Despite their blase demeanours, young
men are more affected by the ups and downs of romantic relationships than their
girlfriends are, a new study suggests.
While young women are more
affected by their relationship status—that is, whether they are in one or
not—young men are more sensitive to a relationship’s quality, such
as how supportive or straining it is, LiveScience
reported.
“Simply being in a relationship may be more important
for a woman’s identity,” said lead researcher Robin Simon of Wake
Forest University in North Carolina. Having a relationship “is something
that is emphasized constantly for women. Just pick up any woman’s
magazine.”
But once in a relationship, the romance’s
strengths are particularly helpful to men, and its difficult periods are
particularly hard on them, Simon told LiveScience.
In the study,
1,611 men and women between the ages of 18 and 23 answered questions about their
relationships and their own emotional states, including rating symptoms of
depression and substance abuse. The questions were asked twice, two years apart,
helping researchers deduce that emotional states were largely influenced by a
relationship, not the other way around.
Rocky relationships were
associated with equal amounts of depression in young men and women, and
significantly greater problems with substance abuse and dependence among men.
The correlative findings were published in the June issue of the Journal of
Health and Social Behavior.
Why relationships affect young women and
men differently is not yet clear. But the finding contradicts the conventional
view of women as the more emotionally involved romantic partner.
No
matter their game face, men are not stoically impervious to a
relationship’s ebbs and flows, Simon said.
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