A dearth of data about online dating in later life prompted two Bowling Green State University gerontologists to look into the phenomenon.

In their research, Drs. Wendy K. Watson and Charlie Stelle aim to increase the quantity and improve the quality of information available about dating in later life, and in this case, online dating.

Although the research is in the early stage, Watson and Stelle are finding that older adults appear to market themselves differently on online dating sites than younger adults.

Most notable is the absence of physical appearance (looks) and status. Evidence suggests the senior population appears to be more interested in honest self-representation, compatibility and companionship rather than discussing areas such as sexual prowess and nightlife.

The researchers found traditional online coding terms used to describe younger generations seem to “miss some key elements relevant for ads placed by older adults.”

Watson and Stelle suggest online sites geared at those over 60 might want to consider adding personal characteristics such as affection, intelligence, independence, purpose and goals, religion and spirituality, political beliefs, health and status.

Interestingly, the language of seniors’ online ads was different when describing themselves and what they were looking for in a relationship. Terms such as “young at heart” and “active” were used to show physical fitness and good health.

In previous research on dating in later life, Watson and Stelle found that older women had specific expectations regarding dating.

Watson said women don’t have a need that has to be filled. “Instead their philosophy is: ‘Please don’t waste my time,’” she said.

“They are less likely to play games,” Stelle said. “They want to make a decision quickly and cut their losses, because they have learned life is too short for dating games.”

In the future, Watson and Stelle will continue their research and expand the analysis within the match.com and ourtime.com dating sites.

The experts say their findings show that the desire to find love and a companion to share life with has no expiration date.

Source: Bowling Green State University

Eledrly lady on a computer photo by shutterstock.

Needless to say, a pessimistic assessment goes hand in hand with an increased risk of illness or death. It can be assumed that on average people who rate their health as poor have an unhealthier lifestyle, are often in a fragile state of health or are already sick.

However, earlier studies that only monitored the participants for a few years after the survey reveal that the correlation persists even if these factors are taken into account.

In the new study by researchers at the University of Zurich, investigators demonstrated that self-rated health is also linked to the probability of survival or death over a long period of more than thirty years.

In the study, which was conducted in Switzerland, men who rated their health as “very poor” were 3.3 times more likely to die than men of the same age who rated their health as “excellent”, and the risk of death was 1.9 times higher in women who rated their health as “very poor” than for those who rated it as “excellent”.

Here, the risk increased steadily from an optimistic to a pessimistic rating: people in “excellent” health had better chances of survival than those in “good” health, the latter better chances than those in a “fair” state of health, and so on.

“The steady increase in risk and the long time of over thirty years between the self-rating and the end of the observation period render it practically impossible for medical history or a dark foreboding to be main causes of the correlation observed,” explains head of the study Matthias Bopp.

When investigators statistically removed confounding variables, such as education levels, marital status, tobacco-related strains, medical history, the use of medication, blood pressure and blood glucose into account, the correlation between self-rated health and mortality only remained strong.

The difference in the risk of death between the best and the worst rating was still 1:2.9 in men and 1:1.5 in women.

“Our results indicate that people who rate their state of health as excellent have attributes that improve and sustain their health,” concludes specialist in preventive medicine David Fäh.

“These might include a positive attitude, an optimistic outlook and a fundamental level of satisfaction with one’s own life.”

The results of the study support the broad concept of health advocated by the World Health Organization not as the absence of disease, but rather as complete physical, mental and social wellbeing.

In the future, investigators hope that an individual’s uncertain view of health will trigger positive holistic strategies to improve an individual’s outlook on life.

“Good doctors should therefore not just look for the presence of risk factors or diseases, but also check which health resources their patients have and boost and consolidate them if need be,” says David Fäh.

Source: University of Zurich

Elwely woman and doctor looking out window photo by shutterstock.

Researchers say the connection allows each partner an opportunity to relieve stress and anxiety and helps to improve relationship satisfaction.

