In 1926, Hornell Hart claimed that success in marriage depended on the ages of the couple when they tied the knot – 29 for the man, 26 for the woman. Three years later, in 1929, G.V. Hamilton predicted happiness in marriage if the wife bore a strong resemblance to her husband’s mother.
These reports were all based on interviews of married couples, happy and unhappy.
In his 1954 book Clinical vs. Statistical Predictions: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of the Evidence, Paul Meehl, an American psychologist, concluded that predictions based on statistical scoring were more accurate than judgments made by experts. The “Apgar Score”, a formula based on five vital signs, followed in 1953 as a better way than a doctor’s common sense to decide whether a newborn requires immediate medical attention. Today, that formula saves the lives of thousands of babies throughout the world.
The Dawes Formula: A Statistical Method to Predict the Durability of Marriage
Carnegie Mellon University psychology professor Robyn Dawes was a pioneer in the field of behavioral decision research, who developed a formula that has proved far better than the average marriage counselor at predicting whether a marriage will last. The Dawes Formula is remarkably simple: the frequency of love-making minus the frequency of quarrels.
“In the field of psychology, Robyn was a giant," said John Lehoczky, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. "He was one of the pioneers in the field of behavioral decision research. This is a field that integrates psychology and economics and human emotions."
Professor Dawes successfully converted psychology into a quantitative science, “making our mental processes subject to precise measurement and exact calculation,” to quote Princeton Professor Freeman Dyson from his eloquent review of Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, in the December 22, 2011, issue of The New York Review of Books. Dawes and Kahneman later worked together.
“The great contribution of Kahneman,” Professor Dyson writes, "was to make psychology an experimental science, with experimental results that could be repeated and verified. Freud, in my view, made psychology a branch of literature, with stories and myths that appeal to the heart rather than to the mind.”
Can You Replace Your Illusions with Scientific Facts?
Marriage counselors tend to rely on traditional interview methods to help you. The flaw lies in “the illusion of validity,” which is a cognitive illusion, meaning a false belief that is naturally accepted as true," according to Daniel Kahneman. How many of us are able to dismiss our own intuitive judgments? Certainly not me, and probably not you or your marriage counselor either, even when the facts prove our judgments are false. Just because it’s a fact doesn’t make it true, yes?
Consider your illusions about your marriage. Your illusion that it will last forever is based on your experience. You and your mate probably think that you’ve become skilled at communicating and so you are more closely bonded now than on your wedding day, which you may assume improves your marriage’s chances for survival. Odds are, however, that your belief in the value of your experience is an illusion.
If you’ve ever sought help from a marriage counselor, whether a licensed social worker or a Ph.D. psychologist, you heard the sound of your own voice bouncing off the objective, non-judgmental interviewer. You and your partner may have even experienced an “epiphany”, as in: “At last, we are really listening to each. We can finally hear each other, and now we know what each of us wants from this relationship and what we are actually getting from it.”
Once away from your objective counselor (who may not even have rendered any intuitive judgment about the quality of your marriage), did you trip back into the intuition trap? Something one of you said, or some gesture you made, can trigger that vast store of memories that you use to make your decisions. The most accessible memories are associated with powerful emotions – fear, pain, hatred. Therefore, you are destined to make another poor decision.
Your marriage counselor may have told you to go slow, to base your judgments about your marriage on cautious, critical thinking and careful examination of all the evidence. But that’s hard work. It requires effort, time, and calories. Most of us resist this mental effort. Instead of thinking, we start talking. Talking leads to quarreling. Quarreling ends in divorce. Also, even critical thinking is vulnerable to illusion.
Using Math to Predict Marriage Success
A mathematical model to predict which marriages will last has been developed at the University of Washington by Dr. John Gottman, Dr. James Murray, and other mathematicians. Their mathematical equation has been 94 percent accurate at predicting marriages that will end in divorce.
The scoring adds and subtracts points for verbal and facial expressions in 20 various categories, including humor, contempt, anger, and affection. The study defined a successful marriage simply as one that lasted at least four years. It is not available for couples to use without counseling.
The 10-year study of some 700 couples determined that those with the best chance for long lasting marriages are couples who have a sense of humor, are affectionate, able to lovingly tease, and take interest in one another. Dr. Gottman says that math is not the lone solution for troubled marriages, but he does think that his model can help couples strengthen their marriages by helping them learn how to improve their communications.
Popular newspapers, magazine, TV reality shows, "talk" radio, and the cinema routinely spout advice for married couples desperate to work things. Often, they promise to deliver scientific secrets.
The University of Washington study puts couples into the following “stable” and “unstable” categories: Stable Couples include validators, who are defined as calm, intimate, companionable, and who support each other, and avoiders, who are defined as those who do their best to steer clear of conflict; Unstable Couples, those whose marriages are most likely to fail, include hostiles, who refuse to deal with prickly issues, and hostile-detached relationships in which one member is ardent, fiery, confrontational, and quarrelsome and the other is passive and docile. The couples who straddle their future together are the volatiles, those who are romantic and passionate, but who are also fervent bickerers.
Dawes and Kahneman might suspect this math model of supporting the illusion of validity, however, because it uses questionnaires and physiological readings such as pulse rates. Its developers claim it not only accurately predicts success, but it can also help couples identify problems to support more effective therapy.
Predicting Marriage Success: Just Like Predicting Parole Success
Ernest W. Burgess, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago from 1916 through 1960, took on marriage success prediction after he developed a method of parole prediction. His index of marital happiness led him to conclude that these factors are associated with "good" adjustment: agreement in handling finances, similarity of cultural background, happiness of parents' marriage, acquaintanceship of several years before marriage, desire for children, and the husband’s steady employment.
Contrary to popular belief, Burgess reported that wide religious and educational differences are relatively unimportant to marital happiness. Long courtships and increasing amounts of education, on the other hand, are important for success.
That moment when you decided to marry, you both believed it would last forever. Then you suffered your first major argument. And in a fraction of a second your illusions got the best of you. That intuition enabled your ancestors to survive in a jungle full of deadly reptilian predators where it is far better to be fast, wrong, and safe than to be correct, slow, and dead. But for your marriage to succeed, you need a lot more critical thinking and a good deal less intuition. Go slow and employ more brain than heart.
Resources:
Meehl, Paul E., Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1954
Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 2011
Burgess, E.W., Cottrell, L.S., Jr., Predicting Success or Failure in Marriage, Prentice-Hall, Oxford, UK, 1939
Dyson, Freeman, “How to Dispel Your Illusions,” The New York Review of Books, December 22, 2011, New York, NY
John Anderson - John Anderson has worked as a journalist, editor, advertising executive, Internet pioneer, and he has authored four books.
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