Scholars and therapists agree on the existence of a sort of second law of thermodynamics for sentimental relationships. Effort is required to sustain them. Love is not enough. […]

It is not understood at this juncture why so many couples end in divorce while some others do not. That understanding is of paramount importance since the social change induced by marital disruption deeply affects the social structure of contemporary western societies as well as the well being of their members.

The fact that, for most couples, both partners plan enduring relationships and commit to work for them, poses a contradiction with the reportedly high divorce rates. This contradiction is referred to in this article as the failure paradox. According to Gottman et al, the field of marriage research is in desperate need of (a mathematical) theory. This paper aims to alleviate the need. In particular, it offers a consistent explanation for the failure paradox. […]

In view of the ubiquity of the phenomenon of couple break-up, it seems sensible to look beyond specific flaws in relationships and search instead for an underlying basic deterministic mechanism accounting for break-ups. Building on sociological data, we propose a mathematical model based on optimal control theory accounting for the rational planning by a homogamous couple of a long term relationship. […]

The mathematical theory introduced in this paper unveils an underlying mechanism that may explain the deterioration and disruption occurring massively in sentimental relationships that were initially planned to last forever. Two forces work together to ease the appearance of the deterioration process. First, it happens that since an extra effort must always be put in to sustain a relationship on the successful path, partners may relax and lower the effort level if the gap is uncomfortable. Then instability enters the scene, driving the feeling-effort state out of the lasting successful dynamics. […] Lasting relationships are possible only if the effort gap is tolerable and the optimal effort making is continuously watched over to stay on the target dynamics.

{ PLoS | Continue reading }

[a]mong the married couples, a higher discrepancy between men’s and women’s number of previous intercourse partners was related to lower levels of love, satisfaction, and commitment in the relationship.

{ The Journal of Sex Research | Continue reading }

Romantic love is also associated, particularly in early stages, with specific physiological, psychological, and behavioral indices that have been described and quantified by psychologists and others. These include emotional responses such as euphoria, intense focused attention on a preferred individual, obsessive thinking about him or her, emotional dependency on and craving for emotional union with this beloved, and increased energy. Tennov (1979) coined the term “limerance” for this special state, and Hatfield and Sprecher (1986) developed a questionnaire scale to measure it. The universality, euphoria, and focused attention of romantic love suggest that reward and motivation systems in the human brain could be involved.

In addition, cross-cultural descriptions of romantic love regularly include reward-related images and suggest strong motivation to win a specific mating partner. For example, the oldest love poem from Summeria, “Inanna and Dumuzi,” dating ∼4,000 yr ago and found on cuneiform tablets in the Uruk language is translated, “My beloved, the delight of my eyes…” (Wolkstein and Kramer 1983). From the Song of Songs, the Hebrew 10th century poem comes, “…your love is more wonderful than wine …the sound of your name is perfume … . I sought the one my soul loves…” (Wolkstein and Kramer 1983). Furthermore, among the ethnographies canvassed in the review of Jankowiak and Fischer (1992) is one by Harris (1995) who cited evidence of the yearning for love and the motivation to win the beloved among the peoples of Mangaia, Cook Islands, Polynesia. These people have a word for “dying for love.” […]

Several results support our two predictions that 1) early stage, intense romantic love is associated with subcortical reward regions that are also dopamine-rich (e.g., Fisher 1998) and 2) romantic love engages a motivation system involving neural systems associated with motivation to acquire a reward rather than romantic love being a particular emotion in its own right (Aron and Aron 1991). […]

One of the most interesting findings of this study is regional effects related to the number of months in love. Notably, several limbic cortical regions showed a correlation with the length of the relationship: anterior and posterior cingulate, mid-insula, and retrosplenial cortex; but also, parietal, inferior frontal, and middle temporal cortex. […] these results highlight the importance of these cortical regions for processing stimulus/internal state change, and the importance of taking time factors into account in future studies of human relationships. At the same time, these results must be interpreted cautiously because they are cross-sectional, so that, for example, it is possible they represent differences in the kinds of people that remain intensely in love over a longer period rather than changes over time.

