Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and there’s new research on how to best celebrate. While some one-on-one quality time with your partner is always good, researchers say that couples who go out with other couples are more likely to have happy and satisfying romantic relationships.
The study, “When Harry and Sally met Dick and Jane: Experimentally creating closeness between couples,” was recently published in Personal Relationships, and looked at 60 dating couples. Each couple was paired with another couple and given a set of questions to discuss as a group. Half of the groups were given high-disclosure questions intended to spark intense discussion, while the other half were given small-talk questions that focused on everyday, unemotional activities.