Daily HealthBeat Tip

Love and hate

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Why does the main person in your life put you through changes?

Margaret Clark of Yale and Steven Graham of Carnegie Mellon suggest self-esteem is crucial.

They find low self-esteem people have trouble thinking of partner strengths and weaknesses together. They switch between seeing partners as all good or all bad.

Clark thinks that in good times, people with low-self esteem idealize partners, making partners more approachable. But when they feel threatened, they villainize partners out of fear of being hurt.

"Insight into why they do this might be helpful to such people in attempting to maintain more balanced views of their partners. Partners may also find such insight to be useful in coping with their partners’ changing views of them." (11 seconds)

The studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology were supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August 2, 2006

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