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Did you think women had a harder time in a downhill relationship? Then think about it again, because according to a new study, that appears not to be the case. Men, not women, tend to experience more emotional pain when their relationships deteriorate or break up. In contrast to traditional gender differences, men also appear to be more likely to seek online help with their relationship problems. And when they do that, they express their emotions more.
The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , is based on an analysis of more than 184,600 relationship help seekers on an anonymous Reddit forum. An international team of psychologists led by researchers from Lancaster University conducted the first ever ‘big data’ analysis of relationship problems. What started as an attempt to identify the most common relationship problems ended in a study with a number of remarkable findings.
“Most of what we know about relationship problems comes from studies of people in relationship therapy, including a fairly specific group of people – people who have the time, money and motive to work on their relationship problems,” says lead author Charlotte Entwistle in a declaration . With the research, the psychologists wanted to discover which relationship problems exist among the general public, not just among people who choose relationship therapy .
Using language processing methods, the team analyzed the demographic and psychological characteristics of the help seekers. They were thus able to find out what the most common themes were that emerged in the messages. And based on those themes, they were able to create a “map” of the most common relationship problems.
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The biggest relationship problems
Based on the analysis, the researchers concluded that communication problems were the most commonly mentioned problem, with almost 1 in 5 people noting that it was difficult to discuss problems. About 1 in 8 mentioned trust issues in their relationships. Furthermore, the most common theme is about the emotional pain caused by the problems, rather than the problems themselves. The most common theme was ‘heartbreak’ and included words such as regret, break-up, crying and heartbroken. And, contrary to what they had predicted, it was the men who seemed to struggle more with these feelings.
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The large-scale study gave the psychologists the opportunity to also analyze male-female differences. For example, do men really invest fewer emotions in relationships than women, or are men simply stigmatized when they share their feelings and therefore don’t do it? Contrary to what everyone thought, research shows that men talk about heartbreak much more often than women. These findings suggest that the stereotype of men being less emotionally invested in relationships than women is likely untrue.
Entwistle says: “In particular, the fact that the topic of heartache was discussed more often by men highlights that men are at least as emotionally affected by relationship problems as women.” Furthermore, men also appear to be more inclined to seek help online when dealing with a breakup. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to find personal help, such as a therapist.
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