Life's best and worst moments 'occur in social relationships'
An individual's best and worst experiences in life occur within social relationships, says a new research. An international team has found that a person's best and worst experiences in life are likely to involve not individual accomplishments, but interaction with other people and the fulfillment of an urge for social connection. Shira Gabriel, who led the research at the University of Buffalo, said: "Most of us spend much of our time and effort focused on individual achievements such as work, hobbies and schooling. "However this research suggests that the events that end up being most important in our lives, the events that bring us the most happiness and also carry the potential for the most pain, are social events — moments of connecting to others and feeling their connections to us." According to the researchers, much research in social psychology has explicitly or implicitly implied that events experienced independent of other individuals are central to explaining our most intense emotional experiences. "We found, however, that it was not independent events or individual achievements like winning awards or completing tasks that affected participants the most, but the moments when close relationships began or ended; when people fell in love or found a new friend; when a loved one died or broke their hearts. "In short, it was the moments of connecting to others that that touched peoples' lives the most," Gabriel said.
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