is ⁓ inside baseball ⁓ for listeners, but there's hot debate in in this, ⁓ in this topic. ⁓ but on the whole, ⁓ the research seems to suggest that women's sex hormones influence attraction. ⁓ I'm Based on your own review of the literature, would you ⁓ say that that is true? speaker-0: Yes, I would agree with that based on on the literature. Now, yes, it's a finic it's a I think it's a small effect. ⁓ I think it's finicky depending on how you measure it and some people don't don't find it. But yes, I would agree with you. Maybe I'm biased, but as a whole, looking at the literature, I would agree that sex hormones play a role in attraction. Yeah. speaker-1: And ⁓ in and and this is true, like I I think that this is true both in terms of ⁓ heterosexual ⁓ couples and that this is probably also true in same sex couples. ⁓ with there's been some research looking at ⁓ lesbian women and their preferences and they also tend to at least when it comes to sexual desire, they exhibit increases in sexual desire ⁓ when estrogen is high across the cycle. ⁓ the same is true for ⁓ ⁓ heterosexual women, ⁓ you get ⁓ increases in sexual desire that ⁓ happen when estrogen is high in the cycle. ⁓ and for those of you who aren't familiar with the menstrual cycle, the first day of the cycle is the day you get your period, your hormones are really low, and then ⁓ estrogen begins to climb, ⁓ especially starting around days five and six and then all the way up until ovulation, ⁓ which usually happens midway through the cycle around day 14. And during this period of time, right prior to ovulation on on the day of ovulation, ⁓ we call this the fertile window. Estrogen is at its highest, and we tend to find that there's a heightened preference ⁓ that women exhibit during this time ⁓ for sex with their partners, sex they have higher sexual desire, higher sexual functioning. Some research has even found with women having better sexual responses at this time. ⁓ and there's also this research that seems to find that ⁓ at this period in the cycle, women can also exhibit a greater preference for cues related to masculinity and and so cues related to testosterone, lower voices, right? ⁓ masculinized behaviors, so ⁓ social dominance, some researchers find. ⁓ but the the faces vo and voices seem to be the most robust ⁓ effects that ⁓ that I've seen. Some people find a heightened preference for symmetry. So again, this idea of your left to half and your right half matching each other. and some researchers have found ⁓ that. That one's a little bit more dicey in terms of the patterns in the literature. ⁓ but there seems to be something there. And so ⁓ and and so then, you know, the the question becomes, right, if it's true that women's sex hormones influence sexual desire and potentially even influence attraction. Then what happens and what potentially can happen when women go on hormonal birth control, right? Or go off of hormonal birth control. And ⁓ so I would love for you to first explain to us what hormonal birth control does to hormones, just because ⁓ there are people who are listening who probably don't know, and then talk about what you find in you found in your research ⁓ in terms of the impact that this can have. on ⁓ sexual desire and attraction within a relationship. speaker-0: Yeah, great summary. Better than I could have done. ⁓ so yeah, so hormonal contraceptives, for those who aren't familiar, what hormonal contraception does is it can kind of keep people's hormones somewhat stable, right? You were talking about fluctuations ⁓ in ⁓ estradiol and progesterone and naturally cycling women. and what hormonal contraceptive contraception does is for all women, ⁓ they get a synthetic progestin ⁓ that is a constant level. It can change a little bit ⁓ depending on ⁓ the type of hormonal contraceptive you may use. ⁓ but for the most part, it's pretty stable. You don't see those changes ⁓ in that hormonal profile. And then for some hormonal contraceptives, ⁓ these are the combination ⁓ oral contraceptives will also have ⁓ Estrogen, a very small dose of estrogen. But basically what happens is you keep a very stable level of hormones over the entire ovulatory cycle ⁓ relative to naturally cycling women. Later in their ovulatory cycle, and it's called the luteal phase. It's ⁓ it's after ovulation, ⁓ right before ⁓ they get their period. And it's more than just kind of what people think of as PMS, it's a longer period of time than that. but during that time, people, ⁓ women tend to show kind of less motivation for ⁓ partnering, more motivation for affiliation and kind of social bonding as opposed to mating. ⁓ and so there's some reason to expect that maybe women who are taking hormonal contraceptives are more affiliative and less mate-focused compared to naturally cycling women who have kind of these fluctuations through those different ⁓ motivations. And there is some work showing that, at least when it comes to choosing partners or what ⁓ women find attractive in partners, that there are some differences in these naturally cycling women versus hormonal contraceptive using women. So those women who are using hormonal contraceptives, ⁓ they tend to ⁓ place less emphasis on ⁓ partner attractiveness, less emphasis on kind of partner strength and dominance, ⁓ resource acquisition, and a little bit more so on ⁓ kind of kindness and warmth and ⁓ the ability to kind of compromise and be a team player and some of those kind of niceties that that you might see in a partner. ⁓ And so the question of course then is do those preferences play out in actual choices? You know, are are women who are using hormonal contraceptives choosing different partners compared to women who are not using hormonal contraceptives? and you know, there's not a whole lot of work looking at that, at least not a lot that I'm familiar with. Maybe you're more more familiar with some, Sarah. ⁓ but I'm not familiar at a with a whole lot of work looking at the the types of partners that hormonal contraceptive using versus naturally cycling women end up with. Do you know how much? speaker-1: Yeah, so I mean, there's the the there's some pretty old work that's been done that looked at like so for example, and I believe it was Craig Roberts' work where they had a re a relatively large sample of women and ⁓ they asked women about the relationship partner that they were with when they had their first child. So this is all people who ⁓ have children and ⁓ and then they asked about various degrees of satisfaction that they had with their partner. ⁓ so like how satisfied are you with ⁓ the sexual attraction in your relationship? How satisfied are you with you know, the ⁓ frequency of sex and like how attracted you are to your partner, et cetera, et cetera. And then how satisfied are you with your partner's provisioning ability? And so they ask these kinds of questions and then they ask whether or not the women were still married to this person. So or are you still partnered with this person? And ⁓ and and what they found was that and ⁓ and they asked about con hormonal contraceptive status at the time they chose their partner. And ⁓ and so what they did is they broke down levels of relationship satisfaction with these different types of qualities ⁓ based on whether women had chosen their partner when they were on or off of hormonal birth control. And ⁓ and what they found was that women who chose their partners when they were not on hormonal birth control, so they're naturally cycling and experiencing that nice big push in estrogen ⁓ right prior to ovulation, ⁓ that these women reported being more satisfied with almost all sexual aspects of the relationship. So it was like everything sex related, like attraction, you know, sexual