The findings stem from research by Kansas State University psychologist Dr. Brenda McDaniel as she studied conflict and conflict recovery in young dating couples. McDaniel reviewed self-reported questionnaires, documented physiological markers of stress and videotaped emotional reactions.

She also has looked at factors that relate to positive dating relationships or problematic relationships.

In the current study, McDaniel and her team worked with more than 50 couples ages 18 to 20 who had been dating for a least six months but were not engaged, married or living together.

“These relationships are, by nature, unstable to begin with,” McDaniel said. “They are early dating relationships. Sometimes it is hard to even get the couples to engage in conflict. Conflict does exist but, because the relationship is so new to them, they don’t want to cause a break-up.”

To observe stress hormone levels, researchers had participants spend 20 minutes talking about a topic that continually causes relationship tension. Often, conflict occurred when one partner treated the other differently in front of family, did not introduce the other to parents and friends, or was flirting with someone else.

“Typically, the couple is not going to come to a resolution regarding the reoccurring conflict within the 20 minute discussion,” McDaniel said. “But we want to get the stress response to see how couples recover from that relationship stress.”

As part of the research design, the stressful discussion was followed by a 20 minutes discussion of a positive shared time during their relationship. These conversations often included reminiscing about their first date, remembering their first kiss or a vacation together.

The researchers tracked physiological markers of stress and videotaped emotional reaction before, during and after both the conflict discussion and the happier discussion.

“Whenever you get into a fight and you get amped up, it is typically more adaptive to let that go after the fight,” McDaniel said. “If you ruminate and keep that anger, it can have negative mental and physical consequences. It’s better to have a nice downward recovery after conflict.”

To see if a downward recovery occurred in couples, researchers examined levels of the stress hormone cortisol before the conflict discussion, after the conflict discussion and after the “happy times” discussion.

Specifically, researchers discovered that if the cortisol levels resembled an inverted V shape — low before the conflict discussion, high after the conflict discussion, and low again after the happier discussion — the person often reported higher relationship satisfaction and higher relationship closeness. Participants whose cortisol levels stayed high instead of coming back down after the happier discussion reported lower relationship satisfaction and less relationship closeness.

Positive relationships were also associated with smooth conversational flow. “Those individuals whose stress hormone levels remained high didn’t enter into that state of flow.”

Flow is like being “in the zone,” McDaniel said. People might be in a state of flow if they are so engaged they lose track of time, or get a sense of enjoyment or creativity from an experience. Flow is often used to describe an athlete who is “hot” during a basketball game or a painter during the creation of a painting.

“A majority of the literature focuses on experiencing flow in a job or activity,” McDaniel said. “But our study examined how couples might experience flow during conversation.”

Investigators discovered that staying or engaging in the flow is often associated with positive characteristics of relationships. However, researchers found that the flow could be one-sided, that is, a person who was happy and in a positive mood could engage in flow even if his or her partner was not “in the zone.”

McDaniel said this disconnect in flow may be because of the nature of late adolescent relationships — 18- to 20-year-olds are still more focused on themselves than on others.

Among this age group, each party may focus only on how they feel about the relationship and what they are getting out of it — rather than a mutual process that includes how the other person feels about the relationship.

“While more research needs to be done, this positive rewarding state of flow during conversation may be one of the factors that create enduring marital relationships,” McDaniel said. “Hence, these early relationships may serve as practice for later long-term relationship.”

McDaniel also has a recommendation for young dating couples who want to improve their relationship.

“Try to engage in as much conversation as you can with potential romantic partners,” McDaniel said. “The partners that provide you with the most rewarding experience during those conversations are likely the ones to pursue.”

Source: Kansas State University

Researchers say improvements are on the horizon as mobile dating, the latest iteration in digital dating, holds promise as it brings together potential partners face-to-face fast to see if “sparks” exist.

Although the research on mobile dating is scarce, Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology at Northwestern and lead author of the study, is optimistic about this approach.

“GPS features on smartphone apps can tell you who is nearby and willing to be browsed,” Finkel said. “With a little bit of basic information, potential daters can get together right away for a quick face-to-face meet-up.”

