People admire those who are selfless and considerate but don’t want them as friends or romantic partners, scientists have found.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and Yale University found people want others to prioritise their company over anything else – no matter how amicable the distraction.
They found that people who choose to spend time with their mum are more appealing as prospective friends and romantic partners than people who opt to build homes for the needy.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and Yale University found people want others to prioritise their company over anything else when it comes to a romantic partner – no matter how amicable the distraction (stock)
‘When helping strangers conflicts with helping family and kin, people prefer those who show favouritism, even if that results in doing less good overall,’ said Yale’s Molly Crockett, assistant professor of psychology and senior author of the study.
The researchers created scenarios designed to test a tough moral dilemma based on helping one person close to them or helping lots of strangers.
For example, they asked whether a grandmother who wins a substantial amount of money in the lottery should give it to her grandson to fix his car, or to a charity dedicated to combating malaria.
The researchers also asked if the would rather date a young woman who spends the day with her lonely mother or a young woman who volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, an organisation that builds homes for the poor and needy around the world.
Participants in the study viewed both choices as equally moral but when it came to looking for a spouse or a friend, they preferred those who helped their grandson or spent the day with mother.
Oxford and Yale researchers found that people who choose to spend time with their mum are more appealing as prospective friends and romantic partners than people who opt to build homes for the needy (stock)
‘Friendship requires favoritism – the key thing about friendship is that you treat your friends in a way you don’t treat other people,’ said Oxford’s Jim Everett, first author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
‘Who would want a friend who wouldn’t help you when you needed it?’
This preference was reduced when participants were asked about qualities they wanted in a boss.
It then completely disappeared when people were asked about desired traits in a political leader as the role requires impartiality.
‘A political leader who represented the interests of themselves or their family over the country would be disastrous,’ Dr Everett said.
According to the researchers, these findings suggest a roadblock for ‘effective altruists’.
These individuals argue people should donate money to a charity to help relieve poverty and disease in the developing world rather than to a local group that would help fewer people.
WHAT CAUSES RELATIONSHIPS TO FAIL?
A relationship can have many downfalls but ‘marriages often die more by ice than by fire’ says leading relationship expert Dr Michael McNulty.
Couples drift apart and this often leads to break-ups.
The first steps that lead to couples drifting apart in a break-up can be broken down as follows:
Stage one: More negativity than positivity seeps into the relationship.
Stage two: The four horsemen of the apocalypse – Contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling all contribute to a poisonous relationship.
Stage three: Flooding – The stage where anger starts coming out in the relationship and the partners become highly emotional.
Stage four: Emotional disengagement – After the vast amount of emotional unrest before this is where the relationships becomes stale, with both parties checking out already.
Relationships of any length can become damaging and prone to failure if the two people involved don’t constantly work towards maintaining parity and a healthy relationship (stock image)