Partners willing to bend with relationship ’dealbreakers’: study

Photo by pixel2013 (Pexels) - Romantic dealbreakers, like laziness and living too far away, may be "dealbenders" when it comes to committed relationships. A new study, inventively designed by Western psychologists Nicolyn Charlot and Samantha Joel as a 'choose-your-own-adventure' revealed one romantic relationship problem may not be enough to call it quits but problems add up over time, eventually turning dealbenders into a dealbreaker. The findings were published this week in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology . "People typically think of dealbreakers as hard-and-fast bits of information that would make someone automatically end a relationship. But our findings suggest that many relationship issues considered dealbreakers may not actually make people exit relationships right away," said Charlot, a Western social psychology PhD candidate. In the study, participants viewed a series of story scenarios about a new relationship. Dealbreakers were randomly assigned to be present or not, and participants were given the option to end the relationship or proceed after each scenario.