Commuting to work can be advantageous in terms of income and career opportunities, and it presents a good alternative to moving. But long commuting times also entail less time for family and friends and can lead to stress and health problems. Pair relationships are also jeopardized, and according to a new dissertation from Umeå University, the risk of separation is 40 percent higher among long-distance commuters than among other people.
Expanding job market regions are prompting more and more people to commute long distances to work, and for 11 percent of Swedes it takes at least 45 minutes to get to work. Many of them are parents of small children and live with their partner, and most of them are men.
“To be able to commute to work can be a positive thing because it means you don’t have to uproot your family with every career move but it can also be a strain on your relationship,” said author Erika Sandow
In her dissertation, social geographer Erika Sandow at Umeå University has mapped long-distance commuting in Sweden and examined its impacts on income and relationships. The findings show that even though income and careers often benefit from commuting, social costs are incurred, and, according to Erika Sandow, they should be included in the discussion.
Men benefit more from long-distance commuting [continue reading…]
istockphoto
We have all seen the headlines. A powerful athlete, politician or businessman has committed adultery. The tabloids fly off the shelves and the papers are consumed with the how’s and why’s. However there is one key group that is often missing from the news and gossip columns – women.
It is a commonly accepted notion that men simply are more likely to cheat than women. However, an upcoming study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association of Psychological Science, looks at the role that power, rather than gender, plays in infidelity.
Using a large, anonymous internet survey of 1561 individuals, Joris Lammers of Tilburg University and a team of researchers set out to discover if there is a higher risk of unfaithfulness in people in positions of power, regardless of gender. “There has been a lot of research in the past that indicates that gender is the strongest predictor of infidelity, but none of these studies have been done on powerful women,” said Lammers. [continue reading…]
Historically, men have been more likely to cheat, but cybersex may be changing that, research suggests.
© iStockphoto
The typical affair used to start in the office and move to a seedy motel room, but the vast reach of the Internet has brought infidelity into many couples’ homes over the past decade.
The growth in steamy chat room conversations and cybersex also has triggered a rethinking of the meaning of infidelity. If there is no physical contact or actual sex, is it still an affair?
“It’s not just that you’re communicating with someone online but that there is a sexual or emotional nature,” says Katherine Hertlein, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas who studies online affairs. “With the Internet, we’re moving away from just physical ideas about infidelity and acknowledging emotional infidelity.”
While there is no universally accepted definition, an Internet affair frequently involves intimate chat sessions and sexually stimulating conversation or cybersex, which may include filming mutual masturbation with a Web camera.
Several studies suggest that even when there is no in-person contact, online affairs can be just as devastating as the real-world variety, triggering feelings of insecurity, anger and jealousy. Women usually feel more threatened by the emotional betrayal of a partner’s online affair, while men are more concerned about physical encounters, Hertlein says, but the gender differences are lessening. Curious? Continue reading
Source: American Psychological Association
Published: February 28, 2011
© iStockphoto
Conventional wisdom says that if you idealize the person you marry, the disappointment is just going to be that much worse when you find out they aren’t perfect. But new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, challenges that assumption; people who were unrealistically idealistic about their partners when they got married were more satisfied with their marriage three years later than less idealistic people. [continue reading…]