desire, et cetera, et cetera, those women reported greater satisfaction compared to ⁓ the hormonal birth control users who reported greater satisfaction with the, I think it was their partner's intelligence and their partner's earning capacity. and you know, which which is ⁓ you know, it didn't look exactly at like who you're choosing, but by looking at satisfaction, it I think it gives you a little bit of insight into who is being chosen ⁓ in terms of their partners, which I thought was interesting. And and this is an old, old paper. ⁓ and they also found that ⁓ that women so th this was also sort of a counterintuitive but interesting r result. They found that women who chose their partners when they were off of hormonal birth control. They were more likely to be divorced than they were more likely to have divorced their partner than women who chose their partners when they were on hormonal birth control. But when women were divorced, when they chose their partner when they were on hormonal birth control, they were more likely to have initiated it. speaker-0: That's interesting. I'm not looking at that that paper. I'm not familiar with those findings. speaker-1: Yeah, no, it was it was sort of an interesting set of findings. And then, you know, the only other so we have a paper right now is actually under review where ⁓ we looked at natural cycles users. ⁓ and so we got data from them and ⁓ we sent a survey to their users asking w what type of birth control were you were you using when you met your partner? And so the choice is like I was not using ⁓ or you know, I was using condoms or, you know, and then the hormonal birth control. So we divided up our ⁓ we divided up our our sample. based on whether they were using ⁓ hormonal birth control or not when they chose their partners. And then ⁓ we looked at ⁓ attraction to partner and we also followed sexual behavior. So they're logged sexual behavior over ⁓ several cycles. And ⁓ and what we found was that the women who chose their partners when they were using hormonal birth control ⁓ reported lower attraction to their partners compared to women who chose their partners when they were not using hormonal birth control. And they also had less sex, they had less frequent sex across the cycle with their partners, which again is consistent with this idea that, you know, estrogen plays a role in attraction, right? And in sort of like ⁓ what what I always call almost like like chemical attraction, like just like just like sexual attraction. ⁓ and that, you know, if if that is something that's really strongly influencing your mate choice, then then sexual behavior is gonna probably be a more frequent ⁓ part of your relationship than somebody for whom the brakes have been tapped a little bit on that. Because the the way I always think about it is that, you know, if your ⁓ sort of sexual desire and everything else, the volume is being turned down on that because your estrogen is being flatlined, ⁓ then you're not going to be choosing a partner with that in mind. You know, it's it's like you're gonna be choosing a partner with other things in mind. Don't I mean, don't you isn't that kind of your thought based on ⁓ 'cause I I know that you've done research looking at longitudinally what happens when people are are choosing partners. So yeah, I would love to get your thoughts on all of that. speaker-0: Yeah, and that's such a good point that ⁓ your naturally are natural cycling, what what's the company? It's natural. ⁓ so your natural cycles ⁓ work is really fascinating and what I and it actually jives with some of my own work in that all presumably that that sample, none of them are using hormonal contraceptives because they're using natural cycles, which is a natural non-hormonal birth control, right? Yes. ⁓ so speaker-1: The natural cycles, yeah. speaker-0: There's some work showing that ⁓ presumably, and and sounds like Craig Roberts has some evidence of this, you have some evidence of this, ⁓ that presumably women are who choose women who are using hormonal contraceptives are choosing maybe slightly different partners than women who are naturally cycling. But there's also some work, and this is out of Craig Roberts' lab, ⁓ looking at kind of congruency, like what happens as women change their hormonal contraceptive use over time. ⁓ and so and I think this is a really reasonable question because women are not just consistently always on hormonal contraceptives or always off hormonal contraceptives, especially in the context of a relationship, right? So you can imagine many women who might not be using any form of hormonal contraceptive when they meet their partner, they become sexually active, they choose to use hormonal contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies. and, you know, and and so their hormonal profile is changing. It's changing relative to when they met their partner. On the flip side, you might imagine a woman who's using hormonal contraceptives when she meets her partner. Maybe she continues to use those for a bit, but then maybe she and her partner decide that they want to have a child. And so they choose to come off of the hormonal contraceptives, or women may come off of it for a number of reasons, right? That's just one example. ⁓ but now you've got the flip where you've got a woman who chose a partner while she was using hormonal contraceptives. She comes off those and now she's getting kind of those peaks in estrogen drops in progesterone that she wasn't experiencing earlier. And there's work showing that that matters. That ⁓ regardless of whether they're picking different partners, presumably because they are picking different partners when they're using versus not using, if they switch. That actually has seems to have implications for their sexual relationship and for their relationship just kind of more more globally. So we have some work showing that when women meet their partners using hormonal contraceptives, not using hormonal contraceptives, it doesn't matter, and then they actually switch. ⁓ that's when we see these drops in ⁓ More reliably relationship satisfaction, but I do have some evidence for drops in sexual satisfaction. And so that really drive ⁓ drives with your natural cycles data because all of those women who are incongruent, you know, all of them are currently not using hormonal contraceptives. And so those who are incongruent are the ones who met their partners using, and those are the ones you're seeing having lower relationship satisfaction, lower sexual satisfaction, less frequency of sex. And so I that's very consistent. With work out of my own lab and other labs as well. speaker-1: Yeah, it's so interesting because like on the one hand, ⁓ when you have incongruency where you met your partner when you were off of hormonal birth control and then you go on it. ⁓ I mean, there would be reason to expect that your sexual desire would decrease ⁓ just simply because of what happens hormonally. ⁓ when you go on when you go on hormonal birth control, it shuts down ovulation and so you're not releasing estrogen, ⁓ you know, getting this big surge in estrogen, which we know is very ⁓ supportive of female sexual desire. you get ⁓ a release of sex hormone binding glovulin that tends to bind up testosterone, making it inactive. And that can decrease sexual desire in women who are using hormonal birth control. And so on the one hand, you know, I you can imagine just based on the mechanics of birth control, like just taking attraction out of the picture completely, that if you were off of it and you go on it, that you might get a decrease in sexual desire. Where things get really crazy, and where I think it's like so fascinating is that the expectation would be if you were using hormonal birth control, so again, your estrogen levels are being flatlined, which ⁓ is something that does not support sexual desire, because estrogen fuels sexual desire. And now ⁓ you're no longer releasing all of these sex hormone binding globulins. So presumably your testosterone levels are going to increase. And ⁓ and research ⁓ generally supports the idea that. It does, like when after women, especially once they start cycling again, that their sex hormone levels return ⁓ to baseline relatively relatively short in relatively short order. And so the idea that here you are having all of these hormonal changes that would facilitate sexual desire, and that for some women who chose their partners when they were on the pill or on hormonal birth control, that they're responding to this hormonal shift that favors sexual desire. By decreased desire and attraction to their partner. