Why love and hate relationships are so difficult. Relationships that evoke conflicting feelings may cause more stress than those characterized by outright dislike.
The loving, critical mom. The fun, undependable friend. The supportive, cantankerous boss. Relationships that evoke conflicting feelings may cause more stress than those characterized by outright dislike, according to a study.
For three days, researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah studied 102 healthy men and women wearing portable blood pressure monitors during all their social exchanges. About five minutes into each exchange, subjects had their blood pressure measured. They also kept a diary.
The study found subjects’ blood pressure was higher when they met friends, family or co-workers for whom they had mixed feelings than when they dealt with people for whom they felt mostly positively or mostly negatively. Previous research has found that, in general, social relationships are beneficial to health.
People are more on edge in conflicted relationships because they never know what to expect, says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University and lead author of the study. It can help to acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of these relationships, she says. “We can be strategic about our coping if we know that in some circumstances these people are great and in some circumstances they are not helpful.”
