Ep 122: Relationships Satisfaction, Non-Monogamy, and Science with Dr. Justin Mogilski
Art by @thesmellofsleep
What does scientific research tell us about relationship satisfaction in non-monogamy? What can monogamous folks learn from the research done on non-monogamous relationships? How do monogamy and non-monogamy differ when it comes to relationship satisfaction, mate retention, and conflict resolution?
Effy and Jacqueline chat with Dr. Justin Mogilski about his international research on the best and the worst strategies for navigating consensually non-monogamous relationships. Dr. Mogilski’s research - the first one of its kind conducted with diversity in the data as a priority - identifies nine empirically supported strategies that result in higher relationship quality and sexual satisfaction in non-monogamous relationships.
Our guide in this exploration is Justin K. Mogilski earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary psychology in 2017 from Oakland University. He is an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, Salkehatchie. He researches how evolution has shaped brain computation to adaptively guide the decisions that people make to initiate, maintain, and dissolve intimate relationships. He has published in evolutionary, social, personality, and sexual psychology journals on topics spanning mate poaching, infidelity, cross-gender friendship, consensual non-monogamy, intimate partner conflict, moral decision-making, morphometric cues of partner attractiveness, and multivariate statistical analyses of human mate preference.
You can learn more about Dr. Mogilski:
Twitter @justin_mogilski
Facebook lab page facebook.com/MogilskiLab
If you’d like to participate in Dr. Mogilski’s international study of how people maintain multiple, concurrent intimate partners (e.g., polyamory, swinging, open relationships), you can do so by clicking on the link below. Anyone can participate if they're 18 years or older and have at least one current intimate partner. You do not need to be (or have experience) in a non-monogamous relationship. The link leads to Qualtrics. Funding and ethics approval statements can be found via the link.
Link: https://uofsc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7QI9ok5A8AGjMfY
To find more about Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla, follow them at @wearecuriousfoxes, @coacheffyblue, and @jacquelinemisla on Instagram.
If you have a question that you would like to explore on the show, reach out to us and we may answer your question on one of our upcoming episodes. Leave us a voicemail at 646-450-9079 or email us at listening@wearecuriousfoxes.com
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, hi. Hi. Hi. Hello. I'm curious about curious about I'm curious about cute is about building open, authentic, loving relationship? I'm curious about jealousy. I'm curious about polyamory, just mean that you're fucking all the time. How can I tell my parents that my partner is already married and curious about how do you know when you're too busy to have another relationship? I'm curious about dominance, subordinate relationship. I'm curious about sexual health. How can relationships evolve with people as they grow and change?
Justin Mogilski
So I feel like people are actually getting a lot out of the feeling of compassion. It feels almost altruistic, right? Or it sounds altruistic, right? It almost seems kind of selfish in some ways, as well. It's like you really are getting something out of their interactions with others. And for it to be so focused on sexuality. Yeah, there's something to be dug out there.
Effy
Well, welcome to the Curious Fox podcast for those challenging the status quo in love, sex, and relationships. My name is Effy Blue.
Jacqueline
And I'm Jacqueline Misla, and today we're curious about the best strategies for navigating non monogamous relationships. To do that. We spoke with Dr. Justin mogil ski, who has done international research with non-monogamous folks to understand what behaviors are associated with relationship satisfaction.
Effy
We've interviewed a number of researchers over the years and while we love and learn from their work, we have been disappointed that the majority research is based on studying white straight sis people, often college aged men. We were thrilled when we learned of Justin's work. He has published an evolutionary social personality and sexual Psychology Journals on topics spanning may poaching, infidelity, cross gender friendships, consensual non monogamy, intimate partner conflict, moral decision making morphometric cues of partner attractiveness and multivariate statistical analysis of human made preference. He and his team have spent years focusing on understanding non monogamous relationships beyond understanding jealousy, which is where most of existing non monogamous research and conversation focus.
Jacqueline
We walked through the nine strategies for supporting non monogamous relationship satisfaction, which emerged from his work. We started with learning about Dr. Mogilski ski and his work.
Justin Mogilski
My name is Dr. Justin Mogilski ski. So I'm an assistant professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina sell catchy, broadly speaking, I self-taught I was trained as an evolutionary psychologist and I study how people initiate, maintain and dissolve different types of romantic relationships. And right now I'm focusing on consensual non monogamy.
Jacqueline
And thank you for doing that.
Effy
And we love you ever. We arrive fascinated by your work. Oh, thank
Jacqueline
you. Yes, yes, she had right before we started recording that Effie and I have had the privilege of speaking with researchers and professors and our conversations and questions are always the same with some point we can't we arrive at who were the people being researched here. Are they all white sis straight? Young men often from college age men like is this what that what this is based on? And so, so thrilled to learn about not only that you have gone past that population, but that you have an international group that you're that you're researching. And so can we just start with you before we even dig into what you found what that is, what is it that you are have been researching?
Justin Mogilski
The the international project, it's focused on trying to identify the best and worst strategies for navigating and consensually non monogamous relationships. So I think people really want to know, okay, maybe I want to be non monogamous. Maybe I want to open up my relationship. Maybe I want to be in a polyamorous relationship. How do you do that. And so what we did was we tried to solicit from the community from just a diverse sample of people who have experience practicing consensual non monogamy, identify those practices, and then create this scale, this inventory that people can fill out to indicate how often they perform each of those behaviors. And whether those behaviors are associated with relationship satisfaction, how often you get into conflict with your partner, your personal health and well being. So that's the main outcome, which is we're trying to identify those practices and see whether they are associated with relationship outcomes.
Effy
Fascinating. So basically, how you do non monogamy Well, that's, that's what you write.
Justin Mogilski
And in the process, we're probably going to identify how people do it as well. We're trying to quantify that and the spectrum as well.