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty crazy. speaker-0: I mean, what that's suggesting is it's suggesting it's something about the partner, right? That they selected a partner with a different hormonal profile when they were in using when they were demonstrating a different hormonal profile. ⁓ and then their hormonal profile changes, now they have this increase in estrogen. Maybe they prefer a different kind of partner than the partner they actually chose. Maybe they're experiencing more sexual desire for a partner who's not their partner, possibly. I'm speculating here. ⁓ but what we do find is with their partner that goes down. speaker-1: Yeah, have you found because I know that you were part of the some of the longitudinal work that's looked at this, right? Specifically, ⁓ there there was one project where it was looking ⁓ at incongruency in general. There's some other stuff where it was looking more at discontinuing hormonal birth control ⁓ per se. ⁓ do you find in any of this research, have you like looked into whether women are supplanting their attract is are they being attra are they attracted to other people? Or is it just that they're feeling less attracted to their partners or is it both or or do you have any insight into that? speaker-0: That's a great question. I do not have data to speak to that. I would you've got my brain going. I want to go run some analyses. But what we've only looked at so far is the relationship itself ⁓ within that dyad. How satisfied are they with that partner? How satisfied are they with the sex with that partner? and I have not thought about it in terms of attraction to alternative ⁓ partners. Now I will say For the most part, most of my work in this domain is with newlyweds. And ⁓ so there's just kind of lower base rates and kind of attention to attractive alternatives, you know, people who are not the partner ⁓ in this population, not to say it doesn't exist, but it's just a slightly lower base rates than some other populations, making it little bit harder to to detect. ⁓ but I I speculate given Perhaps an increase in sexual sex drive. ⁓ but we're not seeing an increase in sexual desire for the partner, that perhaps they're experiencing sexual desire outside of that dyad. But I'm just speculating there. speaker-1: Yeah. D do you think are ⁓ have you looked at whether and and I know in one of the papers at least, you all looked at some of the factors. I'm thinking about facial attractiveness ⁓ in particular. But are there other factors that you found that influence the extent to which people ⁓ can experience incongruencies based on changing their hormonal status? So ⁓ in the in the paper I was thinking of it found that ⁓ women who had partners that had higher facial attractiveness that when they discontinued hormonal birth control, they were actually more attracted to their partners and they were low in facial attractiveness, that they were less attracted to their partners. Like have have you looked at any other moderating variables that influence ⁓ the extent to which people experience incongruencies where you get a change in attraction based on the change in hormonal status? speaker-0: We have not. great direction for future work. ⁓ we have not done that yet, but I think right for looking at would be these factors we've been talking about, right? That ⁓ yes, physical appearance matters, but so do markers of status, resources, dominance, ⁓ that sort of thing. So I imagine intelligence, income, some of that stuff would also matter in a similar way. speaker-1: Do you think ⁓ given this research that you've done in this area, do you think that it's a good idea ⁓ for women? Like if if you're somebody who's listening and you're on hormonal birth control and you're out on the, you know, dating market and you're dating, like, do you think that women should go off of hormonal birth control if they can do so safely, obviously, ⁓ without getting pregnant? ⁓ when they're choosing partners, or do you think that it's actually good that because maybe it might lead you to choose qualities that are more associated with stability? Right? Or ⁓ when choosing partners. And I know it's always funny 'cause ⁓ as scientists, like we never like to make recommendations for people to do things. We're like, I'm not telling you to do anything. Like here's the here's the data. No, no. Yeah, it's like here's the data, you know, here's the data. But I I want you just like to imagine ⁓ that you have like a you know, a cousin or somebody who's you know in her in her twenties and she's out dating and ⁓ like I mean just Would you think or if you it was you, you know, in your twenties, like do you think that you would go off of it or do you think that you would stay on it because it would lead you to prioritize stability, or ⁓ do you are you gonna plead the fifth on this one? Yeah. speaker-0: I wanna plead the f well, maybe I am pleading the foot a little bit. I d I just I don't actually come down one way or the other. I don't think I think there's pros and cons to both, right? I think choosing a partner that maybe has markers of greater stability can be good for a lot of things. I think ⁓ picking a partner who has markers of ⁓ fertility and status can be good in its own way. ⁓ I think they both have their costs as well, right? Like no no partner is perfect. you know, I of course hesitate to to make any ⁓ recommendations without knowing causal direction and all this stuff. Which there are a few studies out there that do ⁓ an experiment. They you know randomly assign ⁓ in a in a double blind randomized control trial where ⁓ you know both the researchers and the participants are blind to whether ⁓ a participant is using hormonal contraceptives and not using hormonal contraceptives. Like that's the only type of design you can truly draw a causal core a causal conclusion from. What I will say is we've done some work it's kind of a fancy statistical procedure, but basically just isolating what happens within the person ⁓ when they go on or go off hormonal contraceptives. That's another way you can kind of get at causal conclusions. It's not nearly as good as an experiment, which is much harder to do. ⁓ but right, different women go on different hormonal contraceptives for different reasons. And it might be those reasons that are driving all these effects that we're talking about. And and so if we're gonna make recommendations to women of use hormonal contraceptives, don't use hormonal contraceptives, I think it's really important to know what role are these action these hormonal contraceptives actually playing, right? ⁓ and so we have some work showing that when you kind of control for all those differences across women who do versus don't use them, ⁓ we still see some of these changes in terms of congruency, at least, that when they when women's