Researchers have compared different cognitive strategies for falling out of love

By Emma Young From You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling to Nothing Compares 2 U, there’s no shortage of songs about heartbreak. None, I suspect, contains the line, “Now it’s time to give negative reappraisal a go.” But whether you’ve just been dumped or you’ve done the dumping, if you’re still in love with your ex, this could be your best strategy for falling out of love and moving on, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.  “Romantic break-ups can have serious consequences including insomnia, reduced immune function, broken heart syndrome, depression and suicide,” note the authors, Sandra Langeslag and Michelle Sanchez at the University of Missouri, St Louis. Strategies that help people to fall out of love could relieve the agony of unrequited love or make it easier to get out of a dysfunctional relationship.  Langeslag and Sanchez recruited 20 women and four men for their study. (As it was hard to get male volunteers, they decided to sacrifice gender balance in favour of having enough participants for the statistical analysis). All these people had experienced a romantic break-up, were still upset about it, and could supply 28 digital pictures of their ex. These pictures had to include a range of facial expressions, and show the ex-partner in different situations (all non-intimate), to mimic the kinds of real-world reminders the participants might endure – seeing their ex on the street, or on social media, for...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Dating Emotion Source Type: blogs