Jacqueline
Before we talk more about it, can you talk about how you arrived here? Why this particular population, this topic and how you got into this international project?
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, so I like I said, my background is in evolutionary psychology, and I think that anyone who's familiar with with evolutionary psychological research on romantic relationships, there's tons of research on you know, infidelity and things like mate poaching, and Multi partner relationships have been researched, I think extensively in that literature where we're trying to characterize how people navigate those situations. We're say you're with one partner, and maybe they're a long term established, committed partner. But then people also have interests in other people, and how do you navigate that space so that research exists, but most of it was done on monogamous populations, again, these kind of predominantly white predominantly heterosexual and monogamous populations. And so when I got into my program, I was on that track, I was interested in that research I had died published work on a soul mate poaching is when you go after it, when you know you're looking for someone romantic partner, you go after someone who is currently in a relationship. And the idea is you get into a relationship with them in order to poach them away from their partner and that relationship and begin your own relationship with them. So I was I was into the research from that angle. And I actually in my program, I met someone and I briefly was involved with someone who was in a consensual, non monogamous relationship, and they just kind of brought me into the fold. And I was like, how do you how do you do this? Like, is your husband okay with this, and it just kind of progressed from there. And we started collaborating a little bit, we started collecting data and just just to see, okay, what are people doing in these relationships? And if we test some of the hypotheses that have been well test, in this traditional literature, in this new population, do they replicate? Are we seeing the same things are people navigating these kinds of relationships in the same way? Some of my early studies, we found found that there were some differences overall, between monogamous and consensually non monogamous relationships, you see a lot of similarities in, you know, relationship satisfaction and being able to work together on shared goals and commitment to one another. But there were some differences and, for example, jealousy, and what people term mate retention, and that is the effort that you put towards making sure that a partner does not interact with someone else. And from there, because there were these differences I wanted to see, well, well, when there are differences, why do they exist? And, and from there, I got into, you know, as you progress on an academic career, you have to start writing grants, you have to get money, and you have to make your research more applicable to public health and things like that. And so I found this nice little in between area where it will, okay, I can keep doing the research that I'm interested in, but also maybe start to identify, well, okay, when these relationships go, Well, how are people doing that? And if we gather this data, can it be used to inform, say, relationship therapy or public health interventions that are aimed at resolving some of the problems that you might typically see pop up when people start being non monogamous? I mean, things like, you know, father absence or spread of STIs, things like that, what are people in polyamorous and consensually non monogamous relationships doing to alleviate some of the costs that you will otherwise see documented? When people commit infidelity in monogamous relationships? So it was really born of this, you know, started with with the traditional trajectory of studying romantic relationships, identifying that there's a population that is doing things differently. And then just honestly wanting to know what, what they're doing, how they're doing it.
Effy
That's fascinating. And I think I can also see how this research can be up or the results or what you're finding can be applicable to blended families post divorce situations where there are kids involved, where you need to kind of navigate something that it doesn't necessarily have to be polyamorous, but just requires people to remain in at least civil relationship because of children shared finances, property, whatever the reason, the whatever the reason is, so I can see how it could be totally applicable for that.
Justin Mogilski
I think people are multi partnering more often than we give credit for, like, for example, I think for a long time, people didn't consider casual dating or friends with benefits to be a type of consensual non monogamy, I think it is, I think that in any situation where you are concurrently involved with more than one person, you are practicing non monogamy, and there are going there are going to be consequences to how you navigate those kinds of relationships. So I think that identifying the best ways is is going to be largely applicable far outside of people who are who are just in CNM relationships, you know, the traditional polyamory swinging open relationships. So yeah, I agree with you.
Effy
Do you think that expands beyond the romantic to things like queer platonic relationships or close collaboration? I know that Jackie and I always talk about this because we have such a close relationship, you know, consistent long term collaborative relationship that requires navigating and it's not romantic, right, though. I think some people think that it is this and apparently I found out the other day, but it is a significant relationship, right. It's not some relationship that I would in any way dismiss. And would would make room for as I'm considering my relationships and how all of it fits together. There is You know, it's not it's on that list of people. Okay, here are the significant relationship shifts in my life? How do I fit those? Together? How do I maintain integrity and closeness and connection. And in this relationship, even though it's not a romantic one yet remains to be a significant one.
Justin Mogilski
I think the best model of that might be people who are asexual, a romantic, where they have these relationships, but they wouldn't they might be more platonic or they might not be as close in the ways that we traditionally think of as romantic relationships, I would expect that there are probably certain things that people need to do that are specific to the kind of really close to romantic, the unique elements of being in a romantic or sexual relationship, I think there are certain things that you're gonna have to resolve in those circumstances. But yes, I'd expect that there are general principles to getting along with people and essentially navigating the moral concerns of being in a group of living among other people, and how do you treat others ethically? And how do you make sure that you don't, for example, if you're in a business relationship, not favoring one of your business partners over others, and maybe treating them more equitably? How do you navigate that space? I think that there are some principles that generalize. Yeah, for sure.
Effy
I can even imagine, sorry, check this, this is just this is what happens when somebody has the data element. The other piece that I can see, I just want to expand it out one more, one more ring, if you will, is that often when I'm talking about public polyamory and molecules, especially when people are kind of struggling to wrap their head around it, I characterize that setup as a micro community, that that that particular especially in expanded molecule is essentially a micro community. And it has dynamics that really mimic a community environment. And and the real sort of polyamorous end of of non monogamy. And if you sort of take that, then the research that you're doing, you can also give us best strategies to live in communities.
