Scientists discover the key to a happy marriage (+ details)

A study conducted by experts from the Florida State University (USA) and published in Psychological Science, suggests an unconventional method to help keep the spark of passion after many years of marriage.

Previous research on married life has already shown that, in many cases, the satisfaction of married life falls even when the spouses' daily behavior remains the same.

This led a group of American psychologists led by James McNulty to the hypothesis that this alarming trend could be overcome by modifying the thoughts of a person in relation to his spouse.

Specifically, the research team wanted to clarify whether it was possible to improve marital happiness by subtly retraining the immediate and automatic associations that come to mind when people think of their partner.

"The main source of our feelings about our relationships could be reduced to the way we associate our spouses with positive affect, and those associations can come not only from our spouses, but also from things not related to them, such as puppies. and rabbits, "explains McNulty.

In this way, positive associations could be created over time by repeatedly linking a very positive stimulus to an unrelated one. Perhaps the most famous example of this type of conditioned response is that of Pavlov's dogs, who secreted saliva upon hearing the sound of a bell after being exposed to food associations with the sound of the bell.

McNulty and his colleagues designed their method using the same type of evaluative conditioning, so that the images of a spouse were accompanied by very positive words or images, such as puppies and rabbits.

The results of the experiment among 144 pairs of volunteers showed that the method does work, since participants exposed to positive images associated with their spouse's face showed more positive automatic reactions in their partner, compared to those who saw it 'matched' to neutral images.