What Does Being With Your Partner Say About You?
The benefits of dating your romantic partner may be greater than you think. Not only do healthy relationships predict psychological well-being (Love & Holder, 2016), but dating a desirable person could make you, yourself, seem highly desirable.
In other words, people are likely judging you based on your romantic partner's desirability.
Think about it: Has your impression of someone ever changed when you discovered that his or her long-time partner is an absolute dream — charismatic, gorgeous, intelligent, and warm? Might your impression of that person be different if he or she were dating an abrasive, cold, unattractive, and utterly unappealing partner?
New research supports the idea that our romantic partners' desirability influences what other people think of us (Winegard et al., 2016). Specifically, the researchers tested the idea that having a highly appealing romantic partner signals to others that we have the kind of underlying qualities that would attract such an appealing, hard-to-get individual.
Here's what the research suggests:
- Romantic partners are hard to fake.
If you think about it, the only way in which romantic partners would be a useful basis for impressions would be if people had a hard time "faking" relationships with others. And, indeed, it would be quite challenging to fake intimacy, attraction, and interdependence with a highly desirable someone whom others are meeting and knowing, especially because highly desirable partners likely have plenty of options, and this fake partner would have to play along.
- Having a highly desirable romantic partner might reveal accurate information.
The very qualities that might be inferred from having a desirable romantic partner (e.g., status) are generally the qualities necessary to obtain a desirable partner. In other words, romantic partners may be reliable signals of certain underlying traits, because it's unusual to be with such partners without those underlying traits, and (as mentioned) it's hard to fake having a desirable romantic partner.
- Romantic partners are subject to judgment.
We form impressions of strangers quickly. We might see their flawless skin, Kate Spade handbags, perfect manicures, or highlighted hair, and unconsciously begin to think that they're wealthy or of high social status. Indeed, people can accurately infer wealth and status from clothing or other visual signals (Dunn & Searle, 2010). In many ways, we also publicly "display" our partners, allowing them to serve as information about us in the same way that fancy accessories or clothing might. We hold hands or kiss in public, update our Facebook status — even simply presenting as a couple among friends and strangers could provide the opportunity for inferences.4. People with more attractive partners are judged as having higher status.
Wineberg and colleagues' first two studies used experimental methods and hypothetical scenarios to show that the attractiveness of a person's romantic partner affects status impressions. The first study showed that perceptions of status from attractive partners operated in the same way as other signals (e.g., having a fancy watch), and the second study showed a pattern in which men with more attractive wives were judged as having more status than men with unattractive wives. So if you've got an attractive partner, people likely perceive you as having a good deal of status as well.
- Men judge other men on the attractiveness of their wives.
In their third study, Winegard and colleagues (2016) showed that men are quite ready to judge other men based on the attractiveness of their partners. Men rewarded hypothetical heterosexual men with very attractive wives by seeing them as of particularly high status, whereas men with unattractive wives were "punished" with impressions of significantly lower status than if they had wives of average attractiveness.
- Men flaunt having a desirable partner, especially in front of other men.
If you've got it, flaunt it: In their final study, the researchers showed that given the chance to exhibit an association with an attractive woman, men were apt to choose to do so in front of other men, over doing so in front of women (Wineberg et al., 2016). In other words, men use their romantic partners to showcase their own status to other men, not just ttionship