In the course of the survey, it became clear that relations within the family bothered the volunteers far more than communicating with friends and strangers.
Moms, sisters, and wives turned out to be the most annoying and “inconvenient” members of the family for their other relatives, which is connected with their too active participation in family life. This is stated in an article published in the journal American Sociological Review.
“Relations with female relatives can be a kind of double-edged sword for many people,” said Claude Fisher from the University of California at Berkeley. – On the one hand, they can be the members of the family on whom your life depends most, and on the other – the most grumpy and “uncomfortable” for communication with close people.
This expert and his colleagues came to such an unexpected conclusion, at first glance, trying to find an answer to a very simple question: how do the various members of the family relate to each other, what kind of role do fathers and mothers, grandparents, sons and daughters play in it , sisters, brothers and others, and what emotions they cause each other.
As the luminaries of science have noted, sociologists and evolutionists have traditionally drawn attention to positive links that help to strengthen the family and make it the very “cell of society” that it is considered today. However, as it turned out, no less important role is played here and negative links that cause discomfort and an acute desire to escape from one of the participants of such bonds.
For their search and study, American psychologists interviewed a little over a thousand California residents who had approximately 12,000 family ties and asked them to tell about relatives, friends, and others who seem to them sometimes too demanding or difficult to communicate.
It turned out that relationships within the family bothered the volunteers far more than talking with friends and strangers. On average, about 15 % of the closest people occasionally or constantly caused them discomfort, while only 6-7% of friends and strangers acted on them in this way.
Interestingly, most of the so-called “annoying” relatives represent a beautiful half of humanity – these were most often mums, sisters, and wives. Surprisingly, a fact – on average, every third respondent admitted that communication with these three types of family members caused him or even her psychological discomfort.
Leadership of the above-mentioned ladies in this “hate rating”, as the scientists note, was absolutely independent of the age and sex of those people who were bored with them – in other words, such thoughts were expressed not only by husbands, sons or grandchildren, but, as we have already understood, daughters, sisters and mothers.
