What is gaslighting? In a recent study, Klein et al. (2023) aimed to build a framework defining gaslighting and its features in romantic relationships based on pre-existing theory and the lived experience of 65 gaslighting survivors.

They found that gaslighting can be best defined as a form of abuse wherein a perpetrator manipulates a survivor into doubting their own rationality and memory, ultimately undermining their confidence and autonomy in order to manipulate and control them. Additionally, the study revealed that gaslighting tactics include denial, misdirection, and accusations of craziness or emotional instability, which aim to destabilize the survivor's beliefs and perceptions, inducing self-doubt and confusion. Klein et al. also highlighted that gaslighting behavior may be linked with control seeking but could also stem from vindictiveness.

In coping with gaslighting, some participants did not recover from their experiences, while others recovered by cutting contact with the perpetrators and seeking support from others who validated their experiences. Through engaging in activities like yoga, meditation, sports, and creative pursuits such as writing and art, some survivors were able to reclaim their sense of self and express their emotions. Some also described post-traumatic growth narratives, focusing on establishing healthier boundaries and developing a stronger sense of self in response to the gaslighting.

In conclusion, Klein et al. (2023) illuminated the harmful dynamics of gaslighting in relationships, strengthened previous definitions, identified specific gaslighting behaviors and highlighted diverse coping strategies of survivors.

Citation: Klein, W., Li, S., & Wood, S. (2023). A qualitative analysis of gaslighting in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 30(4), 1316–1340. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12510

Can your expectations of your partner make or break your relationship? Joel et al. (2023) investigated the associations between behavioral expectations (i.e., what a person expects of their partner in the relationship), behavioral perceptions (i.e., how a person perceives their partner’s behavior in the relationship), and overall relationship quality.

Results showed that participants who expected greater positive relationship behaviors from their partner perceived greater positive relationship behaviors and reported greater relationship quality. This was true regardless of the reported behaviors the partner engaged in. Moreover, participants who expected greater positive relationship behaviors from their partner were more satisfied with and committed to their relationship. However, this was also true in the opposite direction - people who expected fewer positive behaviours from their partner perceived fewer positive behaviours, regardless of their partner’s actual behaviour.

All in all, this study suggests that your expectations of your partner significantly influence how you perceive your partner's behavior and the overall quality of your relationship. Essentially, you see what you expect to see, regardless of the reality.

Citation: Joel, S., Maxwell, J. A., Khera, D., Peetz, J., Baucom, B. R. W., & MacDonald, G. (2023). Expect and you shall perceive: People who expect better in turn perceive better behaviors from their romantic partners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(6), 1230–1255. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000411

How well do you have to know someone to be happy with them? Or rather, how well do they have to know you? In 2023, Schroeder and Fisbach investigated how feeling known (the belief that one feels their partner knows them) and felt knowing (the belief that one knows their partner) affect relationship satisfaction.

Across several studies, 2036 participants reflected on their perceptions of felt knowing and feeling known by their family, romantic partners, friends, and acquaintances. Greater relationship satisfaction was reported when participants felt understood by others compared to situations where they believed they had a profound understanding of others. Intriguingly, these findings suggest that not feeling known by others could decrease our happiness within those relationships. Further, the authors revealed that if we want to be optimally attractive when online dating, we need to create profiles that convey that we want to know others, rather than that we want to be known.

In other words, we might be a little bit selfish when it comes to our relationships – we need to feel like our friends and family members know our opinions, life goals, thoughts, and preferences to feel satisfied in our relationships with them, but it’s not as important for us to feel like we know them.

Citation: Schroeder, J., & Fishbach, A. (2024). Feeling known predicts relationship satisfaction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 111, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104559

Do good relationships always improve emotional well-being in adolescents? In 2024, Millgram et al. conducted a study investigating the link between emotional well-being and the quality of relationships between 80,000 teenagers and their family, friends, and teachers. The study revealed that the effects of adolescents’ relationships with friends or teachers on their well-being depend on their relationships with their family. In fact, when adolescents have poor-quality relationships with family, better relationships with friends or teachers predict more negative emotions. The authors theorize that this may be because having good relationships with friends or teachers highlights the lower quality of the relationship with family members, thereby increasing negative emotions. Additionally, more intimate relationships with friends might lead to more communication about problems with family, which could also lead to an increase in negative emotions.

This study presents evidence supporting the idea that relationships do not operate independently, but rather, interact with one another. While we may assume that positive relationships with friends or teachers increase the mental well-being of youth with low-quality family relationships, it seems that they may actually be doing more harm than good.

Citation: Millgram, Y., Tamir, M., Bruck, S., & Ben-Arieh, A. (2024). Better relationships do not always feel better: Social relationships interact in predicting negative emotions in early adolescence. Emotion, 24(5), 1259–1272. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001334

Previous research has shown that high quality romantic relationships can lead to better health. However, little research has examined factors affecting romantic relationship functioning in LGBTQ+ individuals. So, how might the unique challenges that LGBTQ+ individuals face affect their relationships, and in turn, their health?

In 2023, Bresin et al. examined the associations between sexual and gender minority (SGM) stress and romantic relationship functioning of LGBTQ+ individuals. They found that greater SGM stress was associated with lower relationship functioning, suggesting that LGBTQ+ individuals who are subjected to more discrimination may in turn have worse health, as they may lack the protective health benefits that are generated from high-quality relationships. Bresin et al.’s work is important to consider in a political climate that is still unfriendly to LGBTQ+ individuals, as the stress from homophobic and transphobic discrimination induces harm not only on the relationships between queer individuals, but also on their health.

