Cueless

Teens and young adults are showing sharp increases in anxiety and depression. Jean Twenge, author of iGen, has drawn a great deal of attention to these trends. Here, I describe her argument and then build on it to suggest that social cuelessness may be contributing to the problems.

The Trends

Anxiety and depression have increased substantially among teens in the U.S. over the past 5 years or so[i], trends also seen in other advanced economies.[ii] Twenge (@jean_twenge) wrote about this phenomenon in an article in The Atlantic as well as in her book. While such problems have been increasing for decades (see another media story on this featuring Twenge in 2009), there does seem to be particularly sharp uptick of late. Twenge suggests that wide adoption of smart phones is the primary culprit. In the Atlantic piece, she writes:

It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades.

Twenge believes that the dominant driver of these effects is social comparison. Social comparison speaks to the fact that we are happy or not based both on how our lives are going as well as on how we think the lives of others are going. With humans, it’s never just about me, it’s always about me among them. Smart phones, combined with social media tools such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, provide endless opportunities for social comparison. Again, quoting Twenge from her article in the Atlantic:

For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out.

While she may or may not be correct, it’s a good hypothesis.

Consider Melissa, a 16-year-old from New Jersey who is tuned in and locked on. On some days, she’s out with her friends doing what friends do—talking, laughing, sharing videos and pictures from their lives and also the internet. When not out with friends, Melissa is at home, by herself. Sort of. She’s never really by herself because her phone is always with her. Like so many others, and maybe especially other teens and young adults, she spends a lot of time monitoring what’s happening “out there,” with special attention to the lives of those in her social network—as well as the Kardashians.

What does Melissa see as she stares through her phone out into the world? She sees people having fun, doing exciting things, touting accomplishments and, worst of all, she sees evidence of people being together, without her.

Do people normally post their boring moments, failures, and comments on their isolation on social media? Okay, yes, some do that. There are plenty of YouTube sensations featuring people sharing their misery. Schadenfreude is even more common. Of course, there is the mundane stuff that plenty of people share on social media. It’s fascinating to know what someone got to eat for lunch. Actually, not so much—at least not to me.

More often, what we see are indicators of success, connection, and prime-time “in-group” experiences. In addition to feeling left out, anyone with a smart phone or other device now can watch endless documentation of how successful or gorgeous their peers are—and feel worse about themselves by the moment. Instant dis-gratification. (I just made that word up. So, no, you cannot go look it up on your phone right now. Keep reading. Focus.) If you were a little fragile already about your self-esteem and development as a younger human, you’d be primed only to notice the stuff that makes you feel bad about yourself.

Making the situation worse is the fact that app and device designers are perfecting ways to keep you from looking away. The whole system is literally addiction by design (though, I can accept arguments either way about whether this fits a true addiction model). The power of devices to capture our attentions has led to mounting concerns about how seriously distracted we are if our phones are anywhere nearby, with evidence that just having phone nearby while having a meal with friends or family reduces how much we enjoy doing so.[iii] Everything about phones and apps is designed to say, “notice me.” Your mind wants to check that you are not missing something important. (Give me a moment while I check my Twitter account. Wow. Just since I started proofing this draft, I got liked several times. That’s so nice. I matter. Noticefication. Follow me: @DecideOrSlide)

I think Twenge is correct that these dynamics are part of the mix in the rise in teen anxiety and depression. She also notes other factors that doubtless play significant roles, including loss of sleep, lack of interest in going out beyond the home, and reduced face-to-face contact with friends. There may be so many other factors in play. Maybe the trends in anxiety and depression will start to move downward, soon. Who knows, but it’s not difficult to believe that we are living through one of the most extraordinary changes in how humans interact in history.

My Hypothesis

I think increases in anxiety and depression for teens and young adults may be exacerbated by cuelessness. Cue, not clue. I think the rise in cuelessness is consequential.

