To Love & To Work

[Andrew1342]

Hi guys. First I'd like to thank Dave for permitting me to post here. I'm a social scientist based at Swinburne University of Technology. I'm currently looking at people's love lives and work lives, what they find most and least satisfying, what people would change, and why. I am also interested in the importance people place on their feelings and thoughts when making decisions about these areas of their lives. If any of you would like to contribute your own experiences and opinions to this research, or would like more information about the research, you might visit the link below.

http://www.media.swin.edu.au/surveyor/survey.asp?s=01042135134253247146 (http://www.media.swin.edu.au/surveyor/survey.asp?s=01042135134253247146)

I'd like to emphasize that the research has no political or commercial ties or funding. It is academic and educational in nature.

The questions asked reflect those that psychologists ask of their clients, which means that sometimes the same question is asked in different ways. It is a journey of self-reflection, taking between 30 mins and 1 hour to complete. There are no right or wrong answers, just your personal perspective.

All contributions are confidential, such that no individual can be identified from their responses. The findings will be published in a scholarly article and in a thesis which will be available internationally.

If you have any questions or would like to make any comments, please by all means post them here and I will do my best to reply promptly.

Kind regards,
Andrew.

[Andrew1342]

A big thankyou to everyone who has completed or attempted the survey. I appreciate your efforts.

The survey will remain open for another 2 months if any further people are interested in contributing.

For your interest, here's a small snipet of what has come out of the survey so far with regard to the relationships end of things. I've tried to be as concise as possible. I hope its digestible.

A number of previous psychology studies have asked people from a wide section of communities across the Western world their opinions as to what qualities best described their ideal romantic relationship. The results suggest that six qualities encompass most people's ideals - Satisfaction, Commitment, Intimacy, Trust, Passion and Love.

One of the many goals of this research project is to identify the power of these qualities in predicting length of relationship and happiness of relationship. So far, the results seem to suggest that they all play an imporant and unique role, such that at least one of these qualities is strongly present in virtually every happy long term relationship in the study. The results also suggest that they can be ranked from most to least predictive of long-term happiness:

1. Love. The strength of love partners feel for each other appears to be the quality most predictive of happiness in long term relationships.
2. Intimacy. The degree of closeness and sense of a shared life that partners feel for each other.
3. Commitment. The degree to which partners are emotionally bound to one another, and the belief that the relationship will stand the test and trials of time.
4. Satisfaction. The extent to which one's partner fulfills ones relationship expectations.
5. Trust. Reliance on the integrity and intentions of one's partner.
6. Passion. Feeling like one is the object of one's partner's desires.

If these results hold true at the end of the study, this kind of information will be very useful to relationship counsellors helping couples in crisis, couples wanting to strengthen their emotional ties, and persons introspecting or musing about what they might focus on in their next relationship. Relationship qualities in need of attention can be identified then addressed, as focusing on just one of these qualities in a relationship appears to significantly improve the chances of happiness and relationship longevity. Enough from me for now.

Andrew.