In psychology, it has long been accepted that seemingly momentous changes in life may enact short-term changes in our behavior, but before long, old patterns kick back in. It’s commonly used to explain why things such as a sudden disability or a lottery win don’t change people as much as we might expect them to.
COVID-19 has upended a great many aspects of our normal lives, but does the same apply? New research from UT Austin explores this question in the context of our personal relationships and finds the old heuristic remains largely true, with relationships continuing much as they were, despite the considerable upheaval.
Locked down
With the pandemic forcing many of us to be locked down and quarantined with our partners, the researchers were curious about what kind of impact this might have on our relationships. Would there be more babies born, divorces happening, arguments flaring? It turns out that things largely carried on much as they did before.
“We have increased amounts of time together, and the pandemic is forcing us to rely on our partners for more support during a major upheaval in our lives,” the researchers say.
Some couples were supportive of each other, with the pandemic largely bringing them closer together. Other couples, however, lacked such tendencies and therefore struggled during COVID.
The researchers reveal that previous studies have had somewhat mixed conclusions about the role major external stressors have on our relationships. The very nature of these events means that most of the time they’re studied afterward. COVID alters that as it allows analysis to be done as the pandemic unfolds. The researchers used previous data collected in December 2019 as the baseline.
“If they were happy in December, they were still happy,” the researchers say. “If they were unhappy in December, unfortunately, they were still unhappy.”
Blaming the pandemic
The study found that couples with generally positive habits, including sharing tasks, supporting one another, and generally working as a team, unsurprisingly were more satisfied with their relationship during the pandemic. These couples also attributed any negative behaviors in their partner to the stress caused by the pandemic rather than any inherent personality flaws.
“How we think about our relationships and about our partners is a very important predictor for relationship satisfaction,” the researchers explain. “If your partner is doing something irritating or you’re arguing, considering that they are under stress from this huge, external stressor of the pandemic can have a protective effect for the relationship.”
In other words, it can help our relationship if we blame the pandemic for any bad behaviors rather than our partner.
For those with less successful relationships, however, COVID coincided with a rise in conflict and a decline in overall satisfaction. For these couples, such behaviors would largely be attributed to them as people rather than due to the stress the pandemic was placing them under.
