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Comment by aphextim | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal, however I find that in my lifetime I was/am able to 'move on' and forget about things such as minor disagreements between partners where they (female partners) have tended to dwell on things longer than my male friends. Could have been the same if I had male partners I suppose, although that isn't my personal taste.

Not just in relationships but even among co-workers I notice there is a lot more gossip between the biological females and they tend to bring up things like, "Do you remember when so and so did [Insert minor issue from 2 months ago]?"

To repeat this is just my observations from 20 years of office work and a half dozen or so relationships I had before settling down with the current love of my life.

The point of all of this, I feel is that to many people, the epiphany the article is making was quite obvious, although it is neat to see this quantified.

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Relationships are more "loaded" with negative personal consequences for women. Less so than in the past, but it's there.

There's often a negative interpretation of a woman having more relationships or ending one that isn't really a factor with men. IMO, this creates a bias to justify ending a relationship for cause.

With a man, there's no threshold where your next girlfriend will lead to you being categorized negatively. If anything, you get more respect in some circles.

It seems to me the negative consequences are about the same for men and women. Lots of women speak poorly of their exes and get their friend groups turned against them...

I mentioned to a group of friends that I had run into a female acquinatance from 20+ years ago, who is now a judge.

The reaction: "Lol. She was quite the party girl." Not the reaction that you'd get re: a dude.

? Why that's a pretty common reaction for a dude too

Idk, I'd say the same about a party dude turned judge.

It's always interesting to see "common knowledge" quantified in studies. I've had a few of the same observations as you, although I have a slightly smaller sample size to work from.

>>The point of all of this, I feel is that to many people, the epiphany the article is making was quite obvious, although it is neat to see this quantified.

Weirdly that runs contrary to what the study found actually. They mention that during polling, people expected, on average, to find no difference between how heterosexual men and women would feel about their ex-partners.

I guess I'm reading this wrong.

>Two studies revealed that men are more likely than women to evaluate their former romantic partners more favorably. A third, larger study replicated this finding. All three studies yielded medium effect sizes (Cohen, 1988). A fourth study indicated that these findings are not intuitively obvious to most laypersons since only one in four laypeople (24%) anticipated these findings (and with most people predicting no gender difference).

>In closing, the present research documents a new phenomenon that seems far from obvious to most people. Women tend to have more negative attitudes toward their former romantic partners than men do. While our studies document this stable gender difference, we do not know its specific origins. Even though both evolutionary and gender role theories provide some valuable insights, additional research is needed to pin down the key origins. The use of longitudinal studies in which individuals are followed across time and relationships to determine how and why ex-partner views develop will be particularly helpful in this regard.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506198766...

Yes?

Your point: >>The point of all of this, I feel is that to many people, the epiphany the article is making was quite obvious, although it is neat to see this quantified.

Their Point: >> A fourth study indicated that these findings are not intuitively obvious to most laypersons since only one in four laypeople (24%) anticipated these findings (and with most people predicting no gender difference).

Your point and their point are in conflict. You say "many people think this finding is quite obvious". I guess 24% is technically "many" people, but it's a clear minority. I wouldn't describe something that only 1:4 people expected as being something "many people" expected. Maybe "some" or "a minority of people".

I guess how I looked at it was comparing the 24% vs the 14% to compare the fact that those who did perceive a difference leaned almost 2:1 towards the idea that males had a more positive view vs females.

To me I find that anyone thinking that there are no differences between the sexes:

>Of the 487 participants, 62% (n = 302) indicated that they did not believe in the gender difference.

Are the ignorant majority and would rather focus on those who were smart enough to perceive a difference and then which way those people were leaning.

I am probably falling into my own bias doing it this way, I am no statistician and just wanted to explain my reasoning on this.

I do agree with you that 24% out of the entirety of the study is a clear minority.

I guess I should have phrased it better, "The point of all of this, I feel is that to many people who are not ignorant to the differences in sex, the epiphany of this article was something quite obvious" or something like that.

I forget everything conflict related basically ... I think it is a defensive mechanism but it sure can be bad because you forget about things and you might end up in a new "normal" that is anything but normal.

My ex whom I dated for 5 years cheated on me towards the end of our relationship. It was hard initially, but now I don't have any negative feelings towards her. I accept that I wasn't perfect either. While, I don't want to make excuses for her, people do dumb things and make mistakes. I would never be with her again but I don't see a reason to still be upset about it.

Cheating towards the end of a relationship usually points to someone that was probably emotionally checked out of the relationship already. Basically, the cheating was just an effect of the relationship dying. So yeah, no point in being upset about it I think; the relationship was probably already doomed at that point. I think this happens a lot: someone really wants out of the relationship, but instead of just saying so, and initiating a break-up (because becoming single again is scary, after all), they take advantage of an opportunity to cheat and this ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back.

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