In the Age of Ambiguity, Cuelessness abounds in Dating and Mating

I (along with colleagues like Galena Rhoades) have argued that one of the most profound changes in dating and mating over the past 40 years is the rise of ambiguity.[iv] There used to be much more structure—more steps and stages and publicly understood markers—to indicate where people were at or headed in their romantic relationships.

I think this trend toward ambiguity is motivated. One aspect of this argument is that ambiguity feels safer than clarity in an age where people are uncertain of relationships lasting. That means romantic (and sexual) relationships form in an environment with a paucity of cues about who is really interested in who, who is committed, and to what degree. Sure, there are still cues (engagement remains a big signal of commitment), but not like there used to be. In plays and movies, scripts specify cues for specific actions, scenes, transitions, and lines. Dating and mating have become relatively scriptless, and scriptlessness feeds cuelessness.

My colleagues and I have written a lot about ambiguity in romantic relationships. If you want to read more: here, here, or here, or way back here.  

In addition to the specific cuelessness of modern dating and mating, it would not surprise me if the increasingly, generally ambiguous pathway into adulthood on many dimensions contributes to the mental health of emerging adults. However, those domains, along with dating and mating, have been going through large changes for some time. Twenge may be onto something to suggest that the recent sharp rise in anxiety and depression could be linked to the appearance of smart phones in our lives. Now, I will double down on that idea.

Devices and Social Media are Optimized for Fostering Experimental Neurosis

There is a classic series of studies in the history of behaviorism (classical conditioning, specifically) that focused on inducement of experimental neurosis in animals. The physiologist Pavlov is believed to be the first to observe and widely discuss this phenomenon. He noticed how discomforted his laboratory dogs were when initially learning to discriminate between stimuli that meant food was coming versus not. Pavlov was famous for getting a neutral stimulus to produce salivation by pairing it with the original stimulus (food). You can make a name for yourself by studying spit if you can generalize your argument.

Pavlov, and many others, started testing what would happen to dogs (or other animals) as they made it increasingly difficult to discriminate between stimuli. In the most famous paradigm, he would have pictures of circles indicating food was coming while pictures of various forms of ellipses would mean no food was coming—and then he made the ellipses increasingly like the circles so that it was hard for the dogs to discern the difference. The dogs would break down. They would get agitated and howl or curl up and get passive, or otherwise freak out.

Think a moment about how stressed you might get if, all of a sudden, you could no longer discern whether a stop light was telling you to stop, or to go, or to floor it. (That’s the true meaning of yellow, right?)

A pretty good definition of experimental neurosis is given in the TheFreeDictionry: “a behavior disorder produced experimentally, as when an organism is required to make a discrimination of extreme difficulty and "breaks down" in the process.”

That’s cuelessness. It’s not simply the complete absence of cues. The dogs received cues but they had trouble getting them. Cuelessness also comes about when there is an inability to reliably discern the meaning of cues you can plainly see. Apply that thought to how intently a teen or young adult might be trying to decode stimuli about their social situation as reflected in the soft glow of their phone.

“Is he really interested in me?”

“Did she mean to cut me out of this invitation?”

“Why won’t he follow me?”

“Why didn’t she ‘like’ my post?”

“How did all my friends end up getting together tonight without me knowing about it?”

“What does that winking smiley face really mean?”

Back in the heyday of research on experimental neurosis, another method for inducing it was by  simply increasing the delay in time between the signal and getting the food. This had a similar negative effect on the dogs. How often have you heard about people becoming fraught over waiting for someone they are interested in to get back to them, especially by text, about what was happening next? “Is he going to get back to me about getting together?” “Why hasn’t she responded to my text message, yet? It’s been hours.” The agony of such delays in the dating world are well described in Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg’s book, Modern Romance. It’s a thing, and it’s all stimulus and delayed response or non-response. Some of this comes from fears that a quick response would be too unambiguous, and could mean one had caught feelings or was desperate or was, you know, actually interested in the other. Clarity is so uncool.

