Naturally, being honest with your partner is necessary for a healthy relationship. But, how honest?
For example, is it better to curb your honesty a little to avoid hurting your significant other’s feelings? Or maybe to avoid a fight? Does that do more harm or good?
Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York went looking for the answers.
More than 200 couples were recruited to help find out
Assistant Professor Bonnie Le from the psychology department at the university says the study involved examining face-to-face conversations between romantic partners in a lab setting.
In particular, they were looking at the effects of expressing honesty, perceiving honesty, and accurately discerning honesty among romantic partners who shared so-called relationship-threatening information.
Specifically, the study participants talked in one-on-one conversations with their partners about a change they wanted to see in the other.
The finding? Just tell the truth.
Bonnie says honesty can hurt our partners, but, in the long run, expressed and perceived honesty has several positive effects.
“We found that being more honest in expressing a desired change predicted greater personal and relationship well-being for both partners, as well as greater partner motivation to change in the moment,”
“The same pattern emerged when the person receiving a request to change perceived honesty in their partner, regardless of whether their partner was being honest or not.”
The team discovered that even if partners in a relationship don’t perfectly understand or accurately perceive each other’s honesty, the simple act of expressing honesty and being perceived as honest by the other partner has a positive effect on the relationship and contributes to its overall well-being.
Essentially, the effort to be truthful matters more than flawless accuracy in its perception.
“These results collectively suggest that being honest and seeing honesty in a partner can benefit relationships, even when the truth may hurt.”
One caveat though, these findings are based on a sample of couples in relatively good relationships. Future research might look at whether the same pattern holds true for distressed couples.
