How Happy You Are With Your Mate Depends on the Rest of the Dating Pool
Well, big duh. Relationship satisfaction depends on the mating pool, according to a new study, as reported by newswise.com. Relationship satisfaction and the energy devoted to keeping a partner are dependent on how the partner compares with other potential mates, a finding that relates to evolution’s stronghold on modern relationship psychology, according to a study at The University of Texas at Austin. UT Austin psychology researcher Daniel Conroy-Beam and his collaborators developed a method to test how mate preferences influence behavior and emotions in relationships in the study “What predicts romantic relationship satisfaction and mate retention intensity: mate preference fulfillment or mate value discrepancies?” he writes in Evolution & Human Behavior. Who hasn't been there? You want to go to the prom but the only guy you think will ask you is kind of a big jerk. But you'll go with him, anyway. And then he doesn't ask you! This ha...