Experts say that face-to-face contact is critical in finding that special someone — and, that the faster this happens, the better.

The human-to-human connection has been found to be superior to viewing online profiles. Previous research by Finkel and colleagues has shown that the ‘ideal’ preferences of daters (from viewing online profiles) were significantly altered after in-person meetings with potential partners.

The research will be published by Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Finkel believes the online dating industry has advanced from a version 1 to a version 3. His discussion on the evolution of online dating follow.

• The first generation in 1995—the launch of Match.com:

“We use the analogy that dating sites like Match.com are like supermarkets of love,” Finkel said. “You check out the wares (online profiles) and see what you like. Upon first blush, this approach seems reasonable, but there are two major problems with it: People really don’t learn much from a profile, and people get overloaded by choice.”

• The second generation in 2000—enter eHarmony:

Sites like eHarmony market themselves less as supermarkets of love than as something akin to real estate brokers of love. They use “matching algorithms” in an effort to identify which potential partners are especially compatible with a given online dater. The choice issue, Finkel observed, is somewhat solved by the algorithm approach. Only a handful of people are chosen as compatible matches.

“But there is no compelling evidence that any of these algorithms work,” he said. “Limiting the number of potential partners is only helpful if the algorithmic-selection process favors compatible partners over incompatible ones, which it fails to do. Even if the algorithms are cutting 2,000 potential partners down to five, if that process is random, is it really any better than strolling into the neighborhood bar?”

• The third generation in 2008—mobile dating:

With the advent of smartphone apps, mobile dating was launched. Mobile dating’s ability to get people face-to-face fast may make a big difference, according to the new Northwestern research.

“You have a little bit of basic information,” Finkel said. “Is this person below threshold or above threshold for a five-minute meet-up—five minutes from now? There’s no better way to figure out whether you’re compatible with somebody than talking to them over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer.”

Researchers hope their report will stimulate industry leaders to utilize available scientific methodologies to enhance online dating services.

Source: Northwestern University

Computer keyboard with love key photo by shutterstock.

Researcher Christopher Coleman, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing said women tend to let their guard down with new sexual partners and avoid using protection since they are unafraid of getting pregnant. His study looked at newly divorced middle-aged women.

Additionally, as aging occurs, physiological changes due to menopause such as the thinning of vaginal walls make women more susceptible to contracting a virus.

Medications that would be used to treat an STD or HIV become hard for a woman to tolerate because an aging body metabolizes medications differently.

“There is a knowlege gap with women knowing what the physiological changes associated with menopause are,” said Dr. Coleman.

“There is very little research on this subject and society and the government don’t talk about it, but these high risk sexual behaviors need to be addressed because the rate of HIV-positive middle aged women is increasing.”

Source: University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Woman thinking photo by shutterstock.

The issue is timely as experts look for new methods to help people recover after a traumatic experience.

“There’s this idea, with silence, that if we don’t talk about something, it starts fading,” says Charles B. Stone, an author of a new paper published in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Although this perspective has been widely accepted, researchers question this view saying that the belief is not supported by empirical psychological research — a lot of it comes from a Freudian belief that everyone has deep-seated issues that are repressed and need to be talked about.

The real relationship between silence and memory is much more complicated, Stone said.

“We are trying to understand how people remember the past in a very basic way,” he said. “Silence is everywhere.”

Stone and his coauthors divide silence about memories into several categories.

You might not mention something you’re thinking about on purpose — or because it just doesn’t come up in conversation. And some memories aren’t talked about because they simply don’t come to mind. Sometimes people actively try not to remember something.

One well-studied example used by Stone and his colleagues to demonstrate how subtle the effects of silence can be, establishes that silences about the past occurring within a conversation do not uniformly promote forgetting.

Some silences are more likely to lead to forgetting than others. People have more trouble remembering silenced memories related to what they or others talk about than silenced memories unrelated to the topic at hand.