I think something like experimental neurosis could be contributing to the rise in anxiety and depression among teens and young adults. Everyone functions best when there are reliable cues about things that they care about the most. At work. At home. At play. In love.

Can You Hear Me Now? Not Really.

Quiz: What’s the number one thing that teens and young adults do not do on their phones? Calling people. It is no accident that messaging systems on our devices now have a proliferation of emojis and special effects. Why’s that stuff there? First, per my earlier point: emojis are part of the nuclear arms race of features designed to make sure you cannot look away from your phone. Second, typed words can be misunderstood, particularly in cryptic messages. Perhaps you have experienced a time when you realized some friend, loved one, or colleague got the wrong idea from what you wrote in email or text, when that would not have happened had you made a phone call. Emojis are supposed to add some emotional information to the message, but do they? Maybe a little, but hold that thought. I won’t make you wait too long. J

The author of a new series of studies, psychologist Michael Kraus, concludes that there is much more information about emotion in voices than in facial expressions.[v] Kraus is particularly interested in empathic accuracy, which he argues is a foundational element in healthy social connection. In fact, he noted that, “a dearth of empathic accuracy is a common symptom

of many psychological disorders.” Kraus further notes that speech is a “particularly powerful channel for perceiving the emotions of others.” In fact, cues in speech convey a lot of information about emotion even when the receiver cannot understand the words.

Sure, there is plenty of information in someone’s face, but Kraus argues that there is more in the voice. Contrast that with how little emotional information can be in a text message. Sure, texts can convey 100% of the relevant information when the point is merely to say, “I’ll meet you at 3:15 at the coffee shop at 1^st and Elm.” But a text is going to be pretty thin on information about the true emotion the other is feeling. Since texting conveys relatively limited information about emotion, it may be pretty limited in fostering empathy and understanding when something more is at stake. (That does not mean that texts are not useful, including for teens at higher risk.[vi])  

Teens and young adults are particularly tuned to their social networks, including whether or not they matter to others. We all are, but it seems reasonable to posit that this is an intense dynamic when younger. The paradox here is that, while masses of information move across electronic devices, there often is not a lot of there, there, when it matters most—such as when trying to decode if someone is interested as a partner or actually cares if you have been left out.

In the specific domain of love and attraction, we live in the age of ambiguity, and devices and social media are not optimally designed to clear things up.  

Back to smiley faces and winking emojis. You might ask, why aren’t emojis as useful for conveying emotions as hearing someone’s voice? Obviously, one point is that it’s a simpler system. If a voice conveys more information about emotion than a real face, how much less information is contained in an emoji?

But I have a better answer than that. It’s easy to send a little smiling face no matter what you are feeling. Complex systems of lie detection may yet be based on voice-tone but they are not ever going be based on emojis. When you send an emoji, you could be happy or placating and send the very same text with a smile. The emoji one sends is the emoji one intends to send. If there is a reason to mask true feelings or to mislead, it’s so easy to do that in text—in voice, not so easy.

If you get on the phone with someone you know who is having a bad day or feeling something else strongly, you are vastly more likely to detect it. It’s hard to hide what’s real in the voice because voice is cueful not cueless. In fact, if you are a teenager and something is wrong, and you want your parent to help (and, if you have a parent you trust), you should call. Your parent will hear something in your voice that you can hardly hide, and I think it will change the nature of what happens next, usually for the better.

While I’d like to suggest that we all people up and talk more, I know that idea is quaint. It seems entirely possible that texting has become preferred, in part, because it allows everyone to be doing two or more things at once, without having to give away the fact that we can be reading something on the web or watching TV all while sending some texts back and forth with another person. Last week, there was a few minutes where I was texting with my wife, one of my sons, and a colleague—all at the same time. A conference call would not have worked.

There is a lot in favor of text, emails, and social media posts because they are asynchronous. Those on the receiving end do not have to respond in the same moment as when the message is sent. But the cost of the convenience is a thinning out of the information available, especially about emotion. And emotion is the good stuff of social connection, as Kraus notes.

