many of us turn our attention inward and reflect on
ourselves to make our lives better. but we would do well to
ask ourselves a simple question: is it always helpful?
to get a grasp of the matter, several psychologists
conducted a study.the topic was whether analyzing the
pluses and minuses of the relationship can be an answer to
seeing how we feel about a special person in our life.people in one group were asked to list the reasons their relationship
with a boyfriend or a girlfriend was going the way it was,
and then rate how satisfied they were with the relationship.
people in another group were simply asked to rate their
satisfaction without any analysis; they just gave their
intuitive reactions.
it might seem that the people who analyzed the situation
would be best at figuring out how they really felt,and that their satisfaction ratings would thus do the best job of
predicting the outcome of their relationships. in fact, the result was reversed .it was the people in the intuitive
group whose ratings predicted whether they were still dating
their partner several months later.as for the people in the
analytical group, their satisfaction ratings did not predict the
outcome of their relationships at all. the result shows us
that too much analysis can confuse people about how they
really feel and that there are severe limits to what we can
discover through overthinking.