The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models (Hardcover)

~ (Author), James D. Murray (Author), Catherine Swanson (Author), Rebecca Tyson (Author), Kristin R. Swanson (Author) "In the history of science the word theory has been most successfully employed as the explanation of a reliable set of phenomena..." (more)
Key Phrases: uninfluenced steady state, uninfluenced parameters, husband inertia, Variable F-ratio, Wife Inertia, Wife Negative (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... neatly presents marriage as a process both mathematical and unpredictable, both stable and prone to catastrophe."
— Jordan Ellenberg, Slate

"The Mathematics of Marriage is a splendid, important, and extremely useful book. Gottman and colleagues set a new standard for psychological explanation with their exquisite conversation among theory, models, data, and clinical intervention. They also provide the most clear and accessible introduction to the mathematics I have seen. This work is compelling evidence of the power of nonlinear dynamic models for understanding complex psychological phenomena. It will also change forever the way you look at marriage."
—Esther Thelen, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Co-editor of A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action

"Dynamic systems theory is infiltrating psychology in a variety of ways, increasing the sensitivity, realism, and scope of psychological models and methods. But I know of no other application that covers so much ground, from theory-building and modeling to methodology and measurement, and finally to clinical interventions that actually work. Gottman's determination to heal marriages fuels a rigorous scientific enterprise, based on a sophisticated understanding of complex systems and the mathematics for decoding them."
—Marc D. Lewis, Professor, University of Toronto, Co-editor of Emotion, Development, and Self-Organization: Dynamic Systems Approaches to Emotional Development

Product Description

Divorce rates are at an all-time high. But without a theoretical understanding of the processes related to marital stability and dissolution, it is difficult to design and evaluate new marriage interventions. The Mathematics of Marriage provides the foundation for a scientific theory of marital relations. The book does not rely on metaphors, but develops and applies a mathematical model using difference equations. The work is the fulfillment of the goal to build a mathematical framework for the general system theory of families first suggested by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy in the 1960s. The book also presents a complete introduction to the mathematics involved in theory building and testing, and details the development of experiments and models. In one "marriage experiment," for example, the authors explored the effects of lowering or raising a couple’s heart rates. Armed with their mathematical model, they were able to do real experiments to determine which processes were affected by their interventions. Applying ideas such as phase space, null clines, influence functions, inertia, and uninfluenced and influenced stable steady states (attractors), the authors show how other researchers can use the methods to weigh their own data with positive and negative weights. While the focus is on modeling marriage, the techniques can be applied to other types of psychological phenomena as well.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 500 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262072262
• ISBN-13: 978-0262072267
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #786,259 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but for two different purposes, January 13, 2006

By	Michael F. Kelly "CEO Techtel.com" (SF Bay Area) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

This book has an excellent introduction to model building; one of the best I have ever read. Starts with easy math and college stuff you probably forgot much of, then shows how to do great and unexpected things with it. You dont have to know all the math to see how powerful it can be for exploring any relation: man:woman, customer:seller, investor:company. What attracts them, engages them and holds them. When it doesnt work, why not. The other use? People who want to understand better why marriages work or dont. The findings the authors made are here. You dont need to know or even read the math parts to be able to use the findings, which are new and powerful. Certainly worth $28 bucks and a read.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars mixed, January 20, 2007

By	Joe Omalley (san francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Chapter 2 with an overview of marriage research was fascinating. Chapters 3-8 with a discussion of non-linear modeling and catastrophe theory were very clear.

The sections applying the non-linear modeling to marriage interactions were less convincing. Part of the problem is that each non-linear model concerns a single discussion rather than the state of a marriage as a whole. A marriage with two steady states is one thing; a conversation with two steady states is something else.

Gottman's previous work has found that the ratio of positive to negative interactions in a single marriage discussion can strongly predict whether the married couples will divorce. Couples with a good marriages had an average of a 5 to 1 positive/negative ratio while couples that ended up divorcing had an average of a 0.8 to 1 positive/negative ratio. Not surprisingly, the parameters of the functions of the nonlinear models were also different between the divorcing and the happily married couples, but it isn't clear that the additional complexity gets the authors much, if any, analytical benefit.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Math, Math, with so Much Sass, August 23, 2008

By	Nada O'Neal "noneal" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

I loved this book. Unreservedly, uninhibitedly, with my heart and soul. I'm loaning it out now to all my nearest and dearest. Perhaps you'll disagree with its conclusions about the applicability of its particular non-linear models to marital interactions, but surely you'll appreciate its subtly saucy asides and its smackdowns on the dirty dogs of qualitative research, those rascals who make hypotheses and draw conclusions without the rigor of mathematics to back them up.

So, as a dilettante and casual appreciator of good writing and good science, I found a lot to like. But I also have to speak out, as a sometime math tutor, of the fantastic quality of its middle chapters. Essentially, the middle chapters go to the trouble of teaching you all the math you need to appreciate their models, from pre-calculus onward. The explanations are so rich, so clear, and so grounded in practical reality, that I think they'd be helpful to a more general audience - anyone who needs a refresher or any beginning student of calculus or beyond who isn't "getting it". The authors don't stick to what you do to do the math, the rote symbol manipulation on which all too many textbooks focus, but what the math itself does, what the math means, and how it relates to processes in the real world. It filled me with a glowing warm warming glow, I have to say.