I should note that a clear message does not have to be the one you wanted to receive. William and Sonya are college juniors who were “dating” for a couple of months when William broke it off by text. Sonya was not pleased to get the text but at least he didn’t ghost her. Even though breaking up by text may seem immature, not to mention heartless, at least the message Sonya received was clear. Pavlov’s dog would rather know for sure that no food is coming than be in distress trying to get the signal straight.

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My hypothesis is that the current, substantial increases in anxiety and depression among teens and young adults may be exacerbated by decreases in the reliability of information about relationships that can be found in devices, messaging, and social media. I’ve argued before that upcoming generations may have more attachment insecurities than prior ones because family instability has likely continued to increase (even though divorce rates have trended down). If so, that could mix with the growing cuelessness of society to increase the challenges for young people. It might be a blip and the kids will be alright. It might not be.

It’s just a hypothesis. I wanted to write it up because all these themes happened to be colliding in my head within the same week, and they seemed to revolve around something. More broadly, the trends could be nothing and these ideas may be off track. Also, I didn’t set out to pose solutions. I leave you cueless. It’s the age we live in, I guess.

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[i] For examples of news reports on this, see here and here and here.

[ii] Here’s a news article from the U.K., as an example.

[iii] Dwyer, R., Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. (2017). Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Advance online publication.  

[iv] I link to various accessible pieces later in this section. Some of the scholarly references for this point include: Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Markman, H. J. (2006). Sliding vs. Deciding: Inertia and the premarital cohabitation effect. Family Relations, 55, 499-509.; Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Whitton, S. W. (2010). Commitment: Functions, formation, and the securing of romantic attachment. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 2, 243-257.; Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Fincham, F. D. (2011). Understanding romantic relationships among emerging adults: The significant roles of cohabitation and ambiguity. In F. D. Fincham & M. Cui (Eds.), Romantic relationships in emerging adulthood (pp. 234-251). New York: Cambridge University Press.; Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., Scott, S. B., Kelmer, G., Markman, H. J., & Fincham, F. D. (2016). Asymmetrically committed relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1177/0265407516672013

[v] The author, Michael Kraus, showed that there is more information that enhances empathy in the voice than in the face. He theorizes that people often intentionally communicate their feelings through voice. I am not as sure about that point as much as the idea that it may be hard to hide one’s feelings from being expressed in tones of the voice. Regardless of that point, Kraus suggests that there is a lot of emotional information in voice and less in the face. And, I’d argue that there is vastly less in text and email. In an age of ambiguity in relationships, that may be exactly what is preferred.  Kraus, M. W. (2017). Voice-only communication enhances empathic accuracy. American Psychologist, 72(7), 644-654.

[vi] A study on a convenience sample of high risk teens suggested that they were less anxious and depressed on the days that they texted more, not less. However, the same study found that, on days they texted more, they also had more attention and conduct problems. There is a lot of complexity in all this and much to be sorted out. Citation: George, M. J., Russell, M. A., Piontak, J. R., & Odgers, C. L. (2017). Concurrent and subsequent associations between daily digital technology use and high-risk adolescents’ mental health symptoms. Child Development. Advance online version.  

Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater? Does a Person who Cheats on One Partner Tend to do so with the Next?

If someone cheats on their partner in one relationship, what are the odds they will do so in another relationship? That’s the question addressed in a new study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior[i], titled “Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater? Serial Infidelity Across Subsequent Relationships.” The researchers found that those who were unfaithful in one relationship had three times the odds of being unfaithful in the next, compared to those who had not been unfaithful in the first relationship. Let’s look deeper.

This research was conducted by a team from our lab at the University of Denver; the study was headed up by Kayla Knopp along with colleagues Shelby Scott, Lane Ritchie, Galena Rhoades, Howard Markman, and yours truly. It used our national sample of individuals first recruited when aged 18 to 34, who were in unmarried, serious, romantic relationships.[ii] Thus, while most of the literature on infidelity focuses on marriage, this new study focused on those mostly at pre-marriage stages of life. That is one of the advances from this work but not the only one. The other is that the sample and methods allowed for assessing infidelity across two relationships within the context of this longitudinal sample that followed individuals for five years, focusing on their romantic relationships.

