A relationship study conducted by Dr. Brent Mattingly, assistant professor of psychology at Ashland University, shows how sacrifice influences relationships.

Mattingly said the results may help college students “recognize that doing the behavior is not good enough. Wanting to do the behavior is perhaps more important…The exact same behavior can have two different consequences for the relationship, but it all depends on your motivations for the relationship.”

According to Mattingly, the survey measured relationship quality, motivations for sacrificing in the relationship and attachment styles, but does not explain cause and effect. The survey is merely an objective “snapshot in time,” which excludes how or what happened to cause the relationship quality.

The survey derived from the question, “What happens if you try to improve the relationship and it doesn’t work?”

Mattingly used the study for his doctoral dissertation at Saint Louis University in Missouri. The survey assesses motivating factors of people in relationships, coupled with their successes and failures throughout that relationship and previous relationships.

Mattingly said the study has seemed to hold true at Ashland-the people he has talked to speak in accordance to his test results, even though the location is different.

Of the 78 people surveyed, 10 percent were cohabitating, 82 percent said they were in love and 78 percent were dating. The participants were ages 18 to 29 and represent only one person in a relationship-only one person per couple was assessed. The average dating length of those surveyed was 20 months.

“If the ultimate goal is to see how successful a relationship is, then it’s important to recognize what is associated with successful relationships and what is associated with unsuccessful relationships. So I think actions may have detrimental consequences,” Mattingly said.

Jim Slike said Mattingly’s results seem reliable; in his dating experience, he can see how motivations for sacrificing influence the success of the sacrifice.

Slike said he has selfish intentions less often if his girlfriend understands that his intentions are indeed selfless, and he bets his girlfriend would agree vice versa.

Slike said if his girlfriend does not realize she is asking too much of him, he may guilt her instead of sacrificing for her.

“Once you’re in a relationship for a long time, you can understand why someone would do those things for you,” Slike said.

“They [sacrifices] are good because if you show a willingness to make a sacrifice for a person, you’re willing to invest yourself in a relationship,” Slike said.

Mattingly’s study also determines trends for how individuals’ relationship attachment styles influence motivations for sacrificing.

Individuals with the secure attachment style are not anxious about abandonment and do not avoid intimacy. They are optimistic and sociable and are comfortable with interdependent relationships.

Mattingly said these people form the healthiest relationships and generally make sacrifices for the right reasons, as opposed to the other three attachment styles.

Individuals with a preoccupied attachment style are worried about abandonment. Mattingly described these individuals as clingy or needy, and are uneasy about possible threats to their relationship.

Individuals with a fearful attachment style have trouble trusting others and fear rejection. Mattingly said they are worried about being abandoned, but also do not want people to become too attached to them.

These people are generally withdrawn because “the best way to avoid abandonment is to not form relationships,” Mattingly said. These people endure a constant internal conflict.

Ashliegh Jarzenski said the dismissing attachment style seems to describe her because she likes being single.

“I enjoy being independent. I don’t get attached in relationships very quickly,” Jarzenski said.

In her past relationship, she sacrificed schoolwork and other activities to spend time with her boyfriend and maintained a long-distance relationship. She knew she could finish her homework later.

Jarzenski said this may have been a sacrifice with good intentions: to nurture the relationship. However, she also may have avoided making sacrifices that would bring her closer to the man she was dating, she said.

Jarzenski said her parents were distant from her during her adolescence and she felt as though she had to help raise her siblings who were all younger than she was. These experiences, she said, made her independent.

“I guess you don’t want to get attached to people, because they might not be there in a week or so,” Jarzenski said.

Jarzenski said she has broken up with most of her five or six boyfriends, but the main reason she feels she has the dismissing attachment style surfaced when her last boyfriend dumped her, when her neutral reaction surprised herself.

“I honestly didn’t care. You’d think after nine months, it should have mattered more. But I didn’t cry or anything,” Jarzenski said.

After learning about Mattingly’s study, Jarzenski was surprised that she realized more about herself because of it.

“It [the study] could help them [college students] maybe change their dating strategies and realize what issues they have with themselves, and maybe how to fix them,” Jarzenski said.

Mattingly said sacrifices benefit a relationship when they are fulfilled with compassion, altruism, love and care. Sacrifices should aim to promote growth and wellbeing, thereby moving the relationship forward.

The Journal of Applied Social Psychology will publish Mattingly’s study, “Weakening the relationship we are trying to preserve? Motivated sacrificial behavior as a mediator between attachment anxiety and avoidance and relationship satisfaction,” within the next year.