{ Journal of Neurophysiology | Continue reading }

Researchers say ‘outsourcing’ parts of a relationship could improve it. An agreed, non-monogamous relationship would, in some cases, improve the relationship.

{ Daily Mail | Continue reading | via gettingsome }

related { High divorce rates and low marital satisfaction are a direct result of partners’ inability to meet ‘psychological expectations’ }

This article examines cognitive links between romantic love and creativity and between sexual desire and analytic thought based on construal level theory. It suggests that when in love, people typically focus on a long-term perspective, which should enhance holistic thinking and thereby creative thought, whereas when experiencing sexual encounters, they focus on the present and on concrete details enhancing analytic thinking. Because people automatically activate these processing styles when in love or when they experience sex, subtle or even unconscious reminders of love versus sex should suffice to change processing modes. Two studies explicitly or subtly reminded participants of situations of love or sex and found support for this hypothesis.

{ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin | PDF }

art { Horyon Lee }

In love, as with genies, we only get three wishes, says relationship expert Ty Tashiro. The more traits you pick that are above the average, the lower the statistical odds that you’ll find a match. And three is the tipping point.

{ NY Post | Continue reading }

related { Divorce Rate Cut in Half for Couples Who Discussed Relationship Movies }

Previous research has shown that men with higher facial width-to-height ratios (fWHRs) have higher testosterone and are more aggressive, more powerful, and more financially successful. We tested whether they are also more attractive to women in the ecologically valid mating context of speed dating.

Men’s fWHR was positively associated with their perceived dominance, likelihood of being chosen for a second date, and attractiveness to women for short-term, but not long-term, relationships.

{ Psychological Science | PDF }

related { Finger lengths as a key to desirability in romantic couples }

In the late 1960s and ‘70s, working with the New York City Planning Commission, the sociologist William H. Whyte conducted groundbreaking granular studies of the city’s public spaces, spending hours filming and photographing and taking notes about how people behave in public. Where do they like to sit? Where do they like to stand? When they bump into people they know, how long do their conversations last? […]

Whyte and his acolytes formulated conclusions that were, for their time, counterintuitive. For example, he discovered that city people don’t actually like wide-open, uncluttered spaces. Despite the Modernist assumption that what harried urban people need are oases of nature in the city, if you bother to watch people, you see that they tend to prefer narrow streets, hustle and bustle, crowdedness. Build a high-rise with an acre of empty plaza around it, and the plaza may seem desolate, even dangerous. People will avoid it. If you want people to linger, he wrote, give them seating — but not just benches, which make it impossible for people to face one another. Movable chairs can be better. Also: Never cordon off a fountain.

[…]

For his dissertation at the University of Toronto, Hampton studied an extraordinary early experiment in wired living. In the mid-1990s, a consortium that included IBM and Apple helped raise more than $100 million to turn a new suburban development in Newmarket, Ontario, a Toronto suburb, into the neighborhood of the future. As houses went up, more than half of them got high-speed Internet (this in the age of dial-up), advanced browser software for their computers, a tool for videoconferencing between houses and a Napster-like tool for music sharing. He treated the other homes as a control group. From October 1997 through August 1999, Hampton lived in a basement apartment in the new development, observing and interviewing his neighbors.

Hampton found that, rather than isolating people, technology made them more connected. […] [T]hey were much more successful at addressing local problems, like speeding cars and a small spate of burglaries. They also used their Listserv to coordinate offline events, even sign-ups for a bowling league. Hampton was one of the first scholars to marshal evidence that the web might make people less atomized rather than more.