If President Bush wanted the public to forget that weapons of mass destruction figured in the build-up to the Iraq War, he should not avoid talking about the war and its build-up. Rather he should talk about the build-up and avoid any discussion of WMDs.

And at a more personal level, when people talk to each other about the events of their lives, talking about happy memories may leave the unhappy memories unmentioned, but in the future, people may have more trouble remembering the unmentioned happy memories than the unmentioned sad memories.

Or to supply another example of the subtle relation between memory and silence: If your mother is asking you about your boyfriend and you tell her about yesterday’s date, while thinking—but not talking—about the exciting ending of the date, that romantic finish may linger longer in your memory than if you just answered her questions without thinking about the later part of the evening.

In summary, the relationship between silence and memory is complex.

“Silence has important implications for how we remember the past beyond just forgetting,” Stone said. “In terms of memory, not all silence is equal.”

Source: Association for Psychological Science

Woman talking photo by shutterstock.

In a new study, UCLA psychologists asked 172 married couples the question: What does being committed to your marriage really mean?

The findings, published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reflect current societal values and beliefs.

“When people say, ‘I’m committed to my relationship,’ they can mean two things,” said study co-author Benjamin Karney. “One thing they can mean is, ‘I really like this relationship and want it to continue.’ However, commitment is more than just that.”

Psychologists believe a deeper level of commitment is required to work through the inevitable problems and avoid divorce.

“It’s easy to be committed to your relationship when it’s going well,” said senior study author Thomas Bradbury, a psychology professor who co-directs the Relationship Institute.

“As a relationship changes, however, shouldn’t you say at some point something like, ‘I’m committed to this relationship, but it’s not going very well — I need to have some resolve, make some sacrifices and take the steps I need to take to keep this relationship moving forward.’”

Bradbury believes it takes more than merely liking the relationship – especially when times get tough. True commitment means that you are willing to take sacrifices to keep a relationship alive. The challenge is that the commitment to taking active steps to maintain the relationship means that you may not get your way in certain areas.

“This,” Bradbury said, “is the other kind of commitment: the difference between ‘I like this relationship and I’m committed to it’ and ‘I’m committed to doing what it takes to make this relationship work.’ When you and your partner are struggling a bit, are you going to do what’s difficult when you don’t want to? At 2 a.m., are you going to feed the baby?”

Researchers found that couples willing to make sacrifices within their relationships were more effective in solving their problems. “It’s a robust finding,” Bradbury said. “The second kind of commitment predicted lower divorce rates and slower rates of deterioration in the relationship.”

Of the 172 married couples in the study, 78.5 percent were still married after 11 years, and 21.5 percent were divorced. The couples in which both people were willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the marriage were significantly more likely to have lasting and happy marriages.

In the study, the couples — all first-time newlyweds — were assessed on their level of commitment by asking if they agreed or disagreed with statements like “I want my marriage to stay strong no matter what rough times we may encounter,” “My marriage is more important to me than almost anything else in my life,” “Giving up something for my partner is frequently not worth the trouble” and “It makes me feel good to sacrifice for my partner.”

The psychologists also videotaped the couples’ interactions and measured how they behaved toward each other. Follow-up interviews were conducted every six months for the first four years and again later in their marriages.

During the interview the couples were asked about their relationship history, their feelings toward each other, the stress in their lives, their level of social support, and their childhood and family, among other subjects.

Researchers believe the findings show that being committed a marriage means that either partner will do whatever it takes to make the relationship successful. “In a long-term relationship, both parties cannot always get their way.”

When a couple has a dispute, they have many choices of how to respond, the psychologists said.

“One choice,” Karney said, “is if you dig your heels in, then I can dig my heels in too. I can say, ‘You’re wrong. Listen to me!’ But if this relationship is really important to me, I’m willing to say, ‘I will compromise.’ What is my goal? Is it to win this battle? Is it to preserve the relationship? The behaviors I might engage in to win this conflict are different from those that are best for the relationship. The people who think more about protecting the relationship over the long term are more likely to think this is not that big a problem.”

