BERKELEY, Calif. — Tired of your mother or sister prying into your personal life? You’re not alone. While the women in our lives often prove to be the most caring and helpful in times of need, a new study finds that female family members also tend to be the most difficult.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Bar-Ilan University in Israel used surveys focusing on the relationships of more than 1,100 adults young and old from the San Francisco Bay Area. Of the 12,000-some personal relationships — including close and casual friends, family members, or colleagues — described in their responses, the research team honed in on individuals whom the respondents flagged as people they “sometimes find demanding or difficult.”
While about 15 percent of relationships were dubbed as difficult, the authors found that close female relatives — mothers, sisters, and wives — led the way in that category. It’s very likely, however, that women ranked more prominently because they tend to be the ones who involve themselves more deeply in a person’s life, while men tend to be more passive.
“The message here is that, with female relatives, it can be a two-sided thing. They may be the people you most depend on, but also the people who nag you the most,” says study senior author Claude Fischer, a sociology professor at Berkeley, in a news release. “It’s a testament to their deeper engagement in social ties.”
Generally speaking, parents, siblings and spouses were named most frequently as difficult individuals. As for who was the least frustrating, participants agreed that friends led the pack, only representing about 7 percent of the bothersome bunch.
In the survey, respondents were asked to categorize strained relationships as “difficult only,” or “difficult engaged in exchange ties,” which would represent people who they found difficult, but still someone they could confide in or turn to for support when in need. Younger adults tended to have twice as many “difficult engaged” relationships than older adults, with sisters being listed most frequently in that category (30 percent) followed by wives (27 percent) and mothers (24 percent).
Fathers, brothers, boyfriends, and roommates rounded out the rest of the list.
When it came to adults over 50, the most demanding relationships were with mothers (29 percent), female romantic partners (28 percent), and fathers and housemates (tied at 24 percent).
“The results suggest that difficult people are likely to be found in contexts where people have less freedom to pick and choose their associates,” says lead author Shira Offer, a professor of sociology at Bar-Ilan.
Coworkers also proved to be among the more frequent folks who respondents had beef with, with about 1 in 10 listing colleagues as the “difficult only” type.
So why do we still keep around those who stress us out the most? Well, sometimes we simply have no choice.
“Whether it’s an alcoholic father whom you want to cut ties with, an annoying friend with whom you have a long history or an overbearing boss, relationships are complicated and in many cases unavoidable,” says Fischer.
The study’s findings were published in the journal American Sociological Review.
The secrets of life are no match for academia! Imagine – we all already knew this, but did we really?
Yeah, we did.
Does Captain Obvious work there?
No surprise here. My wife tells me she and her girl friends agree that they always hated working for a woman boss. They are all pretty good looking so maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe they can get over on a man easier.
I guess I’m in trouble now.
MGTOW!!
Any red blooded male could have told you this.
Men marry women hoping that they won’t change and women marry men hoping they do change…..and women will stop at nothing until they have changed the man they married….
And then site the reason for the divorce, “he changed, he’s not the man I married”.
Typical.
They needed a study to figure this out.
On the average, women live 6 to 8 years longer than their male counterparts. The reason? It takes a while, but men realize that death is the only escape from a nagging female.
They will take your testicles and grind them down to tiny, dried up peas over the years and you will THANK THEM with your little mouse like voice.
Look what happened to aspiring “right-hand eunuch” Tim Kaine after only a few months on the campaign trail in front of dozens…
It’s been downhill ever since Eve got her and Adam kicked out of the Garden of Eden; women today STILL insist it’s not their fault!
If they didn’t have that ‘thing’ between their legs, there would be a bounty on them and we would be hunting them down like dogs!
And then you could have sex with your buddies.
The “Women’s march” is a great example of this, pushy intrusive women want to rule over everyone.
…and ironically, import en masse the very people who want to assault them (and worse), throw them into burqas and behead them if they show their ankles in public.
They unconsciously and desperately want… No, need to be controlled. It’s sad really.
Duh!
File this in the no $h!¥ folder……
I’ve got some advice for you guys. Bend over and say hello to Steve and Larry and Michael if women are so bad.
This is my “surprised” face…..
I do not understand. I thought there was no difference between men and women. Are they trying to tell me that women act differently than men?
yawn
My understanding: studies have shown the men often organize themselves into hierarchical structures quite naturally.
Women, on the other hand, view the relationship landscape as flat. They see nobody ‘out ranking’ them for whom they need to pay deference (generally speaking of course). So this leads to conflict (probably is good for their ability to stand up to overbearing men though).
My own mother despite claiming she would NEVER do this, meddles and creates strife in all of her adult son’s life (including mine because she doesn’t like my wife and hates us for moving far away).
You spend money on a study that all mean and more than half the women I know are aware of?
“Your tax dollars at work!” is usually best translated as “Your tax dollars wasted!” when the word “social” appears anywhere in the abstract of government funded research results.