Hampton crudely summarized his former M.I.T. colleague Sherry Turkle’s book “Alone Together.” “She said: ‘You know, today, people standing at a train station, they’re all talking on their cellphones. Public spaces aren’t communal anymore. No one interacts in public spaces.’ I’m like: ‘How do you know that? We don’t know that. Compared to what? Like, three years ago?’ ”

Turkle said that her decades of observation are pretty conclusive: “When you watch a mother texting as she pushes a stroller — and I follow that mother for blocks, I walk alongside — you know it. You know that the streetscape used to include mothers who spoke to their children.”

[…]

According to Hampton, our tendency to interact with others in public has, if anything, improved since the ‘70s. The P.P.S. films showed that in 1979 about 32 percent of those visited the steps of the Met were alone; in 2010, only 24 percent were alone in the same spot. When I mentioned these results to Sherry Turkle, she said that Hampton could be right about these specific public spaces, but that technology may still have corrosive effects in the home: what it does to families at the dinner table, or in the den. Rich Ling, a mobile-phone researcher in Denmark, also noted the limitations of Hampton’s sample. “He was capturing the middle of the business day,” said Ling, who generally admires Hampton’s work. For businesspeople, “there might be a quick check, do I have an email or a text message, then get on with life.” Fourteen-year-olds might be an entirely different story.

{ NY Times | Continue reading | Thanks Jane JL! }

The friendship paradox is the empirical observation that your friends have more friends than you do. Now network scientists say your friends are probably wealthier and happier, too.

{ arXiv | Continue reading }

Oxytocin and vasopressin are neuro-modulators that, like dopamine, are also produced by the hypothalamus and are stored in the pituitary gland for later release into the blood. These seem to have a role in forming bonds and feelings of attachment to others, particularly in romantic love, and high levels of these are released into the blood stream following orgasm in both men and women. Interestingly, they are also released during child-birth and breast feeding, again showing an interesting link the biology of romantic and maternal love. […]

Sexual arousal and romantic love also appear to be coupled with de-activation of regions of the frontal cortex (the front of the brain), which is largely involved in judgement, and this might explain why individuals might engage in sexual activity that they later regret

{ Anti Sense Science | Continue reading }

Playing Moderately Hard to Get

Undergraduate college student participants imagined a potential romantic partner who reciprocated a low (reciprocating attraction one day a week), moderate (reciprocating attraction three days a week), high (reciprocating attraction five days a week), or unspecified degree of attraction (no mention of reciprocation). Participants then rated their degree of attraction toward the potential partner. […] The results support the notion that playing moderately hard to get elicits more intense feelings of attraction from potential suitors than playing too easy or too hard to get.

{ Interpersona | Continue reading }

photo { Danilo Hess }

A study on the effect of always agreeing with your wife had to be abandoned after it became intolerable for husband.

{ The Telegraph | Continue reading }

photo { Christopher Williams }

The eminent sociologist Erving Goffman suggested that life is a series of performances, in which we are all continually managing the impression we give other people. […]

But recently we have learned that some of our social responses occur even without conscious consideration. […] [L]ab experiments show that when people happen to be holding a hot drink rather than a cold one, they are more likely to trust strangers. Another found that people are much more helpful and generous when they step off a rising escalator than when they step off a descending escalator—in fact, ascending in any fashion seems to trigger nicer behavior. […]

Neuroscientists have found that environmental cues trigger immediate responses in the human brain even before we are aware of them. As you move into a space, the hippocampus, the brain’s memory librarian, is put to work immediately. It compares what you are seeing at any moment to your earlier memories in order to create a mental map of the area, but it also sends messages to the brain’s fear and reward centers. Its neighbor, the hypothalamus, pumps out a hormonal response to those signals even before most of us have decided if a place is safe or dangerous. Places that seem too sterile or too confusing can trigger the release of adrenaline and cortisol, the hormones associated with fear and anxiety. Places that seem familiar, navigable, and that trigger good memories, are more likely to activate hits of feel-good  serotonin, as well as the hormone that rewards and promotes feelings of interpersonal trust: oxytocin.

{ The Atlantic | Continue reading }

photo { Dennis Stock }

In 1780, Immanuel Kant wrote that “sexual love makes of the loved person an Object of appetite.” And after that appetite is sated? The loved one, Kant explained, “is cast aside as one casts away a lemon which has been sucked dry.”

