Are you having trouble meeting your other half? This may be explained by… your lack of precise objectives. Explanations.
While humor and open-mindedness are often considered essential criteria to please during a romantic encounter, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis (United States) revealed that “life goals” prove to be quite decisive.
Having a specific life goal is attractive
For this work, reported in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, the scientists recruited 119 candidates and analyzed four categories of goals in life:
- L’orientation prosociale (which designates a person whose objectives are focused on others) ;
- Relational orientation (which refers to goals focused on family and finding a partner) ;
- Financial orientation (which designates financial objectives) ;
- Creative orientation (which designates objectives focused on creativity and originality).
The researchers then designed four profiles corresponding to each category and five profiles without any life goals.
The candidates then had to classify the nine fake profiles based on various attraction criteria. In particular, they had to evaluate “their level of potential relationship quality” with profiles.
Result ? Candidates who presented specific life goals were rated higher than others.
“Paired-samples tests revealed that dating profiles that espoused prosocial, relational, or creative orientations were rated as having higher potential relationship quality than the low-goal profile.“, specifies the study.
Similar life goals bring you closer together
Another edifying observation: the more a participant identified with a given orientation, the more positively they judged the candidate.
In contrast, participants with specific financial goals seemed to cool off the majority of candidates.
“The financial goal orientation profile did not differ from the “low goals” profile in terms of level of potential relationship quality“, assure the researchers.
How to set goals as a couple?
Since science has shown it – having a common goal is beneficial in love – why not set goals together from now on?
Moving, traveling, family life, entrepreneurship… While they can be multiple and varied, the important thing is to “brainstorm” – that is to say, to talk together about the things you want to prioritize in your relationship – and achieve these goals.
They will allow you to move forward and build your life project together.
