Building healthy relationships with family, work colleagues, and the people around us is the basis for a happy, complete life. Positive relationships help individuals adjust to society and support them.
People consider a lot of things to maintain healthy relationships with others, and psychology is a key contributor to the success of your relationship-building abilities. Whether it’s human behavior or understanding emotional needs, psychology can help you build healthy relationships with people around you.
In this article, we will discuss how psychology is involved in developing healthy relationships and how it works so that we can understand people around us.
1) Emotional Intelligence: More Than a Natural Skill?
Emotional Intelligence (EI) enhances one’s self-awareness and makes you more perceptive of people’s behavior and emotions. People who have a high EI are able to pick up both verbal and non-verbal cues in relationships. After listening to others first, these people curate a thoughtful response based on the mood and personality of the other person.
As you grow and explore the world, bumping into different scenarios and dealing with different people elevates your emotional intelligence. However, people who study psychology study this concept in depth and develop their skills.
Interested candidates can opt for a bachelor of psychology online program that gives them the flexibility to study at a top-quality institution without being bound as a student.
2) Teaches Effective Communication
Tony Gaskins calls communication the “heartbeat” of any relationship. In fact, communication is everything if you want to maintain a long-term relationship with someone. People who tend to fall apart with time usually suffer from improper or very little communication with one another.
Psychology teaches people the importance of maintaining a healthy and open communication with the people around you. You don’t have to be rude if you don’t like how your friends behave. You also don’t have to lash out next time your partner says something you disagree with. All you have to do is communicate your point effectively.
Psychology emphasizes practicing active listening — an art where your relationships feel more heard and understood. As an active listener, you listen to what the person in front of you has to say and react and respond later.
We understand that communicating in a way that involves more listening than speaking requires a lot of patience — for some of us, it might sound impossible. However, it is astonishing how avoiding communication pitfalls such as rash and defensive responses can save your relationship with people.
So, next time when someone important is talking to you, even about stuff you don’t agree with, remember that the way you reply can make or break your relationship with them.
3) Resolve Conflicts More Maturely
It’s natural for people to differ in terms of opinion. Even your closest relations are bound to conflict over things, which is completely natural and a regular part of human behavior. Since the problem doesn’t lie in conflicts, what exactly is the problem? The problem is in the way people handle conflicts.
At times, matters escalate after a conflict because people are unable to react properly and prefer arguing over healthier methods of settling the issue.
The first step to resolving a conflict is admitting mistakes rather than being defensive and playing blame games. People who take accountability for their words and actions are more likely to resolve an issue than those who just get defensive and don’t like to admit where they went wrong.
Besides taking responsibility, the tone you use with others plays a key role in resolving a conflict. Disagreements should involve mutual communication so they can be resolved while listening to the other person’s point of view. Running away from a conflict and avoiding it completely is not the solution. It will continue to build and eventually lead to more issues.
4) Boundaries Can Be Helpful
Healthy relationships come with well-established boundaries that distinguish you from others. No matter how close, people start feeling overwhelmed and annoyed by the constant invasion of their personal space.
Boundaries can be established with people emotionally, mentally, and physically. For instance, you have a different boundary with your partner compared to someone you work with.
For some people, the word ‘boundary’ might sound offensive. But in reality, it’s a set of healthy guidelines that create more balanced relationships. You can communicate your boundaries politely to people every time a discussion or a scenario seems uncomfortable.
You need to maintain a calm and collected tone when communicating your boundaries. Instead of beating around the bush, be clear about your comfort zone and what you are expecting from a particular relationship. Using ‘I’ instead of we creates clarity on the level of interaction you want with the other person.
5) Be Aware and Work On Yourself
Individuals with self-awareness can’t maintain interpersonal- as well as business- relationships. The justification for this is that these individuals possess personality defects that cannot be corrected, but they relish trying to scandalize other people.
This ‘I can be no wrong’ attitude is quite far in ensuring that your relationship with other people is compromised.
If you only position your attention on grooming, a constant message is conveyed that the person is striving to improve and should inspire other individuals to improve as well.
For instance, your partner will automatically start working to correct any issues that both of you need to develop a healthy, friendly relationship.
Healthy Relations and a Healthy Life
Psychology plays an essential role in building healthy and efficient relations with people. You can master communication and emotional skills so that you can learn how people behave around you.
Besides, it can be useful that a person is self-aware and can fix it when he is wrong, which may also help in building healthy relationships with those around you. While these skills are usually acquired gradually within a lifetime based on experiences, you can learn psychology to enhance every key relationship.