Justin Mogilski
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I do agree with that. I think that so one of the when we can talk about the strategies I've identified, but one of them that we identified was just willingness to care for children, right. And that's a problem that you don't just maybe just have to navigate within a pair bond or within people who are romantic related. But at the same time, you might live within a community of people who are not romantically together who just live in the same area, they may be shared resources, they perhaps live in the same household or same several households where you're going to have to navigate Okay, which people are providing child care and who's contributing to the greater good, so to speak, right, who's contributing to everyone's Well, being kind of helping shoulder some of those responsibilities? I think that some of the strategies we've identified would be more applicable to yes, those those broader contexts.
Jacqueline Misla
Yeah. So we have been talking around some of the findings that are emerging from your research, and I'm wondering if we can dig into them now. And here? What are the things that are working? And what are the things that are not?
Justin Mogilski
Sounds good, so maybe I'll just go through so what we what we did was we initially identified 10 strategies, we found empirical support for about nine of them, so I'll just go through them and and we can talk about which other ones kind of pop out. So the big one, the one that I think is going to be the most consequential and moving forward is attraction disclosure. That is, if you are attracted to someone else, whether that's sexually, romantically or otherwise, do you tell your partner about it, or partners about it? I think that there's a there's a very common habit, I think, especially among people who are monogamous to, if you feel attraction to someone else, first off, feel shame about it, right? And then also hide that from your partner, don't let them know about it, kind of that that that secret crush that secret flirtation, just kind of keep that to yourself, don't open up, don't open up trouble. And what we're finding is that people who engage in more attraction disclosure, almost more than all the other strategies that I've identified, they are more likely to have higher relationship quality, higher sexual satisfaction, they tend to be more committed more invested in their partners. So the people who are doing that seem to be doing better for for some reason, we're not sure why, but attraction disclosure is a big one.
Effy
So with the the attraction disclosure, is there a correlation? Do we think maybe people who feel that they can disclose their attraction to others feel that they're in a more secure relationship, which allows them to reveal who they're attracted to outside the relationship? Or is it that because they do that the relationship is more secure?
Justin Mogilski
So that's a good point, because the data that I've collected so far is correlational. So we don't know whether the direction of the effect goes one way or the other? Is the attraction disclosure causing people to be more satisfied, or are they already satisfied, and therefore they're more likely to do that? And that's why just as a short note, we actually are doing a follow up experimental study where we try to manipulate some of these variables where we ask people to do these things in the relationship and see how that affects the relationship outcome. So the short answer is, I don't know. But I would guess there's part of that right is where if you're already feeling secure, then there might be less risk to disclosing that information. Whereas if you're already fairly insecure, the relationships on the rocks or the you're just not there in your relationship yet, then adding that extra elements in there could hurt more than it helps. But based on the data we've collected so far, I'm not the only people who seem to be hurt by not disclosing attraction are people who are already in a multi partner relationship of some type. So those who are people who are monogamous, whether they reveal their attraction to other people or not, it seems to be positive overall, but actually people who are in multiple relationships, if they don't disclose that attraction, they are reporting lower relationship quality. So there seems to be something specific to being in that type of relationship and disclosing attraction that's associated with higher quality.
Effy
Hmm, fascinating. I'm gonna sit with that now. Yeah, I'm
Justin Mogilski
not sure how to tease that one apart either. But, yeah,
Unknown Speaker
okay. Okay. So so jealousy, you said number two? Yeah.
Justin Mogilski
Yeah. Jealousy regulation. So how we word these questions is we ask people how comfortable they feel communicating with their partner about jealousy. So it's not whether you do it, it's not whether you're effective at it, but Well, it's sort of how you're effective at it. But do you even feel that you can communicate that information to your partner, those who feel more competent in doing that tend to report higher relationship quality and, and just very briefly, we measured primarily three domains. So overall relationship satisfaction, investment quality, that is how interdependent you are with your partner, how much you feel that you have kind of shared goals and shared directions in life, and then also, sexual attraction. So across all three of those jealousy regulation was was associated with higher scores on all of those.
Effy
Did you get any insight into how they're doing this? Like, what are the best ways of regulating jealousy and communicating jealousy?
Justin Mogilski
We don't get that from this data. What I've found in some of my other work is that so just to briefly touch on it, we measured jealousy once using something called the multi dimensional jealousy scale, which looks at three different facets. Emotional jealousy, which is that like hot, heavy, you know, you found out that your partner's cheating on now you kind of have that very anxious kind of worried feeling deep in your gut. There's behavioral jealousy, which is close to mate retention, how often do you kind of make sure that your partner doesn't stray? And then the other is cognitive jealousy? Which is how often do you think about it? How often do you ruminate about jealousy? Or consider that your partner is with someone else, we actually found that people on CNM relationships were overall much lower in emotional jealousy than monogamous people. But they were actually slightly higher in, at least as it was measured with the scale higher in cognitive jealousy, meaning they might be thinking about it more. So my guess is, and I don't have data to support this. But my guess is that people are thinking about the jealousy perhaps, you know, working through it, perhaps I think one of the, my guess is one of the best strategies would be a lot of cognitive reframing, right? Where you think about an emotion, you're aware of the fact that you're having that emotion, and then you try to reinterpret the situation in a way that is ultimately beneficial for your relationship. So if that jealousy is not working for you, if it's not helping you in some way, then try to find a way to experience it in a way that does ultimately help rather than hurt the relationship. For Yeah, from the data though I we're not getting that granularity, we just know that people who are communicating about it effectively and who feel that they are doing better.
Effy
Fascinating. Okay, so what's next? What's next.
Justin Mogilski
So the third one, the big one was childcare willingness, and this came from so to give some background on why how we came up with some of these strategies in the first place is one of the problems that you see again, and again, is that Multiset getting involved with more than one person might divide a person's how a time spent with a particular partner, or the investments that they might make with a particular person. And children are one of those investments, one of those one of those shared responsibilities that, you know, if you get involved with someone else, your partner could start to spend a lot more time say on their mating game right on actually interacting with romantic partners, rather than maybe caring for children that they've already had with another partner. And so the idea here was that maybe people who are more willing to care for children they're more willing to put in that effort might be having better relationship outcomes because it guards against some of the negative consequences. Some say, you know, not taking care of children and just going off and doing something else. So that tended to be associated more with overall relationship quality, as well as interdependence of the quality of the investment.
