Emotional Highs and Lows are Almost Always Social, New Research Shows
August 31st, 2010
One might imagine that major success and failure (such as winning an award or losing a job) would account for people’s self-described best and worst life moments. Implications from previous research would back this up. But a new study suggests that our best and worst moments, those we identify with most strongly, occur within social relationships. Inter-personal milestones, such as falling in love, losing a friendship, grieving a loved one, or winning a team competition, were perceived as far more important in people’s lives than almost any accomplishment they achieved independently. Our relationships with others not only define us, but bring us great amounts of both joy and pain. This often bears out in practice through psychotherapy and counseling, but the new study documents it on paper, as well.
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Comments
I know that this is true for me and I guess has been for all of my life. The best highs and the lowest lows have typically come about due to something going on in the social life. OK something usually having to do with a guy.
When we think that there’s nothing left in our lives, without the money, the career, the fame or anything, there is just the relationships that bail us out.
No accomplishment can beat a sweet memory of a loving relationship.
No career achievement can ever come close to the moment of joy I experienced when i first held my new-born daughter :)
Money and status are important but human relationships are far more important than all of that!
The people that we are around everyday and our everyday social interactions are bound to have the largest effects on our highs and los, because for many of us it is through these relationships that we come to define who and what we are- to ourselves and to other people.
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