Thinking about future brings positivity in relationship

Thinking about the future may help you maintain a healthy relationship by overcoming conflicts and bringing positivity, according to a new study.
"When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument," said Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate at the University of Waterloo in Canada and lead author of the study.
"By envisioning their relationship in the future, people can shift the focus away from their current feelings and mitigate conflicts," said Huynh, who worked with Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo, and Daniel Yang from Yale University in the US.

Study participants were instructed to reflect on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. One group of participants were then asked to describe how they would feel about the conflict one year in the future, while another group was asked to describe how they feel in the present.
The team examined participants' written responses through a text-analysis programme for their use of pronouns - such as I, me, she, he.
These choices of pronouns were used to capture participants' focus on the feelings and behaviour of those involved in the conflict.

Written responses were also examined for beneficial reasoning strategies - for example, forgiveness and reinterpreting the conflict more positively.

The researchers found that thinking about the future affected both participants' focus on their feelings, and their reasoning strategies.
As a result, participants reported more positivity about their relationship altogether. In particular, when study participants extended their thinking about the relationship a year into the future, they were able to show more forgiveness and reinterpret the event in a more reasoned and positive light.
The way people respond to conflict is an essential component for relationship maintenance, said researchers.
"Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict - reflecting on how one might feel a year from now - may be a valuable coping tool for one's psychological happiness and relationship well-being," said Huynh.

The research also has potential implications for understanding how prospection, or future-thinking, can be a beneficial strategy for a variety of conflicts people experience in their everyday lives.
The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.