“When the stakes are high, our relationships are vulnerable,” Bradbury said. “When we’re under a great deal of stress or when there is a high-stakes decision on which you disagree, those are defining moments in a relationship. What our data indicate is that committing to the relationship rather than committing to your own agenda and your own immediate needs is a far better strategy. We’re not saying it’s easy.”

The researchers believe a postive outcome can be accomplished if broad guidelines are followed. And, not surprisingly, they begin with communication.

“Find ways to compromise, or at least have the conversation that allows you and your partner to see things eye to eye,” Bradbury said.

“Often, we don’t have the big conversations that we need in our relationship. The very act of communicating in difficult times can be as important as the outcome of the conversation. Everybody has the opportunity to engage in a conflict, or not, to say, ‘You’re wrong, I’m right.’ When people are in it for the long term, they are often willing to make sacrifices and view themselves as a team. They both are.”

The couples whose marriages lasted were better at this than the couples who divorced, Bradbury and Karney said.

“The people who ended their marriages would have said they were very committed to the marriage,” Bradbury said. “But they did not have the resolve to say, ‘Honey, we need to work on this; it’s going to be hard, but it’s important.’ The successful couples were able to shift their focus away from whether ‘I win’ or ‘you win’ to ‘Are we going to keep this relationship afloat?’ That is the ideal.”

In a marriage, disagreement is inevitable, but conflict is optional — a choice we make, Bradbury and Karney said. When the psychologists give workshops for couples, they encourage them to discuss a source of disagreement. Finding such a topic is rarely, if ever, a problem.

The psychologists recommend against “bank-account relationships,” in which you keep score of how often you get your way and how often you compromise.

Source: UCLA

The finding is remarkable; in theory, Facebook should be great for people with low self-esteem. The site allows unobtrusive sharing of information considered important for solidifying friendships and making new friends.

However, researchers discovered people with low self-esteem are apt to flood their friends with negative tidbits about their lives — making themselves less likable.

“We had this idea that Facebook could be a really fantastic place for people to strengthen their relationships,” says co-author Amanda Forest. Forest and her Waterloo University advisor, Joanne Wood, are studying how self-esteem affects the kinds of emotions people express.

In one study, Forest and Wood asked students how they feel about Facebook. People with low self-esteem were more likely to think that Facebook provided an opportunity to connect with other people, and to perceive it as a safe place that reduces the risk of awkward social situations.

Then, the investigators reviewed what students actually wrote on Facebook. To do this they asked the students for their last 10 status updates, sentences like, “[Name] is lucky to have such terrific friends and is looking forward to a great day tomorrow!” and “[Name] is upset b/c her phone got stolen :@.”

Researchers then rated each set of status updates for how positive or negative it was. For each set of statements, a coder — an undergraduate Facebook user — rated how much they liked the person who wrote them.

People with low self-esteem were more negative than people with high self-esteem — and the coders liked them less. The coders were strangers, but that’s realistic, Forest says. In earlier research, Wood and Forest found that nearly half of Facebook friends are actually strangers or acquaintances, not close friends.

When people with low self-esteem posted positive remarks, they received more responses from their real Facebook friends. People with high self-esteem, on the other hand, get more responses when they post negative items, perhaps because these are rarer for them.

As with many issues in life, even posting comments on Facebook gets complicated. Although people with low self-esteem may feel safe making personal disclosures on Facebook, the comments are not endorsed in a manner to improve self-perception.

“If you’re talking to somebody in person and you say something, you might get some indication that they don’t like it, that they’re sick of hearing your negativity,” Forest says.

But when people have a negative reaction to a post on Facebook, they seem to keep it to themselves. “On Facebook, you don’t see most of the reactions.”

The study is published in Psychological Science.

Source: Association for Psychological Science

According to a new study from researchers at Cornell University, going to college unexpectedly lowers the odds of the less-advantaged ever marrying.

In the study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, the researchers say that social and cultural factors, not just income, are central to the decision to marry.