hormonal contraceptive use is incongruent with their use when they met their partner, they're less satisfied. And that is controlling for all of those between person differences. So it does suggest to me that yes, hormonal contraceptives are playing a role. But what I just I don't know. It's hard for me to come down solidly on one side versus the other. because I think there are probably pros and cons. The other thing I'll add is these are all really small effects. Right. So relationships are really complicated. There are so many things that impact our relationship satisfaction, that impact our sexual functioning, and hormonal contraceptives are one. Mm. One small piece of that very big pie. And so I think keeping that in mind is is also pretty important. Yeah. speaker-1: Like what what I always tell people is I'm like hormones nudge you, right? So like if this is our our stand our our normal distribution of a trait, like hormones will kind of, you know, like nudge you. Like they just kind of nudge you over here, nudge you over there. And I mean so on the one hand, it's like, yeah, these are small effects, right? Because hormones, I mean, ⁓ biology is complex, right? And and so many different factors influence what we do at any given moment or how we feel or attraction, et cetera, et cetera. ⁓ but but there are some people Who end up who are on that line between let's say attraction and non-attraction. Right. And this can nudge them in and out of attraction. ⁓ in in the same way that ⁓ I I've talked to people, and obviously, I mean, this is not ⁓ this is not controlled science folks, that these are conversations with people. But I've talked to people who've had the experience of whenever they go on or off of hormonal birth control, that it will nudge them in and out of bisexuality. Which I also think is really interesting. And we know that sex hormones influence sexual orientation, ⁓ because that seems clear based on what we know about sexual orientation and the processes that contribute to it. ⁓ and you know, and it does this happen most of the time? No. Does this happen a lot? No. But there's going to be some people who are on the fringe, ⁓ like sort of the the edge of, let's say, a sexual orientation, whether and and I've heard this both from women who get nudged in and out of heterosexuality and you know, or in and out of ⁓ of lesbianism. So it's like it's like on both sides of ⁓ sort of you know, the sort of sexual orientation spectrum where you'll have people who are kind of on they're kind of borderline bisexual and then when they go on or off the pill it nudges them in and out of it. ⁓ and which makes sense. And I would assume that for some people Again, you know, when we look at relationships, like one thing I've I've thought about when I've thought about this issue of incongruencies is that, you know, for most people, it's because the effects are small, as you noted, it's probably not going to have a huge meaningful impact on your life. Like your life isn't gonna be totally turned upside down by the fact that you discontinued or started hormonal birth control. But for people who due to either the quality of their relationship or attraction or some sort of chemical thing that we just don't have our arms wrapped around yet. Right, this could have the effect for some people, right, of sort of nudging who are on the borderline of being attracted to their partner or not being attracted to their partner, of kind of like nudging them in and out of attraction to their partner. speaker-0: I think that's totally fair. Yeah. I think that's totally fair. And so what I would say to those women, ⁓ is it maybe it depends more on what you value. ⁓ because right, to the extent that this is gonna nudge you to pick a slightly different partner, what exactly do you value? Because they come with a bit of a trade-off, right? No, no partner is is perfect. No partner has all the qualities we want. And so let's say that you're picking a partner who is more attractive, right? Let's say that you're naturally cycling, you're getting that push from that estrogen, that increased sex drive, you're picking kind of that more masculine, ⁓ dominant is probably a better word, more dominant, ⁓ more attractive partner. A risk of that partner is that they have a lot of options outside of your relationship as well. And so those partners tend to be less committed. ⁓ in fact, that work I I talked about where physical attractiveness seems to matter more to men than to women. If anything, we're not finding an an actual effect for women, but if you actually look at the pattern, there's actually a negative association. So for women, the more attractive their partner is, the less satisfied they are. And this is in the context of a long-term relationship. These are newlywed couples. And so what that's suggesting is that these really attractive men Also have the option to be less committed. speaker-1: Are you familiar with the research that they've done on songbirds where they'll like make the males more attractive? And as soon as they make they 'cause they'll experimentally like dye the males' feathers like a color that makes them incredibly attractive to females. And as soon as they do that and the males realize that they're getting all this attention from females, they stop sitting on the eggs. speaker-0: No, that's interesting. I've not heard of that. speaker-1: They become deadbeat dads. ⁓ and and so th and they've done this in ⁓ songbirds and I and I think I've I think I it was like Japanese quail, but there was another ⁓ birds are are great ⁓ species to study human related ⁓ mating behaviors on because they also in males invest a lot in offspring and so there's a lot of parallels, even though you ⁓ people who are listening, it might not sound like there's all these there's a lot of parallels. ⁓ and so songbirds are are a really nice ⁓ and and birds in general are are a nice model system to understand human parabonding behaviors. And what they do is they'll experimentally manipulate how attractive the males are. And yeah, as soon as the males become really attractive, they start ⁓ they start investing less in their partner and their existing offspring and more toward, you know, seeing what might happen with the next door neighbor. And and there is research, as you noted, that suggests ⁓ that when men are more physically attractive and have higher levels of testosterone, that they are more inclined toward extra pair mating and that they tend to have a greater number of sexual partners and that they tend to be on average, this is just on average, just like everything in science when we talk about things, ⁓ small effects on average, ⁓ but that they tend to be less as sort of committed partners on average. And and you're saying that your research finds that women are less satisfied in a long term relationship with their attractive partners. And I would be surpr did you look at the mechanism? Do you know if it was because the men are just like less committed, less good partners, or d did you not look at that? speaker-0: We didn't look at it in that particular study, no. speaker-1: That's fascinating. I hope that you guys are doing that moving forward 'cause that's like speaker-0: Yes. I I should have a an ongoing list. This has been a great discussion by thinking about next steps for me. I love it. But but I, you know, the flip side of that is that men who tend to be more committed, they tend to have less choices and they tend to be less attractive. And so back to your initial question of well, what should women do if it's gonna nudge them? There's trade offs, right? So if you choose To not use hormonal contraceptives when choosing a partner because maybe you want that push from estrogen