Emily comments on Open Thread February 25 - March 3 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Coscott 25 February 2014 04:57AM

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Comment author: Emily 26 February 2014 02:22:05PM 13 points [-]

I wonder to what extent the problems you describe (divorces, conflict, etc) are caused mainly by poor matching of the people having the problems, and to what extent they are caused by the people having poor relationship (or other) skills, relatively regardless of how well matched they are with their partner? For example, it could be that someone is only a little bit less likely to have dramatic arguments with their "ideal match" than with a random partner -- they just happen to be an argumentative person or haven't figured out better ways of resolving disagreements.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 February 2014 02:12:20AM 5 points [-]

I wonder to what extent the problems you describe (divorces, conflict, etc) are caused mainly by poor matching of the people having the problems, and to what extent they are caused by the people having poor relationship (or other) skills, relatively regardless of how well matched they are with their partner?

Well, the success of arranged marriages in cultures that practice them suggests the "right match" isn't that important.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 February 2014 04:14:56AM 6 points [-]

the success of arranged marriages in cultures that practice them suggests the "right match" isn't that important.

What makes you think these marriages are successful? Low divorce rates are not good evidence in places where divorce is often impractical.

Comment author: Vaniver 28 February 2014 07:15:05PM *  7 points [-]

What makes you think these marriages are successful? Low divorce rates are not good evidence in places where divorce is often impractical.

Three main points in favor of arranged marriages that I'm aware of:

  1. The marriages are generally arranged by older women, who are likely better at finding a long-term match than young people. (Consider this the equivalent of dating people based on okCupid match rating, say, instead of hotornot rating.)
  2. The expectations people have from marriage are much more open and agreed upon; like Prismattic points out, they may have a marriage that a Westerner would want to get a divorce in, but be satisfied. It seems to me that this is because of increased realism in expectations (i.e. the Westerner thinks the divorce will be more helpful than it actually will, or is overrating divorce compared to other options), but this is hard to be quantitative about.
  3. To elaborate on the expectations, in arranged marriages it is clear that a healthy relationship is something you have to build and actively maintain, whereas in love marriages sometimes people have the impression that the healthy relationship appears and sustains itself by magic- and so when they put no work into maintaining it, and it falls apart, they claim that the magic is gone rather than that they never changed the oil.

I also think most modern arranged marriages involve some choice on the part of the participants- "meet these four people, tell us if you can't stand any of them" instead of "you will marry this one person."

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 February 2014 04:19:20AM 0 points [-]

I remember seeing studies that attempted to measure happiness.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 February 2014 05:45:44AM 2 points [-]

Links? I am also quite suspicious of measuring happiness -- by one measure Bhutan is the happiest country in the world and, um, I have my doubts.

Comment author: adbge 28 February 2014 09:06:57PM *  6 points [-]

Forty-five individuals (22 couples and 1 widowed person) living in arranged marriages in India completed questionnaires measuring marital satisfaction and wellness. The data were compared with existing data on individuals in the United States living in marriages of choice. Differences were found in importance of marital characteristics, but no differences in satisfaction were found. Differences were also found in 9 of 19 wellness scales between the 2 groups. Implications for further research are considered.

Source.

Results from the analyses revealed that arranged marrieds were significantly higher in marital satisfaction than were the love marrieds or companionate marrieds.

Source.

Unexpectedly, no differences were found between participants in arranged and love-based marriages; high ratings of love, satisfaction, and commitment were observed in both marriage types. The overall affective experiences of partners in arranged and love marriages appear to be similar, at least among Indian adults living in contemporary U.S. society.

Source.

A contrary finding:

Multiple regression analyses indicate that wives in Chengdu love matches are more satisfied with their marital relationships than their counterparts in arranged marriages, regardless of the length of the marriage, and that this difference cannot be attributed to the influence of other background factors that differentiate these two types of women.

Source.

Comment author: drethelin 28 February 2014 05:24:41PM 1 point [-]

Why are you even asking for links to studies if you admit you don't care what studies say?

Comment author: Lumifer 28 February 2014 06:22:37PM *  3 points [-]

I have a prior that the studies are suspect. But that prior can be updated by evidence.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 28 February 2014 10:58:52PM 2 points [-]

Why does it suggest that rather than that the arrangers are better at finding the "right match" than the persons to be married?

Comment author: Prismattic 28 February 2014 02:40:39AM 2 points [-]

I'm not sure this is correct. That is to say, the empirical point that divorce is much less common in arranged marriage cultures is obviously true. But

a) I think there is some correlation between prevalence arranged marriage and stigma associated with divorce, meaning that not getting divorced does not necessarily equal happy marriage.

b) The bar for success in 20th-21st century western marriages is set really high. It's not just an economic arrangement; people want a best friend and a passionate lover and maybe several other things rolled into one. When people in traditional cultures say that their marriages are "happy," they may well mean something much less than what affluent westerners would consider satisfactory.

Comment author: Alexandros 26 February 2014 11:03:29PM 1 point [-]

My instinct on this is driven by having been in bad and good relationships, and reflecting on myself in those situations. It ain't much, but it's what I've got to work with. Yes, some people are unmatchable, or shouldn't be matched. But somewhere between "is in high demand and has good judgement, can easily find great matches" and "is unmatchable and should be kept away from others", there's a lot of people that can be matched better. Or that's the hypothesis.

Comment author: Emily 27 February 2014 08:48:06AM 1 point [-]

Seems reasonable, although I'd still wonder just how much difference improving the match would make even for the majority of middle-ground people. It sounded in the grandparent post (first and fourth paragraphs particularly) that you were treating the notion that it would be "a lot" as a premise rather than a hypothesis.

Comment author: Alexandros 27 February 2014 08:54:49AM 1 point [-]

Well, it's more than a hypothesis, it's a goal. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't, but if it does, it's pretty high impact. (though not existential-risk avoidance high, in and of itself).

Finding a good match has made a big subjective difference for me, and there's a case it's made a big objective difference (but then again, I'd say that) and I had to move countries to find that person.

Yeah, maybe the original phrasing is too strong (blame the entrepreneur in pitch mode) but the 6th paragraph does say that it's an off-chance it can be made to work, though both a high improvement potential and a high difficulty in materialising it are not mutually exclusive.

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