Historical Findings

There is an extensive literature on infidelity in married relationships with a growing literature on what is often called extra-dyadic sexual involvement (ESI) in unmarried relationships. The literature on infidelity inside and outside of marriage is well summarized in the new paper. I will describe a few highlights here.[iii]

An overwhelming majority of people have the expectation of fidelity of sexual and, often,  emotional connection in monogamous relationships. That is especially obvious in marriage, but it’s also true in serious, unmarried relationships. Sure, there have always been some who seek “open” relationships, where partners agree that it is okay to have sex outside the relationship under some conditions, but that is not very common.  

While the lifetime risks for infidelity in marriage have generally run around 20 percent,[iv] rates of sex with someone outside a current relationship are much higher among those who are unmarried.[v] This should not be shocking since both the norms about fidelity as well as average commitment levels are higher for marriage than other relationships, on average. The possibility of fidelity is simply not as high for those who have not settled down to make a long-term (or life-time) commitment to a particular partner. Nevertheless, while people may not have settled down to committing to another for the long haul, they tend to expect faithfulness.[vi]

Knopp and colleagues note some of the most common risk factors for infidelity based on prior research. Those include:

·      Low commitment to the present relationship

·      Low or declining relationship satisfaction

·      Accepting attitudes about sexual relations outside the relationship

·      Attachment insecurity: both avoidant and anxious

·      Differences in individual levels of sexual inhibition and excitement

·      Being a man versus a woman, though this may be changing.

Those findings are mostly from the literature on marriage with some findings from unmarried relationships. If you want a deeper review of factors associated with greater odds of cheating in unmarried relationships, I wrote about that subject here and here based on an earlier study drawing from the same project sample as the new study.

The new study does not focus on predictors of infidelity but on the likelihood that it will be repeated, and it uses particularly strong methods for doing so.  

Following People Through Two Relationships

Most studies of infidelity are retrospective and cross-sectional, focusing at single points while asking about present and past relationships.[vii] To my knowledge, this new study is unique because people were followed in real time (or close to it) from one relationship into the next, completing comprehensive surveys about their relationships at each time point during the longitudinal method. Contrast that with a method where, for example, you asked a sample of middle-aged people if they had ever had sex outside of one or more relationships in their past. That would be a different study, and, while interesting, would be subject to retrospective bias. People are believed to remember things better—and typically to report them more accurately—when asked closer in time to when those events occurred. That’s what Knopp and colleagues did.

For the new study, the overall national sample from the project started with 1,294 individuals. However, the analyses for this new study had to be based on those who were surveyed across two relationships over the course of the five years that the sample was followed. That means that only those who had broken up from one relationship and then entered another during that period would be analyzed. That left 484 individuals. If you are used to studies in sociology with thousands of people, that may seem like a smallish sample, but for the questions addressed here, it’s large and more than sufficient.

The average duration of the first relationships was 38.8 months while the average duration of the second was 29.6 months. Thus, the relationships studied were mostly serious and of substantial duration. No one was married at the start of the project but some would have married that first partner or the second during the time frame of the study. For the most part, however, it is best to think about these findings in the context of the stage of life where people are often seriously involved but not yet married—a stage of life that has grown substantially in the past few decades.

At each time point (which tended to be every 4 to 6 months), participants were asked, “Have you had sexual relations with someone other than your partner since you began seriously dating?” In this project, participants were also asked if they had either known or suspected their present partner of having sex with someone else. Obviously, there are biases when people are self-reporting such behavior. That’s a problem for the whole literature. Further, the specific questions used in this study may exclude emotional affairs as well as some online affairs where there is some sexual aspect but the respondent tells themselves they are not actually having sex. Also, in such a sample there would be some small percentage of people who would have been in some sort of consensual non-monogamous arrangement, where having sex with someone outside the relationship would be the same thing as cheating because there was some agreement about this. Knopp and colleagues note that there is no way with this data set to isolate such relationships, but there are strong reasons to believe that such open relationships are a very small percentage in the overall sample.