Jacqueline Misla
So in my particular dynamic, I have a daughter with my ex husband. And now I'm remarried, and I have a partnership, neither my wife or my partner wanted children, nor do they play a parental role in my daughter's life. And but to your point, there is an understanding and a commitment to my relationship and commitment to my daughter, and understanding that that does impact my time with them. And there's an understanding and acceptance overall, that that is the case that when my daughter has an event, when she's over for the night, all of those things that my time will shift in order to spend with her. And so even though they are not directly caring for her, they're caring for her via supporting me in my care for her.
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, via their respect for your time, and that that boundary, they need to keep yourself for the sake of character daughter. Yeah, that makes sense. Exactly.
Effy
Yeah. So the willingness to take care of children, are you measuring for taking care of your own children or taking care of children within their particular?
Justin Mogilski
So this is, so this is helping your partner take care of their children, which could be related to you, right? And so what we've done is we've asked that question, and then we also asked them, are these children that you help take care of if there are children? Are they genetically related to you? Or are they not? We haven't delved too far into that data, we haven't really broken that apart. That wasn't our initial focus. But one of the, I think predictions you'd expect is that people who are in a relationship, and there's a child that's not related to them, especially if stepfathers, for example, are notorious for not allocating as much effort into someone else's someone, you know, genetically unrelated children. So we would guess that, specifically men, and this was this is one of our gender difference, predictions, we thought that men who were more willing to care for children who were genetically unrelated to them would be experiencing greater relationship quality, just by virtue of their willingness to invest that effort where, you know, overall, otherwise, there. I mean, there can be some some rather unfortunate, I think consequences are kind of outcomes of step parenthood. Sometimes it's a well established pattern, I should say, not that's the case all the time. But yeah,
Effy
yeah, fascinating. Again, I'm curious to whether you're willing to invest in the kids more, because you're satisfied within your relationship, therefore, you want to maintain it, or your willingness to take care of kids, make you more satisfied within your relationship. I guess that's also unknown, To be continued to be explored in the future.
Justin Mogilski
Right, right. Yeah, that's we can't answer that without without the without the experimental data.
Jacqueline Misla
Yep. I think just based on my own experience, it has not been my experience that caring for a kid is, is a strategy to maintain the relationship. I think it's, it is around, again, kind of the tolerance around it. And what does that look like, but at least in my particular experience in the folks that I've dated now, in partnership with that there was if there was not already a pre existing interest in playing a role in a child's life that that did not develop for the reason of being in partnership.
Justin Mogilski
That's interesting, though. Do you feel like that's, that's a mentality that people could foster though? I mean, is that something that can change? Or are we just kind of almost dispositional? II? I'm a child care kind of person, I'm willing to do it anyway. Or just someone who's turned off to it and doesn't want to do it?
Jacqueline Misla
Yeah, I think I think in my experience, it's been more of a willingness to play almost like a an uncle aunt, kind of role of I will have the closeness of the care of, you know, some responsibility. But the end of the day, I essentially drop them back off to you and and you do you do the parenting, the parenting piece. And so that may have expanded from I don't want to be around children to I will play an important role in a child's life. But for at least in my experience with the folks that I've been with, it has not crossed the line to over into parenting world.
Effy
I think maybe the age of the child also makes a difference. I think taking care of a baby is different than taking care of a teen, it's a tween teen, you know, and maybe that also makes a difference along the way. So just your question was, do you think that you can cultivate a mindset to where you decide to take care of a kid? Is that what you're asking?
Justin Mogilski
Yeah. Or is that is that something that if these are ultimately strategies that we would be encouraging people to adopt? I mean, is that realistic? Can you induce someone to cultivate that mindset or is that you know, something that would be an effective intervention or Is that so? I don't want to say deeply ingrained, but is someone are is the preference already there and people are either going to put that effort in or they're not
Jacqueline Misla
All right, I we both have a million questions about each of them. But we have had like, we have 17 minutes and seven more strategies. And so yeah, so if you can talk through the rest, and then and then we can we can ask some questions at the end.
Justin Mogilski
Sounds good. So the next one is conversion. And that one's probably familiar. So just that that feeling of enjoying a partner interactions with other people, and being happy for them. So that was associated with higher relationship quality, but specifically, and we might be able to dig into this sexual satisfaction. So conversion was most strongly associated with sexual satisfaction. So there seems to be something maybe that people are more likely to feel that enjoyment if it's specifically targeted towards their partner's physical interactions with other people.
Jacqueline Misla
Yes, I can see that. I think my conversion generally has lived in that specific space in the sexual space, right, not conversion over their happiness over a long walk holding hands to the park. But if they had a particularly playful evening, I would be more interested in hearing about that and experiencing joy for myself through their experience of joy of their sexual experiences. Yeah.
Effy
Is that Compersion? Is that kinky, though?
Jacqueline Misla
I think they blend together,
Justin Mogilski
do blend together? No, I was I was gonna say I think there is a fine line there. I think conversion is often talked about as this like general feeling of enjoyment of their partners interactions with other and others and pleasure from it, it's almost seem like a very almost ethical reaction to your partner's interactions with others. But there does almost seem to be something very gratifying. And I guess, in this case, almost sexually gratifying about cultivating that feeling. So I feel like people are actually getting a lot out of the feeling of compassion, it feels almost altruistic, right? Or it sounds altruistic, right? It almost seems kind of selfish in some ways, as well as like you really are getting something out of their interactions with others. And for it to be so focused on on sexuality. Yeah, there's something to be dug out there. There are researchers looking at conversion, but there's just not a lot of data on distinguishing kind of that emotional conversion versus sexual conversion,
Effy
or intellectual conversion, which is something that I would also throw in there, like where you actually do the work to wrap your head around it in a way to counteract some of the negative feelings that you might be doing. So it's like, just like we're saying about jealousy. Right? I think probably the three different dimensions that you're looking at jealousy will probably will apply, apply to conversion as three different dimensions. And I think cognitive or intellectual conversion is a thing.