Many contemporary feminists agree that sexual desire, particularly when elicited by pornographic images, can lead to “objectification.” The objectifier (typically a man) thinks of the target of his desire (typically a woman) as a mere thing, lacking autonomy, individuality and subjective experience.

This idea has some laboratory support. Studies have found that viewing people’s bodies, as opposed to their faces, makes us judge those people as less intelligent, less ambitious, less competent and less likable. One neuroimaging experiment found that, for men, viewing pictures of sexualized women induced lowered activity in brain regions associated with thinking about other people’s minds.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

Implicit gut feelings of newlyweds predict marital satisfaction. […] Findings of this study also suggest that satisfaction in marriage decreases over the 4-year time period, as is consistent with earlier studies.

{ United Academics | Continue reading }

I have a brother that appreciates curvier women, but is married to an athlete. He purposely positions himself outside of Lane Bryant when waiting for his wife to finish her shopping elsewhere in the mall. His not very subtle passive aggressiveness often works in motivating his wife to get in and out.

Hey. It beats tossing yourself over a rail and landing in an Auntie Anne’s kiosk.

{ Really?/Gawker | Continue reading }

related { Man Commits Suicide in Mall After Girlfriend Refuses to Stop Shopping }

art { Keith P. Rein }

Okay, if you want to know…

Will my date have sex on the first date?

Ask…

Do you like the taste of beer?

Because…

Among all our casual topics, whether someone likes the taste of beer is the single best predictor of if he or she has sex on the first date. No matter their gender or orientation, beer-lovers are 60% more likely to be okay with sleeping with someone they’ve just met.

{ okcupid | Continue reading }

photo { Maurizio Di Iorio }

What makes Spinoza’s philosophy unsustainable in Goldstein’s view is the fact that “in its ruthless high-mindedness, it asks us to renounce so many passions. (Among the passions we must renounce is romantic love, which, Spinoza deduces, will almost always end badly…)” Any love that is dependent on something that must inevitably change and cannot truly be possessed — such as another person — Spinoza explains, is asking for trouble.

{ Salon | Continue reading }

{ Men Feel Worse About Themselves When Female Partners Succeed, Says New Research }

Hyperlink cinema uses cinematic devices such as flashbacks, interspersing scenes out of chronological order, split screens and voiceovers to create an interacting social network of storylines and characters across space and time. […]

Krems and Dunbar wondered if the social group sizes and properties of social networks in such films differ vastly from the real world or classic fiction. They set out to see if the films can side-step the natural cognitive constraints that limit the number and quality of social relationships people can generally manage. Previous studies showed for instance that conversation groups of more than four people easily fizzle out. Also, Dunbar and other researchers found that someone can only maintain a social network of a maximum of 150 people, which is further layered into 4 to 5 people (support group), 12 to 15 people (sympathy group), and 30 to 50 people (affinity group).

Twelve hyperlink films and ten female interest conventional films as well as examples from the real world and classical fiction were therefore analyzed. Krems and Dunbar discovered that all examples rarely differed and all followed the same general social patterns found in the conventional face-to-face world. Hyperlink films had on average 31.4 characters that were important for the development of plot, resembling the size of an affinity group in contemporary society. Their cast lists also featured much the same number of speaking characters as a Shakespeare play (27.8 characters), which reflects a broader, less intimate sphere of action. Female interest films had 20 relevant characters on average, which corresponds with the sympathy group size and mimics female social networks in real life.

{ Springer | Continue reading }

First Genetic Evidence That Humans Choose Friends With Similar DNA

The discovery that friends are as genetically similar as fourth cousins has huge implications for our understanding of human evolution, say biologists.

{ The Physics arXiv Blog | Continue reading }

You cannot fix the bad boy. He’ll just break your heart and you’ll resent him forever.

{ Fearne Cotton | Continue reading }