To deepen the understanding, Mostova and her colleagues studied 100 heterosexual couples who had been together for six months to 24 years. Participants aged 17 to 58 completed a questionnaire with questions developed in prior research on love languages.
The questionnaire rated participants’ preferred love languages when they expressed love to their partner and, in turn, which love languages made their partner feel most loved. This data enabled the researchers to identify the degree of any mismatch within each pair. They also assessed participants’ relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and empathy.
advertisement
This analysis showed that, for both men and women, participants whose partners used the love languages they preferred to receive had higher levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction.
Greater satisfaction was also found among participants who reported using the love languages they liked to obtain their partners.
The researchers hypothesized that empathy would be associated with a greater tendency for a participant to use the love language that their partner preferred to receive. Although the analysis showed some small support for some subtypes of empathy influencing male participants’ relationship experiences, this hypothesis was not supported overall.
While the study only included heterosexual couples, the researchers suggest that focusing on the love-language needs of partners may be effective in relationship counseling. They also provide several directions for future research, such as examining whether love-language matching leads to greater satisfaction or instead arises from or is an entirely different factor.
The authors say: “Our findings suggest that people who better match each other’s preferences for love languages are more satisfied with their relationships and sex lives. Dimensional assessment may be better for typing love languages. Is.”
Source: Eurekalert