Knopp and colleagues controlled for some of the variables known to be associated with greater and lower risk of being unfaithful, net of other factors like relationship quality and commitment to one’s partner. That is, the study controlled for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and race.

Then and Again

Forty-four percent (44 percent) of this sample reported having had sex with someone other than their present partner in one or both of the relationships studied. Further, 30 percent reported that they knew at least one of the partners in the two relationships had cheated on them. That seems to me like quite a bit of infidelity in these unmarried relationships. Nevertheless, keep in mind that this is not a good estimate of the odds that someone will be unfaithful in an unmarried relationship. To be in this sample, a person would have had to have broken up in at least one serious relationship and entered another. Thus, this result does not mean that 44 percent of those under 40 in the U. S. have been unfaithful to a partner, and it certainly does not mean that such a high percent who are married in a similar age range have or will be been unfaithful. Getting that percentage measured correctly would require a different type of sample and method to yield the best estimate of how likely it is that people will have cheated on any partner before eventually settling down in marriage among those who have married. Closely related to that question, Galena Rhoades and I found in a previous study that 16 percent of those followed into marriage in the study’s parent project described here reported that they had cheated on their eventual spouse sometime before marriage.[viii]

In this new study, 45 percent who reported cheating on their partner in the first relationship reported also doing so in the second. Among those who had not cheated in the first, far less, 18 percent, cheated in the second. While the odds of cheating on a partner were far greater if one had done so in the past, it is also true that a person cheating in one relationship was not destined to do so in the next relationship. In fact, slightly more people who had cheated in the first relationship studied did not report cheating in the second.

The study also found that those who were certain that their partner in the first relationship had cheated were twice as likely as those not reporting this to experience a cheating partner in the second relationship. Again, history was not destiny, but history did speak to greater odds of a repeat experience.  

Implications

It would be incorrect to assume that one is destined to endlessly repeat painful relationship patterns. And yet, some people are at much greater risk than others for negative outcomes in romantic relationships (and marriage), and they are at greater risk for repeat experiences. Some people are simply more likely than others to cheat on their partners and more likely to choose partners who cheat on them, and to do so in more than one relationship. This touches on the complex subject of selection into risk, which Galena Rhoades and I have written about more than a few times (for example, here and here).

The study described here was not designed to address complicated questions such as how the risk of infidelity might be lowered in relationships and marriage, or how it could be prevented from happening again. Future research could examine what predicts whether or not someone who cheated on one partner does so again; however, most of the same predictors of ever cheating will predict repeatedly cheating quite well. Among all of the factors associated with cheating, some are surely more amenable to change than others. Variables that are biological (e.g., differences in proneness to sexual excitement) or cultural (and thus impacting individual values) are in the mix, but so are other factors, like commitment, that I believe people have some control over.

Galena Rhoades and I have described how relationship histories may play an important and causal role in eventual relationship quality in marriage (or not in marriage, for that matter).  Specifically, while having more experience in various aspects of life is usually a good thing, having more experience in relationships may not be so good when those experiences include serious involvements that alter one’s odds of succeeding in finding and keeping lasting love. Nevertheless, behaviors of the past do not have to be the definition of one’s future.

This article was first posted at the blog for The Institute for Family Studies September 6th, 2017.  

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[i] Knopp, K., Scott, S.B., Ritchie, L.L., Rhoades, G.K., Markman, H.J., & Stanley, S.M. (2017). Once a cheater, always a cheater? Serial infidelity across subsequent relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-017-1018-1

[ii] The Relationship Development Study. For a description of the sample and basic methods, see Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2010).  Should I stay or should I go? Predicting dating relationship stability from four aspects of commitment. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(5), 543-550.

