Shared dreams and ambitions can help make a successful relationship.

　　But it seems the rather less romantic link of a shared commute can also help.

　　Married couples are happier if they travel to work in the same direction, says a study. Experts believe it makes couples feel they share wider goals in life.

　　They say the findings suggest newlyweds should consider choosing a home that requires them both to commute in one direction, rather than one located at the midway point between their two work places.

　　'Couples’ marital satisfaction can depend on whether they commute to work in the same or different directions,' said lead researcher Irene Huang, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

　　'Physically moving in a particular goal-relevant direction (e.g. commuting to work) might become associated with more general goal-related concepts.'

　　They quote the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, who said: 'Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but looking in the same direction together.'

　　The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, involved two surveys of married working adults, with participants asked how happy they were with their marriage and how satisfied they were with their spouse on a scale of one to nine. The first survey involved 280 adults in the US, who were aged 33 on average and had been married for an average of eight years.

　　Huang and her colleagues found a clear correlation between commuting in the same direction and higher marital satisfaction. They also found that this link existed independent of other factors such as number of years married, number of children, income level and differences in actual time spent commuting.

　　Furthermore, the link did not depend on whether or not couples sometimes left home for work together, meaning it was not due to having the chance to talk together while commuting.

　　The second survey involved 139 married adults in Hong Kong, who were 42 years old on average and had been married for an average of 13 years.

　　It showed a similar correlation to the US results, which also held independent of other relevant factors.

　　分享梦想与雄心有助于营造成功的婚姻关系。

　　上下班同路也有助于婚姻美满，尽管这听上去不大浪漫。

　　一项研究称，上下班同路的夫妇感觉更幸福。专家认为这让夫妇们感觉到自己在生活中拥有更多共同目标。

　　他们说，该研究成果建议新婚夫妇考虑选择让两人能上下班同行的住所，而不是选择位于两人工作地点中间的住所。

　　香港中文大学首席研究员艾琳?黄说，“夫妇们的婚姻满足感可能取决于他们上下班的时候是否同路。”

　　“走向同一个与特定目标相关的方向（如一同上下班）可能与共同实现更多总体目标联系起来。

　　他们引用了法国作家，《小王子》的作者安东尼?德?圣-埃克苏佩里的话：“爱不是彼此凝视，而是一起注视着同一个方向。”

　　该项研究由《实验社会心理学杂志》出版，其中涉及两项对在职已婚成人的调查。在调查中，研究人员询问他们对自己婚姻的满意度，并请他们按1分到9分的标准给自己的婚姻打分。

　　第一项调查涵盖了美国280名成人，这些人的平均年龄为33岁，平均婚龄8年。

　　艾琳·黄和她的同事们发现，上下班同路与较高的婚姻满意度之间有明显的相关性。他们还发现这种相关性独立存在于其他诸如结婚年数、子女个数、收入水平和花在上下班路上的时间等因素之外。

　　此外，这种相关性也不取决于夫妇们是否有时会一起离家上班，这意味着这种相关性并不是因为夫妇们一起上下班时有更多机会交谈。

　　第二项调查在香港进行，有139位平均年龄42岁、平均婚龄13年的已婚成人参与。

　　与在美国进行的第一项调查结果相似，其上下班与高婚姻满意度之间的相关性也独立于其他相关因素。

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