and that increased sex drive. Maybe you're gonna pick a partner that is more attractive and that you are gonna be more sexually attracted to. are there risks in terms of commitment and potential infidelity? Again, we're talking on average, but perhaps. ⁓ and on the flip side, if you're gonna be nudged by hormonal contraceptives and you choose to use hormonal contraceptives and now you pick a partner who's maybe a bit more stable and kind and warm and a good parent, if you will, perhaps you're gonna have less sexual desire, but you have that security, right? ⁓ certainly we all want the desire and the security and we want it all, but we can't always have it all. ⁓ and so you're kind of suggesting what do we do? And I think it just depends. What do you value more? What what's most important to you? And I think that's probably different for different women. speaker-1: think that's such a great I think that's such a great point because it it it is undoubtedly ⁓ true that everything is a trade off because everything is a trade off and ⁓ and understanding what the trade offs are ultimately that you're willing to make and understanding what those trade offs are, you know, I I think is so important and helpful. ⁓ and and certainly, you know, in with the decision about birth control, you know, understanding what the trade offs are that you're making when you go on it. Right. And then also when you're choosing romantic partners, ⁓ understanding the trade offs that you're making. Because there are some trade offs that happen relatively reliably in nature. Like you noted, the right, like the sexiness versus ⁓ stability caregiving. ⁓ and your work seems to find this, other people's work finds it, the songbirds seem to find it. And even that that interesting result in the that ⁓ original Craig Roberts paper I was telling you about, where they were looking at the divorce the divorce rates were higher in women who chose their partners when they were naturally cycling. So which is consistent with the idea that the women are feeling unhappy, right? Or or or dissatisfied or their partners are feeling dissatisfied. ⁓ the women are still overwhelmingly the ones who were initiating divorces in that case, ⁓ in both cases, in both the women who chose their partners when they were on or off the pill. ⁓ so really, yeah. So it's such interesting, such interesting work. speaker-0: Really interesting. It'd be interesting to see if ⁓ infidelity or ⁓ kind of just interest in alternative partners is kind of driving that of that Roberts effect that you're talking about in terms of women initiating divorce. speaker-1: Yeah, no, I'm I'm really I'm really interested in in that. And then I'm also interested now, like learning about what you were telling me about women feeling dissat like less satisfied in their relationships if they're married to or partnered to an attractive person, like how that like what the different ⁓ processes that are driving that dissatisfaction. And is it partners, you know, presumed interest in other people? Are they investing less in their relationship? ⁓ and looking at some of those factors are really interesting questions. Yeah. So I want to switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about some of your work on sexual afterglow. And I want you first of all just to tell us what that is, and then I want you to tell us why it's important. speaker-0: Agreed. Yeah, so ⁓ sexual afterlow in a nutshell ⁓ is this idea that perhaps the kind of cognitive benefits that we receive from any given act of sex, so what I'm talking about here is sexual satisfaction, how satisfied you are with your sex life, ⁓ may continue past that act of sex. And so the way that we ⁓ have Tested this in a lab is we use diary data. We ask people every day, ⁓ and and again, these were newly bred couples. So we ask them every day, ⁓ did you have sex with your partner today? And how satisfied were you with your sex life today? And not surprisingly, on days in which people say, Yes, I had sex with my partner today, they also say, I'm very happy with my sex life today, right? That's not a shocker. But what we were really curious is does that sexual satisfaction last? Is there this kind of sexual afterglow? if you will. ⁓ And sure enough, we find that it does, that people who have sex on a given day not only are more satisfied with their sex life that day, but they're also more satisfied with their sex life the next day and even up to 48 hours later. ⁓ Suggesting that just one act of sex can kind of maybe keep people satisfied, if you will, for maybe two days, two days following that act of sex. speaker-1: So d do people differ in the extent to which they metabolize sex, right? 'Cause it would imagine that some people who have a like a fast sexual metabolism, right, that they are feeling really satisfied with sex after they had sex, but then, you know, six hours later they're feeling less satisfied. And then you have some people who are slower metabolizers of sexual behavior. speaker-0: Yes, I love the way you say that, ⁓ metabolizing sex. That's so perfect. But ⁓ I would think so. And we have looked at a lot of possible individual differences for whom this might last longer, it might dissipate more quickly. We have not found evidence for anything. ⁓ yeah, and we've we've tested this in in a number of different studies. ⁓ but you might think to yourself, ⁓ well, sex is ⁓ more important to men than it is to women. So perhaps men are faster metabolizers, if you will, of sex and their afterglow is is shorter or weaker, if you will. Doesn't seem to be the case. ⁓ We have looked at ⁓ attachment orientation. So basically kind of felt security in the relationship, perceived threat in the relationship. ⁓ the idea being that people who perceive greater threats in their relationship tend to value sex a little bit more. It's a way to kind of keep their partner feel more secure about their partner. I have sex with my partner, I feel more secure in my partner's commitment. ⁓ We don't find that that matters. People who are more insecurely attached do not seem to metabolize it ⁓ more quickly. ⁓ We've looked at neuroticism, we've looked at a variety of different ⁓ individual differences in None of them seem to pan out. That's speaker-1: That's ⁓ so d what about the quality of the sex? Like are there any things like like like speaker-0: Seem to matter either. ⁓ doesn't seem to matter how much sex they're having. We've looked at sexual satisfaction, we've looked at sexual frequency, like terms of ⁓ actual satisfaction with that specific sex. One thing I have wondered that we have not looked at, we don't have the data for yet, ⁓ is whether or not there was orgasm. Okay. So one might think, ⁓ well, if I orgasm during sex, perhaps it might take me longer to metabolize that, right? Maybe it's longer lasting compared to if I don't orgasm. We haven't looked at that. That's speaker-1: That's really it. And I would I would wonder whether that would also be ⁓ sex differentiated because I so I read I read some papers that were looking at the reward value of sex and just like how much our brain rewards us for sex and and reinforces sexual behavior. And what I found was that for and I don't remember if this was done in rodents or humans, and that seems like an important distinction. And and so for this particular study I don't remember which which it was, but essentially the the takeaway is that for males that you get ⁓ reinforcing of sexual behavior from ejaculation, so from having an orgasm. ⁓ and that for females it's not so much the case. And so that it that sexual behavior tends to be reinforced with females. And and the the reinforcing ⁓ with like looking specifically at females, I know it was humans because they were asking about their goals related to sexual behavior. And what they found was that for females or for women in this ⁓ particular study, since they were studying humans, ⁓ that ⁓ whatever it was that they were s looking for from sex. was what influenced how rewarding it was. So if they were looking to connect with their partner and they felt connected with their partner, they got there was reinforcement value with related to sex, independent of ⁓ orgasm. And that orgasm for women didn't really seem to play that reinforcing role that it really unless the orgasm was the reason they were having sex, right? 