They note that men and women from the least advantaged backgrounds who attend college appear to be caught between two worlds: They are reluctant to “marry down” to partners with less education, but they are unable to “marry up” to partners from privileged backgrounds. Lead researcher Kelly Musick calls this “marriage market mismatch.”

“College students are becoming more diverse in their social backgrounds, but they nonetheless remain a socioeconomically select group,” said Musick, associate professor of policy analysis and management in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology.

“It may be difficult for students from less privileged backgrounds to navigate social relationships on campus, and these difficulties may affect what students ultimately gain from the college experience.”

For the study, Musick and sociologists at the University of California-Los Angeles estimated the chances of college attendance based on family income, parental education and other indicators of social background and early academic achievement.

They then grouped their subjects into social strata based on these scores and compared marriage chances of those who go to college and those who don’t within each strata. Estimates were based on a sample of about 3,200 Americans from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, followed from adolescence into adulthood.

They found that college attendance negatively affected marriage chances for the least advantaged individuals — lessening men’s chances by 38 percent and women’s by 22 percent.

By comparison, men in the highest social stratum who attend college increase their chances of marrying by 31 percent, while women saw an increase of 8 percent.

“This research demonstrates the importance of differentiating between social background and educational achievement,” she said.

“Educational achievement may go far in reducing income differences between men and women from different social backgrounds, but social and cultural distinctions may persist in social and family relationships.”

Source: Cornell University

Sociology professor Dr. Hui Liu said the findings, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, suggest older people have more coping skills to deal with the stress of divorce.

“It’s clear to me that we need more social and family support for the younger divorced groups,” said Liu. “This could include divorce counseling to help people handle the stress, or offering marital therapy or prevention programs to maintain marital satisfaction.”

Liu analyzed the self-reported health of 1,282 participants in a long-term national survey. She measured the gap in health status between those who remained married during the 15-year study period and those who transitioned from marriage to divorce at certain ages and among different birth cohorts, or generations.

Liu found the gap was wider at younger ages. For example, among people born in the 1950s, those who got divorced between the ages of 35 and 41 reported more health problems in relation to their continuously married counterparts than those who got divorced in the 44 to 50 age range.

One surprise in the research was the finding that divorce has more of a negative heath impact for baby boomers than for older generations.

“I would have expected divorce to carry less stress for the younger generation, since divorce is more prevalent for them,” she said.

Liu said this may be because the pressure to marry and stay married was stronger for older generations, and so those who did divorce may have been among the most unhappily married – and thus felt a certain degree of relief when they did divorce.

Overall, the study found that those who went from being married to divorced experienced a more rapid health decline than those who remained married.

However, those who remained divorced during the entire study period showed no difference than those who remained married.

“This suggests it is not the status of being married or divorced, per se, that affects health, but instead is the process of transitioning from marriage to divorce that is stressful and hurts health,” Liu said.

Source: Michigan State University

Wedding rings photo by shutterstock.

“Having a best friend present during an unpleasant event has an immediate impact on a child’s body and mind,” said co-author William M. Bukowski, Ph.D., a psychology professor and director of the Concordia Centre for Research in Human Development.

“If a child is alone when he or she gets in trouble with a teacher or has an argument with a classmate, we see a measurable increase in cortisol levels and decrease in feelings of self-worth.”

In the study, 55 boys and 48 girls in fifth and sixth grades in Montreal schools kept journals on their feelings and experiences over the course of four days and submitted to regular saliva tests that monitored cortisol levels.

Although previous studies have shown that friendships can protect against later adjustment difficulties, this study is the first to demonstrate that the presence of a friend results in an immediate benefit for the child undergoing a negative experience, the researchers said.

These results have far-reaching implications, Bukowski said.

“Our physiological and psychological reactions to negative experiences as children impact us later in life,” he said. “Excessive secretion of cortisol can lead to significant physiological changes, including immune suppression and decreased bone formation. Increased stress can really slow down a child’s development.”

