Unhappy love leads to severe mental disorders
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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It has long been known that women and men experience different relationships with the opposite sex in different ways, while not only adults, but also teenagers tend to experience unhappy love. Scientists conducted a study in which more than five thousand schoolchildren took part and found out that young girls are much harder to tolerate failed relationships than young guys.
The author of the new study was Brian Soller, associate professor of the sociology department at a university in New Mexico. The data were taken from a survey of high school students in which teenagers talked about their understanding of "ideal relationships". The survey was conducted with the help of cards, where different stages of the relationship between a girl and a guy were depicted - from a kiss to sex. Young men and girls had to arrange cards in the order in which, in their opinion, relations should develop.
A year later, the experts repeated the poll, but asked participants to depict the relationship using the same cards that they had during the past year. Both in the first and in the second case, scientists, first of all, paid attention to the mental health of adolescents. As it turned out after a second poll, the consequences of unhappy love for young girls were more severe than for boys. Girls who have experienced unhappy love have been shown to be addicted to a mental disorder, in particular, the development of a severe depressive state and suicidal tendencies.
According to the author of the study, this reaction of girls is related to the fact that romantic relationships for girls are of great importance, unlike boys. Love relationships and self-esteem of the girl are closely related, so a failed experience in love destroys the emotional well-being of a girl. At the same time, according to the scientist, for young people romantic relationships are not of such great importance, so they are easier to transfer the failed experience.
In addition, in earlier studies it was found that girls who spend a lot of time in social networks, lowered self-esteem, especially in terms of appearance. Scientists interviewed more than 800 female students, each of which spent an average of over an hour on social networks. The usual occupation of the girls at these moments was to watch the activity tape of friends and photos of other users, especially girls. At the same time, scientists found that the more time a girl spent in a social network, the topic above was the likelihood that she was starting to compare herself with other female representatives. Most of the girls paid attention to weight. All participants in the survey had an average weight of about 67 kg, but most of them sought to reduce this figure by at least 9 kg. According to scientists, the girls wanted to see on the scales a figure in the range of 55-58 kg. Particularly affected was the self-esteem of girls who wanted to lose weight and adhered to various diets. But the girls who thought their weight was normal, when viewing photos of other girls did not experience psychological discomfort.