Western U study explores the health of relationships – and not just on Valentines Day – London | globalnews.ca

Here once again, relationships come to mind with Valentine’s Day, but a London, Ontario, psychologist is asking how a seemingly healthy romantic relationship can become unsatisfactory over time and what can be done to intervene.

David Dozois, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry Western Universityis leading a study that examines how partners interpret each other’s behavior to find out if a relationship can become a negative experience.

Dozois said the ongoing study relates to her work with depression, “realizing that a large part of it has to do with interpersonal beliefs. [and] Beliefs about who I am in relationships with others.

“We began to look at what belief systems we establish in the context of romantic relationships, and whether we can use them to better understand how this contributes to depression and relationship distress,” he said.

Through the study, Dozois and his team developed a series of questionnaires that “measure how people think about their partners.”

Currently, 150 couples are involved and put through a conflict discussion task, where they talk about something that “is causing a little bit of a problem in the relationship,” Dojois said. The discussions are filmed and shown for analysis, and participants are also asked to keep a daily diary for a few weeks.

“With all that information, we hope to come up with better interventions to help couples communicate differently, problem solve, and better accept the other partner,” Dojois said. , which can go a long way in improving relationship satisfaction.”

Highlighting the effects of COVID-19 in the context of previous lockdowns, he said that “the pandemic has really shown us both the good and the bad in relationships.”

“For many people, I think it was something that amplified what was out there,” he said. “If there was some tension in the relationship, it made things worse. But if it was a healthy relationship, I think the pandemic actually helped us improve things.

“It was really something that created a great deal of extremes within our relationship,” he said.

The research team is looking for a total of 300 adult couples of all gender identities, sexual orientations and age groups to join the study. Dojois said that a couple must have been in a relationship for three or more months to be accepted.

For more information and those interested in joining the study can email the research team at moodlab@uwo.ca.

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