“What we learn about ourselves as children is how we form our adult identities,” Bukowski said. “If we build up feelings of low self-worth during childhood, this will translate directly into how we see ourselves as adults.”

The study was published in the journal Developmental Psychology.

Source: Concordia University

While investigators are unsure as to why the association between height and power occurs, a series of investigations finds that the link between power and height is real.

“Maybe there’s a physical experience that goes along with being powerful,” said Jack A. Goncalo, Ph.D., of Cornell University, a co-author on the paper. “For people who are less powerful, maybe other people and objects loom larger, and for the powerful everything else just seems smaller.”

Prior research has shown that taller people are more likely to acquire power; taller people make more money, on average, and are more likely to be promoted.

In the current experiment, investigators discovered the converse is also true — that power also makes people feel taller.

In one experiment, subjects came to the lab in pairs. First they had their heights measured. Then they were given a leadership aptitude test and told that, based on their feedback, they would each be assigned to play the role of the manager or the employee.

Participants were given fake feedback, then randomly assigned a role. After that, each person filled out a questionnaire with personal information, including eye color and height.

Researchers discovered people who had been told they would be the manager — with complete control over the work process and power to evaluate the employee — said they were taller than the actual measurement.

Alternatively, subjects who had been told they would be the employee gave a height that was more or less the same as their real height. Other experiments found similar results—that people who feel powerful overestimate their height.

The results may also explain why diminutive leaders might still behave like people twice their height—they actually feel taller.

“Given that height is associated with power, raising your height may make you feel powerful,” Goncalo says—which helps explain the continuing popularity of high heels and offices on the top floor.

Source: Association for Psychological Science

Investigators from the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers found that women who use paid leave are far more likely to be working nine to 12 months after a child’s birth than those who do not take any leave. These women also report increases in wages from pre- to post-birth.

“While we have known for a long time about the maternal and infant health benefits of leave policies, we can now link paid family leave to greater labor force attachment and increased wages for women, as well as to reduced spending by businesses in the form of employee replacement costs, and by governments in the form of public assistance,” said author Linda Houser, Ph.D.

Researchers discovered women who take paid leave are 39 percent less likely to receive public assistance and 40 percent less likely to receive food stamps in the year following a child’s birth, when compared to those who do not take any leave.

Not only is paid leave associated with fewer dollars in public assistance spending, it reduces the chance that a family receiving public assistance will increase its use of public funding following a child’s birth, Houser said.

“At a time when governments are struggling with deficits and working families are struggling to stay afloat, this new study shows that allowing workers to take paid time off to recover from illness or care for their families saves precious government and taxpayer resources, while giving families the stability they urgently need,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“There couldn’t be a better time for employers and legislators to prioritize these policies.”

Researchers analyzed data collected from 1997 to 2009 by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics’ and discovered a 13 percent increase (to 72.3 percent) in the percentage of children with both parents (in married-couple families) or their only parent working.

“Despite public conversation and energy around the value of strong families and secure childhoods, the United States has fallen notably behind other industrialized countries in adopting public policies that support workers who need time off to address family needs,” the researchers write.

Investigators also noted that except for a handful of states, public policy in the U.S. has been limited to unpaid leave.

Since 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has required that eligible employees who work for employers with a minimum of 50 workers be provided up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave annually “for their own health or the health of a family member.”

The absence of federal-level policy pertaining to paid family leave often forces workers to “cobble together” such employer-provided leave as sick days, holidays, vacation time, disability insurance and/or paid or unpaid leave to deal with personal or family health problems. Many low-income workers have no vacation, sick or other leave.

“A handful of states (California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island) have taken the lead in providing some form of paid leave to workers, but it’s long past time for a national policy,” said Vicki Shabo, director of work and family programs at the National Partnership.

“Establishing a nationwide standard would allow workers to meet their families’ needs without sacrificing their economic security or having to rely on a patchwork of policies. The study demonstrates conclusively that doing so also would benefit businesses and our economy.”

