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NancyLebovitz comments on Open thread, Sep. 28 - Oct. 4, 2015 - Less Wrong
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I should have been clearer-- I find it very plausible that people whose parents had an unhappy marriage are more likely to have trouble getting started on relationships, but that's what I find plausible, not what I have evidence for.
I don't know. I find it very plausible that children of bad marriages would have trouble creating and maintaining a stable and happy relationship, but I'm not sure about just starting a relationship.
Part of the situation is that people are under less pressure to start relationships (less likely to deal with parents who are demanding grandchildren), and that they're in a social environment where it's easier to turn people down. Even a slight flinch reaction at the idea of starting a relationship is going to raise the threshold effort.
I'll track down the link if it's wanted, but there was a piece by a woman from the UK who decided to accept every date that was offered to her. It turned out that a lot of men had no plans for the date-- they'd say "whatever you want to do". Admittedly, this isn't a formal survey, but I wonder whether it's an indication of a lot of men who aren't actually enthusiastic about dating.
I don't think offering a woman the choice of what the date is about indicates lack of enthusiasm of going to a date with the woman.
It might be a matter of tone, but I'd rather hear at least an offer of a plan with room for other suggestions rather than no plan.
There are two different issues:
1) What does the woman prefer.
2) What does this behavior signal about the guy.
The thing is "signal" is at least a two place verb-- it probably needs more places because there are a large number of people involved.
I may have just acquired signal as a word to be sensitive to-- signals have to be interpreted, so just saying something is being signaled leaves out altogether too much variation in many cases.
I agree, that does sound plausible, both genetically and psychologically.
Behavioral genetics has only found weak effects from parenting (shared environment). While the nature of the research only allows for detecting large effects, and I doubt your specific argument has been studied, I generally assume such selection effects are weak unless there is evidence to indicate otherwise.
Edit: Unless you're arguing that if someone's parents are naturally bad at relationships, they too will be bad at relationships, but since whether a marriage is good or bad is generally more complex than that I don't think that's what you're arguing.