[iii] Since the literature is so well cited in the recent paper (and in papers cited in the recent paper), I will make no attempt here to cite each point regarding prior findings in this piece.

[iv] Allen, E. S., Atkins, D., Baucom, D. H., Snyder, D., Gordon, K. C., & Glass, S. P. (2005). Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual factors in engaging in and responding to extramarital involvement. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 12, 101-130.

[v] Treas, J., & Giesen, D. (2000). Sexual infidelity among married and cohabiting Americans. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 48–60.

[vi] Maddox Shaw, A. M., Rhoades, G. K., Allen, E. S., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2013).  Predictors of extradyadic sexual involvement in unmarried opposite-sex relationships. Journal of Sex Research, 50(6), 598 - 610. DOI:10.1080/00224499.2012.666816

[vii] There are also a few studies that look at what factors earlier in following a longitudinal sample predict eventual infidelity, e.g.:  Previti, D., & Amato, P.R. (2004). Is infidelity a cause or a consequence of poor marital quality?

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21, 217–230.; Allen, E. S., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J., Williams, T., Melton, J., & Clements, M. L. (2008). Premarital precursors of marital infidelity. Family Process, 47, 243-259.

[viii] Rhoades, G. K., & Stanley, S. M. (2014). Before “I Do”: What do premarital experiences have to do with marital quality among today’s young adults? Charlottesville, VA: National Marriage Project. 

Give me a sign: What Signals Commitment?

Correctly “reading” the signs of commitment in a potential long-term partner/mate is crucial. This is most important earlier on, of course, prior to “settling down” with someone, particularly when one partner wants to know if the relationship they are in right now has a future. You can press for this information too soon but you can also wait too long to get the big question, clarified—is this person as into me as I am into them? Can this relationship turn into a commitment? When you don’t get solid information about commitment as things progress, you can miss important signs of asymmetrical commitment. That’s a lousy place to land.

What’s a good signal of commitment? 

By good I mean that the signal is valid. The signal reflects something about commitment; it's not mere noise. Some of the characteristics of good signals of commitment or potential to have commitment with a person are these:

1.  The behavior is actually related to something about commitment. 

For example, I don’t imagine it shocks anyone reading this that a desire of another person to have sex with you doesn’t contain information about commitment. Some people believe it does but I think of that as a type of “relationship reading dyslexia.”    

Ditto if someone says, “I want to make a baby with you” with no other evidence of commitment like, say, marriage. An even worse indicator of commitment is if someone says to you, “I’d like you to have my baby.” Hm. Context matters a lot here. It may sound silly to you but this is, in fact, a relatively common behavior in some teenager groups, where some males say some version of this to females they are interested in, and some females may be flattered and impressed, and, well, don’t be falling for that. Even in these examples, it would be a lot more impressive if someone said, “I want to raise a child with you.” That statement contains a much greater amount of information, especially if it’s accurate. It gets at the essence of commitment, which is about wanting and planning a future together.

Cohabitation is popular, of course, on the dating/seeking/mating scene. However, cohabitation is not a reliable signal of commitment but, as I wrote in another piece, other things are:

If a couple tells you that they are married, you know a lot about their commitment. That does not mean that all is perfect, of course. Likewise, if a couple tells you that they have clear, mutual plans to marry, you can infer there is a lot of commitment. Even apart from marriage, I believe that a couple who says they have a lifetime commitment together is telling you something important about a strong level of intention and commitment. Those things all signal commitment. Cohabitation, per se, very often does not. (As a very complex but important aside, I do think the socioeconomic context of some couples makes marriage nearly impossible economically; for some of these couples, I believe cohabitation can be a marker of a higher level of commitment.)

2.  The behavior is under the control of the one doing it—whatever it is.

For behavior to have meaning about commitment, it must be behavior that the person has control over performing. For example, a shotgun wedding has less information in it about the commitment level of the participants than other weddings because the choice is already constrained.