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, that's interesting. So is it intellectual? Because you're reasoning yourself there?
Effy
yes, yeah, exactly. That you're kind of you kind of reasoning, your reasoning, reframing yourself there. So that you're like, something that might otherwise bring up jealousy or negative feelings or self doubt, you kind of reframing it in a way. So that sort of shows up as conversion.
Justin Mogilski
Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, maybe? Yeah. The next one is called a shared extra pair sexuality. So this is if you are in a relationship and say you are starting to interact with a third person or other people, do you involve your partner in those interactions? So some people are very much yeah, I want to be involved, I want to watch I want to be there, I want to see what's going on, I want to be kept in the loop just 100% of the time. And then I think that there are people who are relatively less so on that where they say go off, I don't really want to hear about it, I don't want to see it. What we're seeing is that people who do that who share those experiences do tend to have higher relationship quality than those who do not share. And I imagine my guess is that that's going to depend on a person's circumstances that there might be some personality variables, or some aspect of the of the of the relationship that could make not sharing those experiences better for some people. But it looks like overall sharing is better than not
Effy
orgies for all.
Jacqueline
So to link back to the first strategy, was this, was there a distinction between involving my partner in the sexual experience or involving them so that they are in the know about the sexual experiences that I'm engaged in?
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, so the specific questions I actually read, so it's, the questions are telling your partner about sexual fantasy fantasies, including your partners in the fantasy, so we said fantasies because we tried to make this applicable to people who are actually having sex with people but also such that monogamous people could answer it. So it's more of if there is something sexual happening involving your partner in those interactions. So actually, them being there. Yes. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay.
Effy
Nice. And next. This is fascinating
Justin Mogilski
and keep going. All right, partner hierarchy. I think this is a big one and one that I really want to tease apart partner hierarchy, so that the extent to which you tend to give one or a few people priority in your life, such that they have greater influence over the decisions that you make. If you do make decisions do you tend to favor one partner over the other. And so I think this is one of those dimensions, you also see people there's a there's variability and how effective this is. Such that if I think of people who like Swingers, or those where you have usually an established couple, or an established relationship, and then they bring people into that, and there's this very explicit acknowledgement that, okay, if something goes south, or there's, there's incompatibility here, I'm gonna prioritize my partner's well being there, how interested they are in a relation in the relationship, versus the third partner, versus kind of taking this more egalitarian, trying not to treat one partner as superior not giving them priority, of course, you know, from moment to moment, some people may have more need than the other. And so you might, for a short period of time, give one person more attention, more energy, etc. But overall an effort to minimize that hierarchy, and which had more satisfaction. And that was, so that was one of those variables that was very weakly associated, I think over all those with more hierarchy, funnily enough, had higher in satisfaction with their interdependence, that is their investment with one another, it was not associated with overall relationship satisfaction. So it specifically was more satisfied with the investment, which I guess kind of makes sense. And yeah, it's
Effy
like, because especially so what I hear from that is, it's that's essentially about teamwork, right? Because it's not about relationship satisfaction, pleasure, that's about excuse my French getting shit done together, right? Cuz you're looking at interdependence, so doing life together. And therefore, you want to know who your teammates are, therefore, you can allocate accordingly. And things get done when things don't get done. And you know, who's doing what, when, and how. So that may make sense to me that having clear hierarchy just makes teamwork better. Like I don't even go into a romantic situation. So that makes sense to me. I'm not surprised by that.
Justin Mogilski
If there are clear boundaries, if you're sharing resources, you want to know that those resources are going where they will, and that they will be reciprocated to you, right? Because if you prioritize one partner, the assumption is they'll probably prioritize you too. And that there might be some security in that, though, I'd argue just because that might be the more secure strategy doesn't mean that's the most, that'd be the best strategy in a given situation. Because, you know, it could be that bringing more people into the relationship, treating them more equitably, creates more resources than if you were to kind of hoard them and keep them closed away and just a pair bonds. So that's, again, one of those factors, I really want to crack into a little.
Jacqueline Misla
I love that this is gonna, this is now 10 research. Assignments are gonna come up pop on since Jenkins and multiple after that, yeah, I would love that. Okay, so what's next?
Justin Mogilski
Okay, so next is resource distribution. So how often you consider how resources are distributed among partners? Do you tend to see this is not so much are you prioritizing a partner? But are you even thinking about are you conscientious of how you spend time, you know, how often you engage in sexual activity, how often you share money, or resources, physical resources among the different partners. So those who are less conscientious about that seem to report lower relationship quality than those who are more conscientious about that. And that I think, is one of those factors that might be more applicable to platonic relationships, even just groups of people figuring out how people share resources, and whether people are receiving a fair or equitable allotment of them.
Effy
I can also see, I mean, I feel like the roots of this is in evolutionary psychology where you're, you know, which is your absolute your wheelhouse, right? We know that the groups that shared did that well survived, right, versus, versus those that didn't. So I feel like that has deep roots in just humanity in general. Before you even get to romantic, would you? Would you say that?
