
Presence of spouse alters how parents' brains respond to stimuli from children - rbanffy
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-physical-presence-spouse-parents-brains.html
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a-priori
Of course. This kind of converging brain activity is an important part of how
empathy works: by inferring what another person's brain is doing and
replicating that in our own brain, we feel what they feel, and this
'synchrony' lets us understand and respond to them. It's basically the closest
thing we have to telepathy.

In a co-parenting situation, the activity you see is each parents' brains
emulating both the child's brain and their own. That results in a higher
degree of similarity than each co-parent on their own, because in that case
they're only empathizing with one other person (the child).

You would see the same result in other highly emotional three-party
situations; a co-parenting situation would just be a good way to trigger it.

~~~
jcims
I think it’s actually the fact that ‘roles‘ have generally been established
once a couple has been together for a while, and when the couple is together
in this case they are in execute-the-plan mode.

When it’s just one half of the couple, theres a realization that they have to
fill both roles. The mental scavenging required to prioritize/sequence/execute
a blend of familiar and unfamiliar actions is going to perturb brain activity.

~~~
watwut
It is actually other way round. I was more often without other person, so the
only me situation was easier to execute and "plan". Other person presence
inference sometimes requires more thinking or complications due to acting
unpredictably.

Other person makes it easier in a sense that there are two hands and you can
split kids. So you don't change diapers while watching other kid. But in terms
of how usual situation is, how much cooperation and negotiation it requires,
it requires more.

~~~
dmichulke
> Other person presence inference sometimes requires more thinking or
> complications due to acting unpredictably.

It's like solving a constraint satisfaction program where your spouse is an
additional variable.

I wonder to what extent the problem solving facilities are more activated with
the presence of the spouse.

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econcon
My wife is much less anxious when I am around here. She's a kind of person who
easily gets tensed and helpless when she comes across some stressful
situation.

To change his all I've to do is just listen to her and offer her my view and
usually she is able to fix all problems on her own.

I am one of the lucky people to have great wife who loves me so much.

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mensetmanusman
Working from home definitely has its benefits. My wife and I can now, more
often than not, look at each other and subtly grin when we are confronted with
an absurd tantrum.

Usually these interactions with children raise the blood pressure throughout
the day, but having both of us around definitely helps.

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stanfordkid
Might this just be the parents responding to the stimuli of each others
presence? E.g let me think about whether or not he/she will pick them up or
should I do it. It makes sense that _both_ parents would think this. In the
situation where they are alone, such a computation does not need to be done by
the brain.

There is no way to actually characterize the thought processes using these
imaging methods. No where does this implicate that the actual actions or
thoughts _specifically relating to the child_ are any different. This makes
the conclusion much less interesting.

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gliese1337
Well... yeah? Duh?

I definitely have different responses to my kids when my wife is around. I
would be very surprised if the same was not true for her. Does anyone _not_?

~~~
sjg007
The reverse is true too. Kids have different responses depending on which
parent is present and if both are present.

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stevekemp
Indeed, I find it fascinating seeing how differently our child will be with
me, vs. when he's with his mother.

Of course there are differences because he speaks a different language to each
of us, but even so his playing-behaviour is different, and I guess he's used
to doing different things with us both.

(For example painting is something he associates with his mother, so he rarely
wants to do that with me. While I'm the one who lets him choose music to
listen to. As you'd expect for a three-year old he likes anything loud,
Rammstein being a favourite, with The Prodigy being a good runner-up.)

~~~
jacobush
Let him try some dramatic classical music sometime!

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stevekemp
He's heard Holst's planets, Wagner's "ride of the valkyries", and other
pieces. Some of them likes, but usually the kind of music he wants to hear has
loud/regular drums and lots of guitar.

His reactions do amuse me though, I let him watch the video to Thriller before
bedtime recently, and he thought that was awesome. But the Amy Winehouse video
"Back To Black" was scary and he made me stop it!

~~~
jacobush
Try Bolero

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keyle
What's extremely different is how a toddler act when both parents are there
vs. alone with one parent.

They often act out, try all the things, push the boundaries and run amok. One
on one they're lovely.

~~~
Markoff
depends on parenting style

if you have typical good cop, bad cop parents there will be obviously
differences when each of them is alone and now when suddenly these styles get
mixed,

I don't see that much reason for changes, if both parents are good cops or bad
cops, of course they are never exactly same,

anyway the child will obviously try to push boundaries towards relaxed good
cop standards when mixed since it gives child clearly more opportunities to
play and child thinks it's under good cop protection and does things which
would never do alone with bad cop

sadly I'm the bad cop mostly

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08-15
The actual paper is Open Access and linked at the bottom of the article. After
a cursory read (I can't read it thoroughly, there is far too much story
telling in both the "introduction" and "discussion" sections), I suspect this
is merely an artifact of bad statistics combined with Munchhausens Statistical
Grid.

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Markoff
Fascinating. Who would expect that if parents are together they both feel
under supervision of the other one and behave more similar according agreed
rules vs alone without supervision of spouse.

Are all these researchers singles?

I have idea for another study, compare behavior of people supervised by CCTV
in room vs unsupervised, results will be truly shocking (for some)!

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Psyladine
I bet if you put a doctor/cop/peer/teacher/parent/total stranger next to the
person it would change the stimuli as well.

We're social creatures and to suggest actions are atomic is simplistic. Even a
small child knows to alter their behavior when authority figures or social
unknowns are present.

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lihaciudaniel
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain associated with executive
functions, choosing to eat or not cheese cake. Choosing or not to do
impulsivity or not. Of course being present with a wife you would react as
such.

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flycaliguy
I bet you would see he same results with two police officers who have been
partners for a while. It's a job and if you've got a partner then baby stimuli
is basically the "lets get to work" bell.

~~~
Markoff
not that sure about it, if they trust the partner he is less likely to report
them for negligence, so I'd assume it's exactly opposite with long time
partner vs strange new coworker, obviously with stranger you will more likely
play it by the rules than with someone who won't snitch on you unless it
happened before with long time partner

i think this applies to pretty much any line of work with internal control and
repercussions

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fouc
The surprising conclusion from this is..

Whenever we're in the presence of our significant other, our brains are
constantly in a state of readiness to compromise or empathize in order to
reach a common ground.

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asimpletune
I wonder if they tried just having two, unrelated people physically together
to establish the significance of parentage. What I mean to say is maybe
they’re just measuring people perceiving the same thing?

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neodymiumphish
Isn't that covered by the 3rd paragraph, or are you asking about something
else?

> They found that when spouses were physically together, they showed higher
> similarities in brain responses to the stimuli than when they were
> separated. This effect was only found in true couples and not in randomly
> matched study participants.

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brendanmcd
Wow, interesting. huge implications for understanding family sociology

