For Better - How the Surprising Science of Happy Couples Can Help Your Marriage

Zusatztext 47499913 Informationen zum Autor Tara Parker-Pope Klappentext "The most credible and interesting marital self-help book of all time."-Newsweek Tara Parker-Pope's Well column in The New York Times has made her one of the most popular and e-mailed journalists in the nation. In this eye-opening-and ultimately optimistic-look at marriage today, Parker-Pope reveals the heart behind the statistics to bust the myths and share the true secrets to marital happiness. Among her surprising findings: • most marriages today are succeeding • newlywed couples who don't fight are at a higher risk for divorce than those who do • how couples divide household chores influences how often they have sex Whatever their stage of life or marital status, readers will be fascinated and buoyed by this classic in the making. Introduction The Scientific Study of Marriage What makes a good marriage? The mystery of why some marriages succeed while othersfail is something men and women have been trying to sort outfor decades. What qualities make some people more successful atnavigating the stormy waters of love while others lose their way?Why do some couples seem happy together while others are happiestapart? And is there any way to protect a marriage from the risksof stress, negativity, and divorce? The answers to those questions come from a surprising place.Far from the therapy couch or self-help gurus, the best insightsabout love and relationships are coming from the scientific community.Top relationship researchers from dozens of universitiesaround the world have devoted their careers to observing couplesinteract, collecting voluminous amounts of data about how menand women communicate, both in the words they use and in theirbody language and facial expressions. They have tracked pulse rates,blood pressure levels, and other physical responses that occur whencouples talk, laugh, and argue. Scientists have even measured theeffect marital conflict and stress can have on the immune systemand the body’s ability to fight off colds or heal a wound. Brain scanstudies of the newly in love and the long married offer glimpsesinto the physiological underpinnings of both passionate and lastingromantic love. It’s now possible to deconstruct a marriage down to its most basicparts and predict, with surprising accuracy, the likelihood that amarriage will survive or end in divorce. Using computer-assistedcoding programs and body sensors, scientists have analyzed thousandsof hours of video recorded conversations between couples,tracking everything from facial movements and body language topulse rate, sweat, and skin temperature. Computer-assisted wordanalysis programs have allowed researchers to pick apart conversationsbetween couples and find meaning hidden in the rhythms andpatterns of the words couples use when they communicate. The insights these researchers have gained will give you anentirely new way of looking at your own relationship. The findingscan be translated into surprisingly practical advice for couples. Agesture as seemingly minor as eye rolling or the manner in which aman retells the story of how he met his wife can be strong predictorsof happy married life or a looming divorce. Scientists have evenapplied mathematical models to marriage, calculating, for instance,that strong marriages have at least a five-to-one daily ratio of positiveto negative interactions. Simply translated, that means it’s notenough to apologize for mistreating your spouse. For every mistakeyou make, you need to offer five more good moments, kind words,and loving gestures to keep your marriage in balance. Scientists have also studied divorce and can now tell coupleswhat risk factors make their marriages most vulnerable. How couplesargue, who starts the fight, and even the pronouns they use inconversation can all signal the success or failure of ...

Product details

• Authors: Tara Parker-Pope
• Publisher: Plume USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 26.04.2011
• EAN: 9780452297104
• ISBN: 978-0-452-29710-4
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 21 mm
• Subject: Guides > Self-help, everyday life > Lifestyle, personal development