Justin Mogilski
Yeah. So you're looking at it almost at a group selection level, which, you know, you go on to have no evolutionary research, whether we should be looking at whether groups are succeeding based on the resource sharing or whether individuals genes are succeeding. There's a distinction there. But overall, I agree that there is a I think that's a fundamental problem of how people when they are living within a group, how do you share resources with others. And ultimately, whether that's done effectively or not, is going to determine whether being in that group is worthwhile, whether it's benefiting you as a person. And then of course, the stability of that group. So as much as a relationship is is a partnership or a group to be maintained, then to do that poorly, is to essentially convince the other person Hey, I'm not getting as much out of this as I should be. Right? Like, I'm not getting what I need. I'm not getting the resources that I think is are fair to me. And so I just don't want to be part of this anymore. I think that's the level to look at it. I personally look at relationships as almost like a alliances as these these these agreements that you make to get something done and, or to work on something together and you're going to get something back from it, you're not getting enough back from it. It's very logical, very reasonable to say, well, this just isn't worth my time, I'm not going to think effort into it
Unknown Speaker
completely makes sense.
Effy
So the question that I asked my clients all the time, what do you want this relationship to afford? You? Yeah, because that's why we ended up in a relationship. And I reiterate that it's not about Trump. It's not about transaction. But we could be creating something that is being created to afford us something, whatever that is. And what is that? And does everybody as everybody have the same expectations or same desires of what the President wants to afford them? So I love hearing that. Next, Next, keep pulling our minds next.
Justin Mogilski
All right. Sexual Health Maintenance, this actually might be No, no surprise. So how we asked to ask these questions were how willing are people to take sexual risks? So that is, would you be willing to have sex with someone if there were a chance that you would contract? A minor STI? How often do you use condoms? How often do you use do you get tested for STI is when you're involved with multiple people. So no surprise, those who are more conscientious about that do tend to be tend to be happier or more satisfied in the relationships overall, what we're really looking forward to is we do gather some actual health data in one of our surveys that we've administered. So looking at whether that factor is associated with better personal health outcomes, that's going to be the real that's really gonna validate the that particular item that that category,
Jacqueline
that's interesting to also in the time of the pandemic, and COVID, and how any of those safer sex practices translated to safe practices overall, in terms of connection with others.
Justin Mogilski
I mean, that's, I think one of the fears that people have of non monogamy in general is that you are bringing in more than another person, it's harder to keep track of who's been with who and I think that's just kind of in the back of someone's mind. So I think when people are regularly testing, when they are engaging in these health practices there, they're really alleviating the anxiety that comes from that right. From not doing that I should say, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
Justin Mogilski
All right. And the last one, because this is the this is the ninth one, the last one that actually was validated is reputation management. So that is, how often do you do you tend to hide things about your romantic relationship from from your partner and from other people? So that is do you do you hide the fact that you are non monogamous from your family? Friends? Do you talk about it that often, and so those who tend to hide it more, unsurprisingly, usually have worse relationship outcomes. And this is this is a large literature at this point, we know that there's a stigma against people who are in consensually non monogamous people who are non monogamous in general. And that gets in the way of people seeking out, you know, advice for managing the relationships or seeking, you know, relationship therapy, because they don't publicly want to announce, hey, I'm in a relationship with multiple people, because there's that stigma there.
Jacqueline
I imagine. Yeah, I imagined for so many reasons. That's a block number one, it means not identifying with it in a way that you own it. And then I imagine it means then not having access to community support systems, friends, others that would really support you in it because of your desire to keep it closeted.
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, yes. Yes. I love that distinction. Yeah.
Effy
Also sharing strategies on how to do this stuff, right. So because if you're not disclosing, you're a part of a community, which means you don't get the shared knowledge experience, along with the support and being seen and heard and all those beautiful things, okay.
Justin Mogilski
And that's one of the reasons I like doing this work is because when you publish something, and you know, it's done scientifically, it kind of cuts through that noise. And it says, Hey, listen, despite what you believe, or what you think we have this data here, and now we can share these strategies, we can share these, these different ways of doing this that people can read about, they can incorporate into the relationship, but they don't necessarily need that community input to learn.
Jacqueline
So those are 10 factors. Those are 10 strategies that your research has been asking internationally with folks who are either practicing non monogamy or monogamous but considering non Monogamy was that
Justin Mogilski
they don't even have to be considering it. They could just be monogamous. Yeah, got
Jacqueline
it so that you can understand the distinction between the populations.
Justin Mogilski
That's right. Yeah. And these This was actually one of the challenges we had to get by is how do you how do you ask these questions the way that someone who's monogamous could answer them, and we figured it out. So yeah, we're able to directly compare monogamous people who do these things versus multi partner people who do these things.
Jacqueline
Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. And were there any surprises for you?
Justin Mogilski
Surprises? Well, they're always surprises in administration. There's always surprises and trying to get this survey out and Trying to find people, I would say the well this might be interesting. This isn't really related to the data. But one of the one of the sampling procedures that we use were paid, promoted social media advertisements. So paying Facebook paying Twitter, to get this out there. And that can target you know, everyone who's 18 years or above within the United States, for example, and doing that the amount of flack that I got. So this was like an innocuous advertisement, it was like, Hey, we're just interested in what people in who are in relationships with multiple people at once, what they do to make the relationship work. And so many people started trolling that post and posting really nasty like, you know, oh, you know, Satan, stay away from me. And, you know, how could you How could you know, there are children on this platform? How could you be promoting this? So there's, I think, more than ever, I'm convinced that there's this really, really tough environment, or if you're a non monogamous, it's a boy, of course, you want to hide it? Right? Yeah.
