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We all know those couples that seem to effortlessly click with compatibility. Whenever they are around, others notice how easygoing and comfortable they are with each other. Their relaxation and easygoing nature are contagious. So is their laughter—which may be the key.
Playfulness and Romance
Kay Brauer et al. (2021) explored the impact of adult playfulness on romance.1 They began by recognizing the increasing level of interest in examining individual differences in adult playfulness, focusing on how individuals frame or reframe scenarios to be experienced as personally interesting, entertaining, or intellectually stimulating. They then turned their examination to how and why playfulness is important in romance.
Brauer et al. note that, overall, research supports the reality that playfulness positively contributes to both establishing and maintaining relationships. Playfulness helps to create positive emotions, impacts biological processes, and influences interpersonal communication, including social skills utilized in managing stress through seeking social companionship, as well as surprising other people during daily interactions. They assume that playfulness affects individual partners as well as the couple as an interdependent unit by contributing to relationship satisfaction, conflict reduction through resolving interpersonal tension, resolving monotony through intimacy, and building trust. In turn, trust, low conflict, and high relational satisfaction predict stable, satisfying relationships. Brauer et al. in this fashion surmise that playfulness has an indirect contribution to relationship durability.
So, consider ways to explore the practical value of this theory.
Mood Games: How Couples Can Reconceptualize Conflict
Many couples face the dilemma of mood. Not “in the mood” in terms of romance, but mood swinging. Like those rings that changed colors that many of us grew up with, many partners look for emotional or physical signs to help interpret a partner’s mood and behave in a manner intentionally designed to maximize positive interaction. In many cases, however, whether partners can effectively interpret mood or not, playfulness is one of the ways people effectively lighten the emotional atmosphere to approach a wide variety of difficult conversations, requests for assistance, or other scenarios. Within personal relationships, an approach of reframing through playfulness may be particularly effective considering how much each partner already knows about the other. In many cases, whatever the issue to be addressed, an approach leaning toward playful rather than serious is likely to make the experience more bearable for everyone.
Serious topics that are best approached with pre-planned conflict management strategies include financial problems, childcare, health concerns, and negative habits such as alcohol abuse or gambling. Reframing these areas through a lens of optimism and confidence that a couple can work through them proactively and productively is easier with an approach designed to lighten the emotional atmosphere.
One practical way that playfulness is likely to improve relationship functioning is that, unlike other approaches to interaction, regardless of the topic or circumstance, playfulness is a nonthreatening approach to behavior designed to increase receptiveness through respect and comfort through calmness.