'Cause if they were if they said, I want to have sex because I wanted to have an orgasm, right? Then that would be reinforcing for them. But that for men it just seems to be about the orgasm. speaker-0: That's interesting. So it's more contextual for women, more physical for men. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, and and and I think so much of human mating behavior can be summarized that way. You know, it's like when you look at attraction, you know, when they do th when they've done those studies where they have ⁓ somebody looking at a target and you know, it's like men just look at how attractive they are and it doesn't matter if they're in a Burger King service uniform or in a, you know, business suit or or if they're in a nice car or they're in a crappy car. ⁓ men just look at the woman and say she's this attractive. And for women, it's like all of that stuff matters. And it's like how attractive a woman finds a man is like, okay, well what's he wearing and like what's the car? And like is he interacting positively with the baby or is he ignoring a baby? And all of those things influence attraction. Yeah. And so much more complicated. speaker-0: Yes, totally. So women are the choosier sex too, so speaker-1: Exactly. So women are the choosier sex. We we have all this contextual stuff that influences our attraction. It's just like there's so much going on. Yeah. So so tell me like w tell me about sexual afterglow and relationship satisfaction. speaker-0: Yeah, so what we find is that that this sexual afterglow seems to be functional for the pair bond. ⁓ so yes, we find that on average couples experience this lasting sexual satisfaction that seems to last for up to at least 48 hours following sex. We have some follow-up work suggesting that maybe it's more like between twenty-four and ⁓ and forty-eight hours. ⁓ but What's really interesting is that that afterglow seems to function to to pair bond the couple, to kind of bring them closer. So couples who have a stronger sexual afterglow, if you will, ⁓ actually reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction six months later. Wow in one study, ⁓ a shorter period of time, but but still later in another study. ⁓ and so Why is this so important? Again, I think about a lot of this through an evolutionary lens and and what would be adaptive. And obviously sex is adaptive, right? It's it's the only way we can reproduce. ⁓ and so i it's incredibly adaptive, but it would not be adaptive to have sex 24 hours a day, right? As lovely as that might seem, the fact of the matter is we have to eat, right? We have to forage, find food, you know, make food, prepare food. We have to rear the children we have. We have to protect ourselves from, you know, potential ⁓ conflict. ⁓ And so we need time to do these other things. And so what literally would really would have been adaptive would be to have sex and then have something that kind of keeps us bonded to our partner so that we can do some of these other things until we have sex again. ⁓ And that's what this work kind of suggests. speaker-1: What do you think do you think that the mechanism is like oxytocin or like some combination of of that or dopamine? Like do have any any ideas or speaker-0: I do think I do think it is oxytocin. Well those oxytocin is pretty short lived too, so it doesn't make sense that it would be just that. But but I do think oxytocin is playing a a key role. speaker-1: Right, right. So do you think d have you found that this the sexual afterglow is like and and the duration and strength of that, that that's more important even than like frequency of sexual behavior and some of these other sexual related qualities in terms of predicting relationship satisfaction? Like is it more about the frequency? 'Cause you know, a lot of times people get hung up on the frequency of sex. Is it like have have you ever looked at like And and if you haven't looked at it, maybe you can just like speculate a hypothesis. Like if we if if you were trying to figure out is it about the frequency of sexual behavior? Is it about the afterglow? Is it you know, the quality of the sexual behavior? Like what like what do you what do you think are the most important contributors ultimately to promoting long term pair bonding and relationship satisfaction? speaker-0: That's a great question. I'm gonna speculate here. I think it would probably be Probably be a combination of things. I think it would be sexual frequency to a point. ⁓ there's a fair amount of work showing that more sex is better to a point. ⁓ that really once couples have sex more than once a week, Amy Mews has some great work showing this. ⁓ that once you have sex more than ⁓ once a week, you're not really seeking benefits from that. So I I think, you know, having sex once a week versus never having sex is is pretty important. But once you're kind of meeting desires for amount of sex, ⁓ then I think afterglow probably really plays a big role and is probably a stronger predictor of relationship satisfaction. So a combination of things at at different points in time, if you will. speaker-1: Yeah, and so you know, when you look at ⁓ when I I remember reading ⁓ the first work that you did on Sexual Afterglow, and I know you've done work since then. ⁓ and you're looking at relationship satisfaction over time. ⁓ one of the things that I was really struck by, ⁓ and at this point because you do so much longitudinal work with married couples, you're probably like just immune to it. ⁓ is just that everybody's relationship satisfaction decreases over time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And and and you're like, Yeah, no, that's just a thing. And and so like when we look at these protective effects, for example, of sexual afterglow, it's like essentially buffering the decline, right? which it's speaker-0: That's exactly right. And you're right. I I do get immune to it. I teach ⁓ an undergraduate course on intimate relationships here at Florida State. And ⁓ every time I put up a graph of newlywed couples, I always have to remind myself to say, ⁓ okay, here's the decline we talk about. We talk about this every day, all the time, right? That on average people decline over time, but then some people decline, you know, more steeply than others. And you're right, afterglow ⁓ is serving as a protective factor against some of those declines. ⁓ and that goes for the other things I've talked about as well, partner attractiveness and that kind of stuff. It's it's buffering against decline. It's all speaker-1: offering the decline. Yeah. So based on based on all of this research and and just knowing that relationship satisfaction does tend to kind of s like slide downhill a little bit, ⁓ what are some of the things that you think are most I mean, so we talked about sexual afterglow, we talked about partner attractiveness, but like what are some things that people can actively do to fight the good fight against the sort of inevitable pull of gravity, you know, in syncing ⁓ relationship quality. speaker-0: That's a great question. ⁓ and there's a lot of answers. the first