A 5-second tip to lower aggression as couples argue: Study

When it comes to fighting fair, couples should take five-second breaks during arguments. It lowers the level of aggression.

A study published in the journal Communications Psychology finds that negative emotions and impulses are reduced when small forced breaks are used.

Conducted by researchers in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews, the study surveyed 81 couples in a romantic relationship of any sexual orientation between ages 18 and 39. The average age was 21. Most were full-time students and were not cohabiting. The couples had been together an average of eight months. And the focus was specifically on aggression.

“We wanted to see if we could reduce negative emotions, and thereby reduce aggression by just forcing people to take a short break,” Annah McCurry, a doctoral student at the university’s school of psychology and neuroscience, who led the study, told CNN .

To create and measure conflict, the couples engaged in a competitive game that allowed them to blast each other with annoying noises. But before a partner could respond, he or she would have to wait for an interval of five, 10 or 15 seconds before deciding how loud their return blast of noise would be. Meanwhile, their level of annoyance or anger was captured by a full-circle camera. Then AI used machine learning to code their facial muscle movement and determine their emotion.

A University of St. Andrews article on the research described couples playing a video game and the winner blasting the loser after choosing a noise level, deemed “an index for aggression. It’s important to note here that while all violence is considered aggression, all aggression is not violent. This was a methodologically ethical way to study the aggression that can predispose violence without having the situation become violent.”

Generally, couples matched each other’s levels of aggression. But those short breaks defused emotions.

The five-, 10- and 15-second breaks had identical effects in calming things down, the researchers found, to their surprise.

McCurry emphasized to CNN that the findings were for everyday conflicts, not cases of domestic violence or abuse.

Per the St. Andrews article, “It was found that individuals rarely agreed on each other’s perception of the event, as people tended to report more anger and aggression in their partner than in themselves. Participants were also inaccurate when recalling their own emotional states, which falls in line with previous research that suggests that people are often bad at recalling their affective states.”