Citation: Bresin, K., Nicholas, J. K., Cowand, A. L., Alacha, H. F., Rodriguez, A. M., & Parrott, D. J. (2023). The effects of sexual and gender minority stress on relationship functioning: A meta‐analysis. Personal Relationships, 30(4), 1208–1231. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12511

Does the way you treat yourself affect your romantic relationship? Körner et al. conducted a study examining how a person’s self-compassion impacts both their own and their partner’s relationship satisfaction. Self-compassion consists of three elements: being kind and understanding towards yourself when experiencing difficulties; viewing failures as a part of being human rather than as a personal fault; and non-judgmentally managing your emotions during difficult times. 

209 heterosexual couples were asked to complete questionnaires measuring self-compassion, relationship-specific self-compassion, and relationship satisfaction. More specifically, relationship satisfaction was measured in terms of commitment, sexual fulfillment, long-term outlook, mistrust, and restrictions within a relationship. The team found that, as individuals, partners who were self-compassionate reported greater relationship satisfaction. However, an individual’s self-compassion was not related to their partner’s relationship satisfaction, rather, only to their own. However, it was found that relationship-specific self-compassion affected both an individual’s and their partner’s relationship satisfaction. These findings highlight how self-compassion may be beneficial to both the self and partner--thus, there seems to be truth to the popular saying, “You need to love yourself before you can love someone else.”

Citation: Körner, R., Tandler, N., Petersen, L.-E., & Schütz, A. (2024). Is caring for oneself relevant to happy relationship functioning? Exploring associations between self-compassion and romantic relationship satisfaction in actors and partners. Personal Relationships. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12535

Have you ever been in a state of “blind” rage? It seems as though being caught up in our own emotions can make us unaware of - or make us stop caring about – others’ feelings. This phenomenon begs the question: is there a relationship between our ability to regulate our own emotions and our ability to empathize with others? When talking about empathy, we have to consider cognitive empathy, which refers to our ability to understand others’ emotions through conscious perspective-taking, as well as affective empathy, which refers to our ability to share others’ emotions by recognizing and mimicking them.

In a recent study by Thompson et al., researchers examined 48 university students’ cognitive and affective empathy using task measures and investigated their link with self-reports of emotional dysregulation. They mainly found that greater perspective-taking, i.e. cognitive empathy, was associated with lower emotion dysregulation. Hence, this seems to indicate that practicing our cognitive empathy improves our emotion regulation, or that being emotionally regulated could improve our perspective-taking skills. In other words, the next time you feel strong negative emotions, it might be important to take a step back and care for your own emotions before you can wholeheartedly understand other peoples’ perspectives.

Citation: Thompson, N. M., van Reekum, C. M., & Chakrabarti, B. (2024). Emotion dysregulation modulates visual perspective taking and spontaneous facial mimicry. Emotion, 24(1), 164–176. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001254

Can your friends improve your health? In a study examining friendships and their influence on well-being, Yücel and Dincer (2024) identified links between positive and negative relational self-changes, friendship quality, and well-being. Relational self-changes refer to changes in the way a person sees themself due to a close relationship. A friend motivating you to engage in personal growth (e.g, going to therapy) is an example of a desirable and positive self-change. Conversely, a friend influencing you to engage in more negative behaviors (e.g, binge drinking) is an example of a maladaptive and negative self-change. 

306 undergraduate students completed a survey assessing the quality of their best friendship, relational self-changes in their best friendship, and overall well-being. Results demonstrated that higher quality friendships were associated with more positive self-changes, less negative self-changes, and greater well-being. Findings highlight the power that friendships have on well-being, emphasizing the importance of fostering high-quality friendships.

Citation: Yücel, E., & Dincer, D. (2024). Transformative power of friendships: Examining the relationships among friendship quality, self-change, and well-being. Personal Relationships. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12536.

Let’s talk about sex: do couples communicate more lovingly during sexual discussions than they do during nonsexual discussions, and does this affect relationship satisfaction? In 2022, Roels et al. tried to answer these questions by observing how partners in 126 young, mixed-gender couples communicated during sexual and nonsexual conflicts. Researchers took note of how often partners behaved positively and negatively during these types of discussions. Being reassuring and patient, for instance, were seen as positive behaviours, whereas showing contempt and frustration were considered to be negative. The researchers also measured relationship satisfaction and investigated whether it was linked to either type of behaviour during sexual and nonsexual discussions.

Roels et al. found that couples tended to interact more positively when discussing sexual topics. Though this may seem surprising, all of us can agree that sex is an incredibly intimate thing and an important component of most romantic relationships; talking about it can be very anxiety-inducing, and according to previous research, partners tend to approach conversations about sex with caution in order to mitigate stress and make themselves and their partner feel more at-ease (Rehman et al., 2017). As for relationship satisfaction, the researchers found that more positive behaviours were linked with higher relationship satisfaction, regardless of the nature of the discussion. However, when it came to sexual discussions, they found that only men’s negative behaviours were linked with lower relationship satisfaction. These findings highlight the importance of sex in romantic relationships and show the significance of open and kind communication, particularly during sexual discussions, when it comes to fostering healthy and satisfying relationships.

Citation: Roels, R., Rehman, U. S., Goodnight, J. A., & Janssen, E. (2022). Couple Communication Behaviors During Sexual and Nonsexual Discussions and Their Association with Relationship Satisfaction. Archives of sexual behavior, 51(3), 1541–1557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02204-4