thing that comes to mind I think is strong communication. ⁓ I think communication is just really, really important. ⁓ not only communicating with your partner, but communicating in a positive way, being direct ⁓ with your partner, being supportive ⁓ of your partner's goals. so open and positive, I think is is really important. There's also a fair amount of work showing ⁓ that this is work out of ⁓ Art Aaron's lab, that doing novel, exciting activities together. This can be in the bedroom, but it also can be out of the bedroom, ⁓ can help to buffer against some of these declines and satisfaction. So, you know, if if you and your partner like to hike, go on a new hike together, somewhere you haven't both hiked before. ⁓ if you like to, you know, binge shows on Netflix, binge a new show together. Again, something novel, something exciting, ⁓ can can help ⁓ reduce some of these declines. speaker-1: So i are there any things that based on your research and and again you've been studying couples for a long time and and watching as as you know relationships unfold, are there any things that you think that people systematically like underestimate the importance of in terms of maintaining good relationships or things that people overestimate the importance of where people are like paying attention to the wrong things in terms of trying to support their relationships? speaker-0: Underestimation jumps out to me. And and I think people underestimate, I've been thinking a lot about this, the role of stress in in the relationship, right? A dyad is a lot more than just the dyad. ⁓ a dyad is it's not in a vacuum, it's set in a broader environment. And that environment has lots of stressors. Whether those stressors come in the form of work or children or in-laws or the community in which they live, or the broader society in which they live, ⁓ those stressors play a huge role. They play a huge role in the resources we have, the, you know, the time we have, the motivation we have, ⁓ the opportunity we have to kind of bond with our partner. And and I think it's easy to kind of overlook the stressors, be mad with our partner about something without realizing the role that that stressor might be playing. In the bigger context, if you will. speaker-1: I think that's so I think it's so interesting in so many different ways. I and one is ⁓ you know, I think about I was just having this conversation ⁓ with my husband, but and you and I were having this conversation off camera too. We're talking about kids. And we were talking about ⁓ the fact that when you have small children, young children, I mean, there's just not enough hours in the day. I mean, there just isn't and Historically, you know, w we relied heavily on ⁓ what in anthropology they call a alloparenting, as you know, ⁓ but listeners might not know. And allo parenting just refers to this idea of it taking a village to raise your children, right? And so it used to be and what we still see in contemporary hunter-gatherer groups is that ⁓ families rely very heavily on non parents To play a role in childcare. So people who live in their community will watch the children or their aunts and their you know the children's aunts and uncles and grandparents. And you know, because everybody lived in a small community where everybody knew each other. And so there wasn't so much pressure put on the dyad ⁓ to provide every need for children. And in our current environment, ⁓ especially when you have couples with children. ⁓ people are have moved away from their family. So they don't have a lot of family around. ⁓ because they're new to an area, ⁓ they probably don't have the type of community that a person really needs to raise children because it takes a long time to build community. And ⁓ there's so much pressure on parents and I think that the stress of that and then careers and everything else ⁓ can really do a number on relationships. Absolutely. Yeah, and and do you find have you all ever I've I I don't remember reading any papers to this effect, but ⁓ because you usually look at newlyweds, right, and and follow them over time, have you looked at the role of children in r relationships and relationship satisfaction? Does ⁓ have you looked at that with your research? speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ I've I've looked at it a little bit with my work. There's a a fair amount of literature out there, and overwhelmingly children are hard. Yeah. And relationships, they are a huge stressor. ⁓ they're wonderful, but they are hard. And yeah, we were talking about this. I have a a two year old and a four year old at home, and I get it. they are a big stressor. And we have actually some work showing just talking about kind of changes over time and going back to our conversation about. sexual desire actually. what I find is that ⁓ on average everybody kind of declines in sexual desire over time in in the early years of marriage. but that is sex differentiated. So for the most part men are not declining all that much. They're staying relatively stable over time and it's kind of a ceiling effect. They're just high sexual desire all the time. but women are declining over time. And it actually speaks to some of that contextual stuff you were talking about. We find that that's moderated by the birth of a child. ⁓ so once a a couple has a child, that sex differentiated finding becomes even bigger ⁓ compared to couples who don't have children. ⁓ that if they don't have a child in the first several years of marriage, it's less of a difference between the male and female sexual desire. So yeah, children. Play a role, for sure. speaker-1: Yeah, and I think that I think that to your point about just stressors in general, I think that one of the things that we can ⁓ do, and this is true whether you have children or you don't have children, ⁓ is really trying to take care to buffer the relationship from those stressors. And so if you do have children, trying to develop those allo parenting relationships so that way you're able to focus on your partner for a while. Right. Or and if you don't have children and and it's your job Right. Seeing if there's ways that you can actively take steps to try to minimize having those things creep in and ⁓ and and wreak havoc in your relationship that way. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think even sometimes just recognizing the stressors, even if you can't buffer your relationship from them, right? We can't always keep our relationship in a bubble, which would be awesome if we could. But you know, sometimes just taking a step back and being like, wow, I just snapped at my partner. Did I do that because maybe I'm a little short tempered because of the bad day I had at work or the interaction I just had with my child? ⁓ or is it did my partner actually do something that that deserved, you know, my negativity? ⁓ so I think Really trying to be aware of the stressor ⁓ and the role that it's playing could probably go a long way. speaker-1: And one other thing I wanted to just touch on quickly, as I know our time is closing. I want to just know what are your thoughts about the way that all of the technological changes that have happened in the last, I mean, even twenty years since you started your research, like how do you think technology is influencing relationships? Because, you know, I've I've spent a lot of time thinking about this as well, just trying to think through like dating apps and read readily access you know, to all humanity, ⁓ digitally. ⁓ how how how is that affecting relationships? speaker-0: It's a great question. I've been doing a lot of thinking about it myself. ⁓ I I don't have a lot of data to speak to it yet, ⁓ at least published data. ⁓ I've got some