Perceiving being single as inherently negative: when participant ratings of another person’s life satisfaction rely solely on that person’s relationship status

The belief that every person has a strong desire to be in a committed relationship can lead to stereotyping of single people. The present study examined whether people judge another person's life satisfaction differently based solely on information about that person's relationship status. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 1,241 participants (M_age = 40.3, SD = 13.0; 57.3% cisgender women, 40.8% cisgender men, and 1.9% gender minority individuals) in German-speaking countries. After reading one randomly assigned description of a character that included the character's relationship status (single vs. with an uncommitted partner vs. with a committed partner), participants indicated how much they believed the character was satisfied with different aspects of life. Three informative hypotheses were compared using Bayesian ANCOVA. Results showed that participants rated characters with either an uncommitted or a committed partner to as having higher life satisfaction than single characters. Perceived life satisfaction was highest for characters with a committed partner. These judgements may reflect stereotypes and expectations that being single is inherently negative, which could ultimately contribute to discrimination or disadvantageous treatment of single people.