Jacqueline Misla
And you had noted earlier on, I think before, before we started recording, we were talking about some of the surprises when you are speaking with folks about this work. And because you and we are so involved in this, that the knowledge gap sometimes can be surprising. And so when folks say I've had the same thing that oh, that mean, it must mean you and all your partners have STIs. And oh, that must mean you know that you're you're you're not paying attention to your daughter, etc. And it sounds like the research is is showing? Well, let me ask you that question. Apart from indicating what are the strategies that folks who are in multiple relationships can do to maintain happiness within their relationships? Was there any indication around the happiness overall, between those in non monogamous relationships and those in monogamous relationships? Is there any indication around thriving overall,
Justin Mogilski
in differences that we didn't observe differences, and we've seen this in nationally representative data as well of very large samples, some of the I think some of the best researchers in that in that field that who published on this are people like Amy Moore's Rhonda Ballerini, David Rodriguez, they they're all showing our heat, second, second year, they're all showing that people are, when you compare monogamous and CNM people, they're having many of the same relationship outcomes, they're dealing with the same stuff, right, since CNM. And a lot of ways is like a monogamous relationship, except you have the added factor of another person. But you're still trying to coordinate resources, you're still trying to deal with jealousy, sometimes you're still having all the experiences that you would expect. So know that we're not observing those differences. What we're observing is differences in what people do in those relationships and how they navigate the different relationship problems that they encounter. But they both seem to be effective in managing those problems. It's just how they do it. And that's, that's what this this this studies,
Effy
I'm curious about good because this is an international study, and I'm a multinational person, I grew up across the world. So I'm curious to what kind of differences you're getting your results depending on the countries that you're doing your research in.
Justin Mogilski
So so far, we're not seeing many differences. One of the things that we did to validate our scale is we do what's called factor analysis. And then part of that is you do invariance analysis, where you look at whether the way that people responded to the scale were different across different groups that you can create. So looking at people who not only the biggest samples that we have, the ones that I would say that I'm most confident in making a conclusion about is the US versus Europe. It looks like US versus Europe, there aren't really many differences surprises, kind of surprisingly, right? You almost expect that there would be differences in how people are navigating non monogamy. But at least for the strategies that we've identified, there aren't that many differences. So for example, things like age, those who are relatively older versus those who are relatively younger, there's no difference between them. Now, there, there may be differences in how often they engage in certain behaviors. But there are no differences in in the pattern of filling out the questionnaire overall. And so it seems that these strategies are tapping into something similar for everyone. But there are some differences in say, how comfortable people are about communicating about jealousy between those who are older versus younger. As people have more experienced in a relationship, they tend to have more competence in communicating about it. So yeah, we're not seeing we're not seeing huge differences. But I think one of the one of the what I expect is once we break out into many of the more conservative or traditional societies where the sexual mores are more restricted, we've had some difficulty finding them for for obvious reasons. What I would expect is that there might be more secrecy. And there may be more exclusivity in those communities in terms of in how people are are practicing them and what terminology they use to navigate specific issues. But in terms of these strategies, yeah, people seem to be They seem to be tapping into to something more universal. That's it, that's, I'm gonna make that a very soft claim something something more universal.
Effy
I find that fascinating because things like, for example, the resource piece, right? I be curious to see how I know somewhere like the US where we're like wild capitalism versus somewhere like Sweden or Denmark, where you have essentially very established functioning socialism, right? So those macro environments, I would imagine, have have an impact on the micro, you know, micro community environment where you're looking at resource management, right? So I'm surprised that it just doesn't it that doesn't show up in different countries is fascinating.
Justin Mogilski
It, it might be a matter of a shared philosophy of those who are consensually non monogamous, right? I think people who are non monogamous overall are thinking about how they're interacting with others, how they're managing the relationships. So it could just be that that is its own kind of philosophical, yeah, make sense community, or they have their own approach. And that's what's
Effy
being shared. That makes total sense. Yeah. continues to fascinate me this is like hashtag fascinating is going to be the the theme for this episode.
Jacqueline
I think that what it makes sense in that it sounds like the overall strategies fall into the buckets of self reflection and self regulation, empathy, communication, things that should make hopefully your own relationship with self and relationship and partnership thrive. And so it's, it makes sense for me, I guess that there is those strategies across the country across the world. Because communication does improve things. Hopefully, self reflection does improve things. Empathy does improve things. I think that what I'm interested in to your point is those those last ones around being able to tell your family and friends around the hierarchy piece when resource allocation means different things in different places, how those things show up as stressors to a relationship. And I imagined that they folks would leverage those other strategies to navigate through those particular stressors. So even those those things will come up as complications, there'll be more communication, there would be more empathy, there would be more self regulation, self reflection.
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, perhaps across different environments or cultures, there are certain problems that are more prominent, right. So if the problem is stigma, in some places, there are going to be more stigma than others. So the strategy should differ based on what the problem is, what what what problem that strategy addresses. The strategy itself, though, might be relatively universal.
Effy
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Makes sense. And that kind of, I guess that kind
Justin Mogilski
of speaks to your point. And that was really one of the original motivations for this is we thought that I mean, so from my background, this this evolutionary background, I think that there are fairly consistent issues that people have to deal with. I mean, we can really get ancient here and talk about the the problems of cuckold DRI, right of a partner having a child that is, you know, genetically unrelated to you or, say a partner who, because they don't have to invest in offspring, they have a lower minimum obligation and offspring because they contribute sperm versus someone else contributes egg, there are problems with how relationships are invested into a partnership, I think those are the universal problems. And those are what say, some societies might be better at kind of managing than others based on you know, whether it's a capitalistic structure versus something that's a little bit more communal. So I would expect that the problems differ across society, to some degree, but there are universal elements as well. And these strategies, hopefully, universally address them.
Jacqueline
So your Research is the research is included, and it's been peer evaluated within the amongst the folks who have been engaged in this process. Can you give us a little sense of when will the results officially be live and published?
Effy
And will you come back?