preliminary findings suggesting that couples who do meet online ⁓ actually experience steeper declines over time than couples who don't meet online. I haven't published those yet. ⁓ but it is something that is kind of on my radar. Why is that? I've been doing a lot of thinking about that too. and I I think and some of this comes out of conversations I've had ⁓ with Norm Lee. that ⁓ I think social media ⁓ and just kind of constant access to the internet in our pocket ⁓ is having a big ⁓ impact on our perceptions of alternative partners. and and I think that online dating is directly doing this. So ⁓ if you think about this, when you know, let's say that you're on a dating app and you're looking through partners and you're swiping yes, swiping no. If you swipe no, you can be pretty rest assured that there's gonna be another profile that shows up on your screen instantly and you can say no and there's another one, right? ⁓ and so it it gives us this feeling that there's almost this unlimited number of partners out there. ⁓ and I think that the the more people have used these kinds of dating apps, I think even just the more people are on social media, they're exposed to just people in their environment who aren't actually in their environment, but the brain doesn't, you know, our our ancestral brain doesn't know that these people aren't actually in our environment, that they're in this virtual environment. ⁓ and so we process them as people in our environment. And and I think what's happening is that we are processing ⁓ all of these. people as opportunities and potential partners. And I think that as having negative implications for our relationships, that that we think there's a lot more options out there. And we know that options can have a negative impact on our relationship stability. So that's and I'm speculating here, but but those are my thoughts on that. speaker-1: That's really interesting. I would I would think so too, because there is all of that research, right, that finds that ⁓ essentially the more alternatives there are available, the less satisfied you are with any individual choice you can make because your brain is calculating it in terms of a loss, you know, based on everything that you shut out in order to focus on this one individual. And the fact that that potentially, you know, if that is the mechanism, which again, ⁓ you know, we we don't know that yet, but it it's it's certainly a reasonable hypothesis. If that's true, the fact that that continues even after, you know, they've ch they that's how they met their partner. So it's almost like that's how their dating world reality is is constructed. Right. And so that's what they think about as they're evaluating the quality of their relationship. Yes, exactly. That's so fascinating. That's super fascinating. And also, ⁓ you know, makes me wonder about ⁓ You know, 'cause there's all of this ⁓ discussion about Gen Z and how they're not dating. And ⁓ and I wonder whether you know, well I I just wonder what their mental sort of map of the mating world looks like. You know, and and whether they're not dating because nobody's good enough because they can just constantly swipe. speaker-0: That's a good question. And you know, I was just talking with ⁓ my ⁓ undergraduate class. And what really surprised me ⁓ is that none of them seem to be using dating apps. Yeah, so I don't know if this is just an oddity of this particular class or if this is a drop like a trend, you know, a change in in the current generation. and so maybe that's just kind of a short-lived blip. speaker-1: ⁓ interesting. Yeah. speaker-0: on relationships for a couple of generations and and then what happens beyond that, I don't know. ⁓ that's kind of interesting. Yeah. speaker-1: I've I've actually heard about Gen Z, ⁓ and my children are part of Gen Z and so I get to see this first hand with them as well. But ⁓ they're they're kind of moving back to the old ways of doing things. So like shopping malls are like coming back ⁓ they're having a a sort of a a renaissance because Gen Z goes and hangs out at the mall and and they buy stuff there too. So ⁓ yeah, which is you know, it's like ⁓ the there was the Amazon era, right? And now you've got Gen Z going to the mall and hanging out with their friends and buying clothes and and they're also ⁓ some of them are choosing like to live analog and buying flip phones. And so, you know, I I I think that ⁓ it it it will be really interesting to see how ⁓ you know the world recovers from dating apps. speaker-0: Yeah. Agreed. Totally agreed. So speaker-1: So I wanna close our time. I want I want to know b you know, you've been studying relationships and attraction for like I said, I I I d I did some sleuthing to I like, when did when exactly did she get started? I know, well no, because I I knew that you got started after I got started, but I didn't think you got started that much further. I didn't like I was like, I don't think I'm that much older than her. And and and I'm I'm s I'm significantly older than you in this. But ⁓ but I I was ⁓ you know, you've been doing this for twenty years now, like studying So what do you think are some of the most important things that you've learned? Because you obviously you are somebody who's in a relationship. ⁓ you value relationships, you study relationships. Like what are some of the most important things that you've learned that you take away that influence how you, you know, conduct yourself in your own relationships? speaker-0: Yeah, it's a good question. and I would say Probably awareness and giving your partner grace to some extent. ⁓ I think back to what I was just talking about in terms of stressors. ⁓ I think that that is just so important and just trying to recognize what's happening in your world, what's happening in your partner's world, and trying to give your partner the benefit of the doubt. ⁓ because we often have this tendency to ⁓ Assume that what we see is reality. And that might not always be the case. ⁓ we sometimes see what we want to see. ⁓ and so you know, really trying to take a step back and adopt ⁓ a third-party perspective. Eli Finkel has ⁓ some evidence actually showing that adopting a third-party perspective can be really helpful when you're having conflict with your partner. ⁓ and I think that that could probably apply outside of conflict, that just always trying to To increase empathy, I think is is another way of thinking about it, ⁓ can probably go a long way forgiving your partner, understanding your partner, and again, just kind of giving your partner grace if it's deserved. speaker-1: I love it. I love it. Well, on that note, thank you so much for joining me and for ⁓ talking with me about the research that you've been doing. It's just really ⁓ I've loved the work that you've had coming out of your lab over the last, you know, twenty years. ⁓ that you've been out in the world, ⁓ doing research and ⁓ and and it's always a source of ⁓ good conversations within my own lab because we really ⁓ love the work that you do and ⁓ I it's also like as somebody who has a relationship, you know, it's it's really fun to read this stuff 'cause it a lot of the a lot of the research that you do, I think that many of us can see ourselves in. speaker-0: Yeah, I agree. Well, thank you so much for having me. I could say all the positive things about your work as well. It's to be honest, your work has really inspired my career. So ⁓ being able to talk to you about all of this stuff on your podcast has been ⁓ really wonderful. So thanks so much for having me and and letting me ⁓ talk and speculate for a bit. speaker-1: ⁓ thanks. And that's it for today's episode of the XX Lab. 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