Arguing with Your Partner? Take a 5-Second Break
Arguing with a partner isn't fun. You disagree about something, you start to get a bit angry, and before you know it, you might be saying things you don't mean.
But there's something couples can do to stop it from getting to that point: take a five-second break.
That's according to researchers from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
In their study, published in Nature, 81 couples took part in a game where they had to race to push a button. The winner would then blast a loud noise at their partner at different volumes.
The game was designed to make the couples angry — especially because they were not told that sometimes the slower player would win!
Sometimes the winner also had to wait between five seconds and 15 seconds before they could choose the blast volume, meaning there was a short break between their partner losing and having to hear the noise.
Couples played the game 30 times.
The games were filmed, and the researchers used AI to analyze each person's face to see how angry they were.
It was found that the couples would often match each other's volume levels — so if one person chose a louder blast, the other got louder too.
However, the researchers also noted that a short break stopped this from escalating, and the participants' faces also looked less angry.
Annah McCurry, one of the researchers, told The Guardian that it might be obvious, but this is the first time a study has been done to show reduced levels of aggression after a short break.
She said that even short, five-second breaks are enough to defuse an argument. She called it a "simple, free and effective" way to reduce negative emotions during an argument.
