A trio of psychologists at The University of St Andrews, in Scotland, has found that taking a five-second break before things escalate can reduce the chances of a full-blown argument occurring. For their paper, published in the journal Communications Psychology, Annah McCurry, Robert May and David Donaldson, conducted emotional experiments with volunteer couples.
  • Donut@leminal.spaceEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    This is amazing. We’ve gone from “count to 10 so you don’t get mad”, to “don’t count to 10, it’s only gonna make you focus on the problem and it gets worse”, back to “count to 10 (or just 5, apparently) and avoid an argument”.

    For anyone who’s like “well duh people have been saying this for ages, my grandmother told me this”: this is data driven research that empirically (until proven wrong) proves that it does work.

    My biggest problem with learning about these kind of studies is trying to let go of any “folk wisdom” people have been telling me for years, and actually remembering what is proven and what’s considered a myth.