YOUNG LOVEYou based your relationship research on...

Periodically, or, really, whenever it strikes our fancy, we may report on the tendencies of Northwestern professors. This is one of those times. In fact, it is the first!

Someone from a health service the Washington Post is now whoring itself out to has written a piece about two Northwestern professors. These people are constantly in the news! Whatever did they figure out now?

Well, it seems breaking up with people isn't so hard, or so painful, as you might think. The professors, from our beleagured psychology department, followed — yes, really — 69 Northwestern freshmen for a year. They were given questionaries every two weeks by the researchers, which asked things like this:

Every successive survey asked those still coupled up to characterize the depth of their current love and to predict their emotional state of mind two, four, eight, and 12 weeks after a theoretical split. All were also asked how soon they might enter into a new relationship following any break-up.

Put another way, the researchers bombarded the dwindling number of couples with questions about a possible future break-up every two weeks. I wonder if that impacted the results at all? Nah, probably not.

That notwithstanding, we still have health findings based on the love lives and relationship standing of Northwestern freshmen. Hmm. Well, headline, and copy, at your own peril:

Breaking Up Is Not So Hard to Do [WaPo]