The researchers conclude that changing workforce demographics, the work-family needs of a new generation of workers, and national and international trends toward workplace flexibility would create “a powerful case for a careful examination of the United States’ family leave policies.”

Source: Rutgers University

Often men and women with cardiovascular diseases are fearful of sexual relations. And a decrease in sexual activity and function is often related to anxiety and depression.

The AHA statement, published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, also contains recommendations by experts from various fields, including heart disease, exercise physiology and sexual counseling.

“Sexual activity is a major quality of life issue for men and women with cardiovascular disease and their partners,” said Glenn N. Levine, M.D., lead author of the statement. “Unfortunately, discussions about sexual activity rarely take place in the clinical context.”

The recommendations include:

• After a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, it is reasonable for patients to be evaluated by their physician or healthcare provider before resuming sexual activity.
• Cardiac rehabilitation and regular physical activity can reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications related to sexual activity in people who have had heart failure or a heart attack.
• Women with cardiovascular disease should be counseled on the safety and advisability of contraceptive methods and pregnancy based on their patient profile.
• Patients with severe heart disease who have symptoms with minimal activity or while at rest should not be sexually active until their cardiovascular disease symptoms are stabilized with appropriate treatment.
• Patients should be assessed to see if their sexual dysfunction is related to underlying vascular or cardiac disease, anxiety, depression or other factors.
• Drugs that can improve cardiovascular symptoms or survival should not be withheld due to concerns that such drugs may impact sexual function.
• Drugs to treat erectile dysfunction are generally safe for men who have stable cardiovascular disease. These drugs should not be used in patients receiving nitrate therapy for chest pains due to coronary artery disease (blockages in the arteries that supply the heart with blood), and nitrates should not be administered to patients within 24-48 hours of using an erectile dysfunction drug (depending on the drug used).
• It is reasonable for post-menopausal women with cardiovascular disease to use estrogen that’s topically or vaginally inserted for the treatment of painful intercourse.

The absolute rate of cardiovascular events during sexual activity, such as heart attacks or chest pain caused by heart disease, is miniscule because sexual activity is usually for a short time.

“Some patients will postpone sexual activity when it is actually relatively safe for them to engage in it,” said Levine.

“On the other hand, there are some patients for whom it may be reasonable to defer sexual activity until they’re assessed and stabilized.”

Source: American Heart Association

Man being examined by doctor photo by shutterstock.

A new study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, finds that marriage provides few additional benefits compared to couples living together.

While researchers did discover marriage and cohabitation provide benefits compared to being single, even then, the positive attributes were found to lessen over time following the honeymoon.

“Marriage has long been an important social institution, but in recent decades Western societies have experienced increases in cohabitation, before or instead of marriage, and increases in children born outside of marriage,” said Kelly Musick, Ph.D., of Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology.

“These changes have blurred the boundaries of marriage, leading to questions about what difference marriage makes in comparison to alternatives.”

Earlier research supported a link between marriage and well-being, but the studies often compared marriage to being single, or compared marriages and cohabitations at a single point in time.

This study takes a different approach, focusing on the changes that take place over time when single men and women move into marriage or cohabitation.

Researchers sampled 2,737 single men and women, 896 of whom married or moved in with a partner over the course of six years. The study focused on key areas of well-being, considering questions on happiness, levels of depression, health, and social ties.

The results showed a increase in well-being immediately following both marriage and cohabitation as couples experienced a honeymoon period with higher levels of happiness and fewer depressive symptoms compared to singles. However, researchers found that these advantages were short-lived.

Marriage and cohabitation both resulted in less contact with parents and friends compared to remaining single – and these effects appeared to persist over time.

“We found that differences between marriage and cohabitation tend to be small and dissipate after a honeymoon period. Also, while married couples experienced health gains – likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared health care plans – cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem.

“For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy, and personal growth,” said Musick.

Compared to most industrial countries, America continues to value marriage above other family forms, according to Musick.

“However, our research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits,” she said.

Source: Wiley-Blackwell

Married couple photo by shutterstock.