Online dating: McGill study links relationship clarity to less loneliness and greater life satisfaction
Single people who date without a clear sense of what they want in a relationship report greater loneliness and lower life satisfaction, according to researchers at McGill University.
The team conducted two complementary studies, each with more than 180 young adult singles actively dating, to examine associations among what the researchers term “relationship clarity,” loneliness and life satisfaction. The concept of relationship clarity — having a clear understanding of one’s relationship goals — was developed by co-author Dita Kubin, a recent McGill PhD graduate in psychology.
Two studies, converging evidence
In the first study participants reflected on their current dating experiences and completed questionnaires assessing relationship clarity, loneliness and life satisfaction. The second study used the same measures but followed a different group of single people over two months.
“The repeated measures of our second study gave us more confidence that a lack of relationship clarity leads to loneliness, rather than loneliness creating a lack of relationship clarity,” said Katya Kredl, a PhD student in psychology and lead author of the paper.
Why clarity matters
The researchers propose several mechanisms to explain the link. Kredl noted that people low in relationship clarity may be less selective and therefore more likely to have unfulfilling encounters with incompatible partners. She also suggested that unclear goals can make people interpret ambiguous cues negatively: “When people feel uncertain about a social situation, they are more likely to interpret neutral cues as rejection, which then heightens feelings of loneliness.”
The team further validated the relationship clarity construct in additional analyses, distinguishing it from related measures such as satisfaction with singlehood. According to the authors, those checks indicate the relationship clarity scale captures a distinct psychological dimension.
Public-health implications
Kredl pointed out that roughly half of Canadians and Americans reported feeling lonely in recent years, citing government data, and noted that loneliness is tied to multiple mental and physical health concerns. Because romantic relationships can serve as a primary source of social support, prior work has shown that single people with higher loneliness and lower perceived social support tend to report poorer life satisfaction and well-being.
“Moving forward, we are interested in developing an intervention to help people make their relationship goals clearer,” Kredl added.
About the research
The study, “Knowing What You Want: The Role of Relationship Clarity in Single Young Adults’ Loneliness and Well-Being,” by Katya F. Kredl, Dita Kubin and John E. Lydon, was published in the journal Personal Relationships. The research received support from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (Société et Culture) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