Justin Mogilski
Come back? Yeah, when they'll be left. So the manuscript is almost done been, you know, tossing it back and forth working on it, you gotta make pure when when something goes through peer review, you want to make sure you address absolutely everything you possibly can beforehand, especially if we're shooting for a higher end journal, so that this can have the highest impact as possible. So right now, yes, good point. The results are not published. They've been peer reviewed by the team who was, which is a, you know, a set of other academics, but it's not officially published yet. That is what I would guess, given the normal timeframe, I would guess maybe sometime next year, it would be out just because it takes a while for peer review.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And then at that point, yes. And even beforehand, we'd love to continue to have conversations. But before you go, we want to do a little bit of research on you. And so we have four questions that we would like to ask you to get to know you a little bit more before we close. The first of which is, what is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self about love sex or relationships.
Justin Mogilski
I think that when people approach relationships, they're going to have their own experiences. They're going to have their own perspective on what they fear what they enjoy. weigh what they're worried about, and to get outside of yourself, and to think about what another person's experiences have been and what they are and how they differ from your own, I think gives you that empathy element, it gives you that ability to say, Okay, this is what I prioritize in the relationship. But now I understand why you prioritize something else to understand that about another person, I think gives you a huge leg up and in just leading a satisfying romantic life.
Effy
That's such a grand notion for like, my younger self. If I could just get my younger self to understand that. Yeah, I think definitely, it would be great advice. Okay, what is one romantic or sexual adventure on your bucket list?
Justin Mogilski
I like meeting different people. So I feel like my overall bucket is just meet different people get different perspectives and kind of make those connections. I like making connections to people. So I don't know if there's like some grand thing I want to do is just, you know, each person is going to be their own story, and I kinda want to hear him.
Jacqueline Misla
Oh, I love that answer. I love that answer. How do you challenge the status quo?
Justin Mogilski
Well, professionally, or?
Jacqueline
Yeah, I think I mean, part of it. It's self evident. I think I think you're, you're challenging right now things within the research world by the very work that you're doing. But certainly, either professionally or personally,
Justin Mogilski
I guess, professionally, given that much of this. I mean, this sounds like a really boring answer. But given that a lot of this this research is is done on monogamous people, and it's it's done in these this very niche population than just doing it and talking about it. And having that data out there, I think does challenge a little bit. I'll say this. You remember those those comments that people were making about the posts that my promoting social media advertisement? I think one of the one of the My favorite was something like, you know, you are directly complicit in the downfall of the nuclear family and stuff like that. So I apparently I must be sad, challenging the status quo of like, a marriage and family structure? I don't know if I agree with that. But I will say that.
Jacqueline Misla
Sure. Indeed, indeed, I would imagine the strategies that you're researching are actually saving marriages versus breaking them up. Totally
Effy
agree. So we're curious bunch around here, and we are curious about what you're curious about lately.
Justin Mogilski
Just broadly, what am I curious about? Um, I am curious about this is totally unrelated, virtual reality, VR, and just how we're going to integrate VR and every every aspect of our life. It's my personal belief that when the technology becomes cheap enough and widely available enough, I think that we are genuinely going to live in the metaverse. And that's actually going to be a really, really good thing for everyone. Once we get through all the hiccups, and some of the challenges of doing that, I think that's that's going to be a win win across the board.
Unknown Speaker
You just tapped into one of Effies biggest Oh, really?
Justin Mogilski
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think it's going to eliminate barriers to people being able to go and do the things that would normally require, like material privilege, right. So that is if say, you want to go to a certain university, and you live on the other side of the world, being able to beam in and physically feel like you are there even though you're not. I think it's gonna have huge, huge implications for education. Oh, that's interesting.
Effy
I think that is one of number one. Number one thing for VR, I think it's going to be fascinating and amazing for education. And it's going to remove barriers, exactly what you said, that's like one of my top things, you're going to be able to learn from whom whenever you want, and it's not going to be you can you can just do it from the comfort of your own jet. Yeah. And because when you're in VR, I think there is a possibility that the socio economic barriers are going to erode also just from because we're going to be in our avatars, right? Because we do so much of our judgment and upon meeting people in the way they look in the way they dress and the way, right, and that's going to that's going to fall away. It's going to be mostly based on your creative expression. Right? And now we're gonna start judging people in a completely new visual connection. So fascinating.
Justin Mogilski
I love that I love that we can have I would love to have a whole conversation about that.
Jacqueline
We'll do it. We'll do it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate time and authentically appreciative of the work that you're doing.
Justin Mogilski
Thank you. I appreciate you guys having me. This was this is fun.
Effy
Yes, absolutely. We'd love to have you back.
Jacqueline
You can follow Dr. Justin mogil. Ski on Twitter at Justin underscore mogil ski and read his published work through Google Scholar and ResearchGate. We've added links in our show notes. And while you're online, check us out on our website and Facebook group all under the name we are curious foxes. We want to increase our reach and we need your help. So please share our podcast with this episode with a friend. Quickly rate the show leave a comment and subscribe on Apple podcast or follow us on Spotify and Stitcher. To support the show and indulge your curiosity. Join us on Patreon at we are curious foxes where you can find behind the scenes footage mini episodes and over 50 videos from educator led workshops. Go to patreon On at we're curious foxes, and let us know that you're listening by sharing a comment a story or a question. You can email us or send us a voice memo to listening at we are curious foxes.com Or you can record a question for the show by calling us at 646-450-9079.
Effy
This episode is produced and edited by Nina Pollack, who is our number one strategy for podcast satisfaction. Our intro music is composed by dev Sahar, we are so grateful for that work, and we're grateful to you for listening. As always, stay curious friends. Sorry, sorry.
Jacqueline
We started with learning about Dr. Mogilski, we started with learning about Dr. Mobius ski, fuck, why can't I say mogil? Ski? Okay. Yeah, that's friends.
Effy
Curious Fox podcast is not and will never be the final word on any topic was solely aimed to encourage curiosity and provide a space for exploration through connection and story. We encourage you to listen with an open and curious mind. And we'll look forward to your feedback. Stay curious friends. Stay curious and curious. Curious. Thank you. Stay curious.
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