Future-centric thinking helps solve conflicts, study finds

Between the summer heat, stresses of daily life, and this year’s horrible presidential election – you may find yourself getting into more arguments than usual these days.

If you’re concerned that these arguments may ruin one of your healthy relationships, a new study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests thinking about the future of the relationship can help save it.

“When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument. By envisioning their relationship in the future, people can shift the focus away from their current feelings and mitigate conflicts,” study author Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Waterloo, said in a news release.

Past studies have indicated that adopting an outside perspective or fly-on-the-wall point of view can be a positive technique for smoothing out interpersonal struggles, and the new study looked to see if taking a moment to consider the future can lead to the same benefits.

Working Through Conflicts with Friends and Family

Study volunteers were told to think about a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a good friend. One group of volunteers was then asked to talk how they might feel a year from now. A different group was asked to talk about how they felt in the present.

Using text-analysis software, the team analyzed volunteers’ written reactions for their use of pronouns as pronouns reflect the feelings and actions of those in the conflict. They also analyzed written reactions for helpful reasoning strategies like forgiveness and thoughtful reflection.

The scientists learned that thinking about the future impacted both volunteers’ thoughts their feelings, and their reasoning strategies. Consequently, these volunteers reported more positivity around their conflicted relationship. Specifically, when study volunteers extended their thinking a year into the future, they could show more forgiveness and reason in a positive light.

“Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict – reflecting on how one might feel a year from now – may be a valuable coping tool for one’s psychological happiness and relationship well-being,” Huynh said.

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Image credit: Thinkstock

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