Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2016 4:46:35 GMT 7
There remains a pervasive notion that happiness can only truly come from finding a spouse, lest one rot of loneliness in some dusty attic. But a new study out of the University of California at Santa Barbara provides a very different view of singledom, one that this single woman finds enormously encouraging.
In work presented at the American Psychological Association’s 124th annual conference, Bella dePaulo suggests that single people may have more fulfilling social lives and experience greater psychological growth than some married people. She sifted through 814 studies and found data that showed that single people are more connected with family and friends, whereas marriage tends to make two people insular. She also found that the more self-sufficient single people were, the less likely they were to experience negative emotions. But with married people, greater self-sufficiency actually seemed tied to stress and difficulty.
DePaulo’s work is certainly timely. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 there were 124.6 million unmarried Americans over age 16, meaning 50.2% of the nation’s adult population was single. Compare that to 1976, when only 37.4% of American adults were single.
I’m 35, and single by choice for the first time in 20 years. That means that from 1996 to 2016, I was always in a relationship or chasing a relationship. I was also going to high school, finishing college, completing a master’s degree, working various jobs, publishing books, and lots of other things. But underlying it all, even my passionate love for my work, was the deep-seated belief that I must have a partner in order to be a complete or worthy being. I never applied that thinking to anyone else. I just knew that I wasn’t good enough to be alone.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/10/psychology-single-people-more-fulfilled-relationships
In work presented at the American Psychological Association’s 124th annual conference, Bella dePaulo suggests that single people may have more fulfilling social lives and experience greater psychological growth than some married people. She sifted through 814 studies and found data that showed that single people are more connected with family and friends, whereas marriage tends to make two people insular. She also found that the more self-sufficient single people were, the less likely they were to experience negative emotions. But with married people, greater self-sufficiency actually seemed tied to stress and difficulty.
DePaulo’s work is certainly timely. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 there were 124.6 million unmarried Americans over age 16, meaning 50.2% of the nation’s adult population was single. Compare that to 1976, when only 37.4% of American adults were single.
I’m 35, and single by choice for the first time in 20 years. That means that from 1996 to 2016, I was always in a relationship or chasing a relationship. I was also going to high school, finishing college, completing a master’s degree, working various jobs, publishing books, and lots of other things. But underlying it all, even my passionate love for my work, was the deep-seated belief that I must have a partner in order to be a complete or worthy being. I never applied that thinking to anyone else. I just knew that I wasn’t good enough to be alone.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/10/psychology-single-people-more-fulfilled-relationships