Similarly, as I described in a prior post, “I love you” contains less information about commitment if it’s in the context of a hormonal rush of chemicals—when the chemistry is driving the bus. Chemistry is fun but it’s not a great bus driver, and some relationships are windy mountain roads without guardrails.   

Signals contain more information when a person has options. When you have more options to choose among, what you pick tells me more about who you are. When a person has diminished options, what he or she chooses contains less information about true preferences.

Think about buying toilet paper in 7-11. I’m not even sure they have it, but let’s suppose they do. It will be one brand, and in one roll quantities, and it will likely cost you 4 bucks a roll.  7-11 is a great chain of stores but they excel at convenience not low price or variety (except for pop and candy bars and such. They are my “go to” supplier of Junior Mints.). What does this mean? If you badly need a roll of toilet paper (not so badly that you are just heading for a restroom, if they have a public one), you’ll take what they have and forego your desire to get the Charmin Ultra Soft you might normally prefer. You’ll take the individually wrapped roll of Scott’s. (Which, at the risk of over-sharing, is a great brand and my favorite.)

How does this apply to dating and mating? Anything that constrains your options, or your partner’s, limits the information contained in the choices made. That means that some people are routinely misinterpreting the behavior of their partners, and thinking that something may signal commitment when it does not. It also means that some couples who have been together a while with an unclear future, who also have the constraints that come with living together, will have difficulty accurately reading the commitment in each other about a future, together.

3. Small sacrifices can be good signals of commitment.

By sacrifice, I don’t really mean some extraordinary feat of self-sacrifice of one for the other. Of course that would matter but I really mean small, day-to-day indicators that a person is willing to put their partner or the relationship first. And I mean mutual. A healthy relationship includes two givers who are each give to the other and the relationship in small ways that matter.  

If you are seeing someone and considering a future, ask yourself if you see evidence that they can put aside what they want at times for what is best for you.

There are a number of studies on sacrifice in intimate relationships, and I make no attempt to cover that literature here and now. But scholars have found and argued that some types of sacrificial behavior are reliable indicators of commitment.[i] Here are some examples:

             Your partner will change his or her schedule at times for you.

             Your partner will do fun things that you know he or she does not like as much as you do.

             Your partner shows up early to help you get ready for some big event.

             Your partner stops what he or she is doing to tune into something that’s stressing you.

            

You get the idea. Of course, it’s just as important to do such things for your partner, but I’m focused here on you being able to read this person’s level of commitment to you.

Bigstock Photos

As an example showing just the opposite—and quite clearly—of insufficient commitment, I vividly recall a little scene of a young couple in an airport. I was on a layover when I overheard their argument. I wasn’t eavesdropping as much as they were talking loud enough that I could not help but notice. The tension was about her wanting to dress warmer for the flight and him wanting her to stay dressed just as she was. She was in quite short shorts and some type of sleeveless, very light shirt. She didn’t want to be cold on the flight.

I don’t know about you, but I hate those flights where the plane is cold and I don’t have anything with sleeves to put on. Well, she apparently does, too. But he didn’t want her to put more clothes on. I cannot read minds but I could only guess that his motive was that he liked how she looked and he liked how he looked being with her looking that way. I was not impressed by him, and I hoped she would figure out before it was too late what her life with him might look like. Cold.

Sometimes the best signal is the one that clearly shows that something is missing. 

If you are searching for lasting love, challenge yourself to be on the look-out for signals of love and commitment that mean something. For some of you, it would be wise to ask trusted friends or family what they see and what would count for them. Love can sometimes be blind.

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[i] e.g., Wieselquist, J., Rusbult, C. E., Foster, C. A., & Agnew, C. R. (1999). Commitment, pro-relationship behavior, and trust in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 942-966.; Stanley, S. M., Whitton, S. W., Low, S. M., Clements, M. L., & Markman, H. J. (2006). Sacrifice as a predictor of marital outcomes. Family Process, 45, 289-303.

[Updated 7-5-17 from a piece first posted May 26th, 2012.]