Couple who think they are a perfect match are more likely to split up, it was claimed yesterday. So-called ‘soulmates’ find rows harder to get over than those who see relationships as a journey on which they talk through their problems.

昨日一项新的研究称那些认为自己与对方完美契合的情侣们其实更容易分手。这些所谓的'灵魂伴侣'更难携手共度困难，而那些认为情侣关系就是一场解决问题的旅程的人则在这方面表现得更好。

Professor Spike Lee, of Toronto University, and Professor Norbert Schwarz, of the University of Southern California, asked long-term couples questions relating to ‘unity’ or ‘journey’, and got them to recall conflicts and evaluate their relationship. Those with a ‘unity state of mind’ found recalling conflicts made them feel less happy with their relationship.

多伦多大学的教授 Spike Lee 和南加州大学的教授Norbert Schwarz 询问了一些长期伴侣他们是‘契合派’还是‘旅程派’，并且让他们回想以前的冲突并评估两人之间的关系。‘契合派’们发现当他们回想起过去的冲突的时候会对他们的伴侣感到更加的不悦。

Professor Lee said: 'Our findings corroborate prior research showing people who implicitly think of relationships as perfect unity between soulmates have worse relationships than people who implicitly think of relationships as a journey of growing and working things out. 'Apparently, different ways of talking and thinking about love relationship lead to different ways of evaluating it.'

Lee 教授说道：“我们的试验证实了之前研究的正确性，即比起那些认为自己和伴侣在一起是不断成长并解决问题的人来说，认为自己和对方是完美契合的灵魂伴侣的人有着更差的情侣关系。很明显，对于情侣关系的不同讨论和想法会导致人们对于这段关系有着不同的评估方法。”

It was the Greek philosopher Aristotle who said 'love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.' But the study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology said this outlook can be damaging. People speak and ponder about love in apparently limitless ways but underlying such diversity are some common themes. For example, some use words like ‘made for each other,’ and ‘she is my other half’, seen by scientists as ‘the perfect unity’ frame. But others prefer ‘the journey’ idea, using expressions such as ‘look how far we have come,’ and ‘we have been through all these things together’.

希腊哲学家亚里士多德曾说过：“爱情是两个不同的身体里住着同一个灵魂。”这项发表在 《实验社会心理学》杂志上的试验则表明这种观点其实对于情侣是有害的。人们讨论和考虑爱情的方式多种多样但却又有一些共同的主题，例如，那些说“天造地设”或者“她就是我的另一半”的人便是科学家眼中的‘契合派’。但‘旅程派’的人更愿意用类似于“看看我们已经在一起多久了”以及“我们一起度过了这些难关”的话语来表达。

As predicted, recalling conflicts leads people to feel less satisfied with their relationship, but only with the unity frame in mind, not the journey. Recalling celebrations makes people satisfied with their relationship regardless of how they think about it.

正如我们想的那样，回想起过去的冲突会让人们对于自己的这段关系变得不满意，但这仅限于‘契合派’的人，并非‘旅程派’的人。而两派的人在回想起值得庆祝的事情的时候则都会对他们的情侣关系感到满意。

In a two follow up experiments, the researchers invoked the unity against journey frame in even subtler, more incidental ways. For example, people were asked to identify pairs of geometric shapes to form a full circle, activating unity, or draw a line that gets from point A to B through a maze, activating journey.

在两个跟进试验中，研究人员发现契合派与旅程派有着更微妙，更偶然的差异。例如，识别一些几何图形来组成一个圆圈是‘契合派’的强项，而从迷宫中划出一条从A到B的路线则是‘旅程派’的强项。

Such non linguistic, merely pictorial cues were sufficient to change the way people evaluated relationships. Again, conflicts hurt relationship satisfaction just with the unity frame in mind. They added: 'It is a journey. You will feel better now, and you will do better down the road.'

这种非言语的，仅仅是一些图形线索就足以改变人们对于关系的看法。还有，矛盾会导致‘契合派’的人对自己的关系感到不满。研究人员补充到：“伴侣关系就是一场旅程，你现在就会觉得很好，而且你以后也会做得更好。”