If You Choose to Start Again Then You Leave Me the End

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Jack and Jill have been dating exclusively for well-nigh a year. In the beginning, it seemed similar a match made in heaven, but for some fourth dimension now, the relationship has been lackluster. At to the lowest degree, that'south how Jack feels about it. He often daydreams about what his life would be like if he weren't however attached to Jill. Information technology's non that he dislikes her. It'due south just that he doesn't think they're right for each other. He tin also tell she's quite devoted to him, and he's sure she'd be terribly hurt if he left her. So for the time being, at least, Jack stays with Jill.

Such a scenario is not uncommon. Why do people stay even though they want to leave? This is the question that Academy of Utah psychologist Samantha Joel and her colleagues explored in a recent article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Start, Joel and colleagues consider several current theories that try to explain how people make a decision to stay in a relationship or leave it. The near influential theory of interpersonal relations is interdependence theory, offset proposed by psychologists Harold Kelley and John Thibaut in 1959. Interdependence theory proposes that people weigh the costs and benefits of being in a relationship. They stay equally long as the benefits outweigh the costs, and they go out when the costs outweigh the benefits. This elementary model does a reasonably good task of predicting stay/exit decisions, but only if y'all fully account for all the costs and benefits, which isn't easy, because we're dealing with people'due south emotions, and these are notoriously hard to quantify.

A widely accepted revision of interdependence theory is the investment model, which tries to account more precisely for the costs and benefits of staying or leaving. In particular, the investment model posits three factors that people take into consideration when they're weighing a stay/leave decision:

• Human relationship satisfaction: This refers to the general feeling that the benefits outweigh the costs. As long equally you're satisfied with the human relationship, yous'll stay. Annotation that this role of the model is the same as interdependence theory.
• Investments: This refers to both tangible and intangible assets that you've contributed to the relationship. The longer a couple has been married, the less likely it is that they'll go divorced. This is at least in part considering of investments similar a house, children, friendships, stock portfolios, and so on, that would be lost or disrupted if the relationship were cleaved. Furthermore, people also count fourth dimension spent together, shared emotional experiences, and then on, which just take meaning inside the human relationship. In sum, fifty-fifty if your relationship satisfaction is low, you're non likely to exit if your investments in the relationship are high.
• Quality of alternatives: When people do leave relationships, it'due south often because they've either already lined up an alternative partner, or else they believe they tin can find someone better than their current partner on the mating market. For example, a corporate executive volition divorce his spouse of 20 years to marry his lovely immature secretary. Likewise, an attractive young woman will leave her deadbeat boyfriend, confident she tin can do better than him. The young, the beautiful, and the wealthy have alternatives, but the residuum of united states have few options, and so we ofttimes stay in unsatisfying relationships, considering information technology's the all-time nosotros recall we can do.

As the researchers betoken out, interdependence theory and the investment model presume that people are rational and make decisions that are in their ain best interests. However, enough of inquiry in the psychology of controlling shows this simply isn't truthful.

For i thing, emotions and cognitive biases often lead people to brand decisions that aren't skilful for them, at to the lowest degree in the long run. Poor dietary choices, drug utilize, and a sedentary lifestyle are all common examples of choices that feel good in the moment, merely take devastating consequences downstream. Also, voters will ofttimes elect politicians who enact policies that hurt them economically, because those officials endorse key problems, similar abortion or immigration, that people have strong emotions about.

For some other thing, fifty-fifty when the option that promotes self-involvement is clear, people frequently cull otherwise. As Joel and colleagues bespeak out, this is frequently the example when we interact with others. We take other people's feelings into account, and we ofttimes sacrifice our own benefits for their sake. This is true not merely for close relationships like friends and family, just also in our interactions with strangers. (Why would y'all e'er hold a door open for another person if your goal was to maximize your own cocky-involvement?)

The fact that people are not self-interested maximizers is demonstrated in the dictator game, a laboratory procedure involving ii participants. The experimenter gives i participant—the dictator — a sum of coin and tells them they can either proceed all the money or give some of information technology to their partner. Very few people keep all the coin for themselves, and even children equally young as 2 years old will share with their partner. Joel and colleagues reasoned that people likely also consider their partner's situation when making a decision to stay or get out.

To test this idea, they recruited well-nigh iv,000 people who were in committed relationships, just were thinking virtually leaving to participate in a two-part written report. In Part 1, the participants completed a lengthy survey that assessed their feelings about the relationship in terms of the three components of the investment model: human relationship satisfaction, investment, and quality of alternatives.

Participants too answered questions regarding two other factors that the researchers idea might play a function in a stay/go out determination:

• Partner dependence: Respondents were asked how committed they thought their partner was to the human relationship and how distressed they thought their partner would be if they broke upwards with them. It's believed that loftier partner dependence can brand a human relationship experience valuable even if satisfaction isn't high.
• Communal strength: This is the degree to which you place a loftier priority on coming together the needs of your partner. It's believed that high communal forcefulness tin can also make it harder to leave a relationship because of business concern for the partner's welfare.

In Part two of the study, participants received a short, weekly survey by e-mail. The first question was: "Are you and your partner still together?" If the response was "no," the participant indicated whether the decision was their own, their partner's, or mutual. At the end of x weeks, 18 percent had reported a breakdown, while 82 percent were yet together.

Fifty-fifty after all the reasons for staying or leaving as posited by the investment model were accounted for, there were nonetheless those who'd remained in the relationship even though they were unhappy. As expected, partner dependence was an of import factor in these cases, just only if the person was loftier in communal strength. In other words, people who make meeting their partner's needs a priority in the relationship volition besides find it difficult to get out that relationship for fear of hurting the other person.

In our opening example, Jack wants to leave Jill, but he won't, because he doesn't want to cause her distress. He believes she still wants to stay in the relationship, only he doesn't know for sure, because he has never asked. Information technology could very well be that she's simply as unhappy with the human relationship equally he is.

When we try to read our partner's mind and expect them to read ours, we fix ourselves up for unhappiness. Conversations about whether to terminate a relationship are extremely difficult, but without an open and honest word, both partners will have to deal with the misery of putting on pretenses indefinitely. After a heart-to-middle talk, Jack and Jill may mutually decide it's time to starting dating other people. And who knows? That same conversation may help them sympathize the value of their relationship—and give them the resolve to make it better.

References

Joel, South., Impett, E. A., Spielmann, S. S., & MacDonald. (2018, July 23). How interdependent are stay/leave decisions? On staying in the human relationship for the sake of the romantic partner. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000139.

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201810/why-you-stay-even-though-you-want-leave

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