Komlenac Nikola, Mair Carmen, Walther Andreas, Hochleitner Margarethe
Institute for Diversity in Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Psychotherapy Research, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
BMC Psychol. 2025 Sep 26;13(1):1034. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-03359-8.
The belief that every person has a strong desire to be in a committed relationship can lead to stereotyping of single people. The present study examined whether people judge another person's life satisfaction differently based solely on information about that person's relationship status. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 1,241 participants (M = 40.3, SD = 13.0; 57.3% cisgender women, 40.8% cisgender men, and 1.9% gender minority individuals) in German-speaking countries. After reading one randomly assigned description of a character that included the character's relationship status (single vs. with an uncommitted partner vs. with a committed partner), participants indicated how much they believed the character was satisfied with different aspects of life. Three informative hypotheses were compared using Bayesian ANCOVA. Results showed that participants rated characters with either an uncommitted or a committed partner to as having higher life satisfaction than single characters. Perceived life satisfaction was highest for characters with a committed partner. These judgements may reflect stereotypes and expectations that being single is inherently negative, which could ultimately contribute to discrimination or disadvantageous treatment of single people.
认为每个人都强烈渴望建立一段忠诚关系的观念可能会导致对单身人士的刻板印象。本研究探讨了人们是否仅仅基于他人的恋爱状况信息，就会对其生活满意度做出不同的判断。我们在德语国家对1241名参与者（平均年龄M = 40.3岁，标准差SD = 13.0；57.3%为顺性别女性，40.8%为顺性别男性，1.9%为性少数群体个体）进行了一项横断面研究。在阅读了一份随机分配的关于一个人物的描述后，其中包括该人物的恋爱状况（单身、有非固定伴侣、有固定伴侣），参与者表示他们认为该人物对生活各个方面的满意程度。使用贝叶斯协方差分析比较了三个有意义的假设。结果显示，参与者认为有非固定伴侣或固定伴侣的人物比单身人物的生活满意度更高。有固定伴侣的人物的生活满意度被认为是最高的。这些判断可能反映了一种刻板印象和期望，即单身本质上是负面的，这最终可能导致对单身人士的歧视或不利对待。
