The biggest relationship deal breakers that could ruin your love life
Study reveals the top six deal breakers
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A study has revealed the three most common ‘deal-breakers’ for both long- and short-term relationships, including poor hygiene and untrustworthiness.
The 2015 study, published in Personalty and Social Psychology Bulletin, consisted of several stages. The first stage as to identify the factors that people might view as a ‘deal breaker’.
Ninety-two undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 53 were asked to list deal breakers in both long- and short-term relationships.
Researchers found that there was no significant difference between the number of deal breakers listed by women compared to those listed by men, but found that both genders provided a longer list when it came to long-term relationships compared to short-term ones.
Next, 285 undergraduate students were asked to rate the list of 49 deal breakers that had been compiled in the first stage according to how likely each factor would be to cause them to lose interest in their significant other.
The three most common deal breakers listed for short term relationships were:
- Person has health issues such a STDs
- Person smells bad
- Person has bad hygiene
The most common for long term relationships were:
- Person has anger issues or is abusive
- Person is currently seeing multiple partners
- Person is untrustworthy
Researchers also found that participants were more likely to be affected by negative traits than positive ones. In other words, a prospective partner could not redeem themselves for their undesirable traits by having an equal number of good ones.
This is called ‘prospect theory’ which is, simply put, the theory that we weigh negative information more heavily than positive information.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments