Synchronized Brains for a Happy Marriage?

What makes a happy marriage? A recent study from Stanford University has found evidence that a predictor of marital satisfaction may be shared brain activity.

The researchers, in collaboration with scientists in China, wanted to see if measuring marital satisfaction might be possible by looking at the brain’s response to marital and socially relevant cues. They recruited 35 heterosexual couples in China who had been married for at least a year, and also included randomly selected male-female pairs that were not married. The participants were asked to complete several questionnaires on marital satisfaction and adult attachment, and also completed the Big Five Personality Inventory. They also underwent fMRI scans of the brain while viewing relationship-related and object-related movie clips.

The researchers found that married partners who reported higher marital satisfaction were more likely to show activity in similar parts of the brain when they watched the relationship-related movie clips. They also found no significant association between marital satisfaction and age, sex, personality traits, or length of marriage.

The findings demonstrate that brain similarities that reflect real-time mental responses to subjective perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about interpersonal and social interactions are strong predictors of marital satisfaction, reflecting shared values and beliefs. This study helps advance our understanding of human marital bonding and the neurobiological basis of human pair bonding.