Mother's Day: Positive Impact of Siblings on Divorce Rate

Here's one my greatest pieces of gratitude to my mom from myself (and the mother of my own children). Thanks for having so many kids:

Researcher Doug Downey observed adults who grew up as an only child were least likely to marry. Those who did marry were the most at risk for divorce than adults who grew up with at least one sibling.  

Adults who grew up with one or two siblings, that is in a family of four or five total, had pretty much similar divorce rates. 

While there were only minimal divorce-prevention gains with family size of up to three siblings, in families with four to seven siblings lower divorce rates in adulthood were pronounced.

In fact, with 7 Brookie kids, my parents hit the number just right! Here's one guess on why:

children who grow up with multiple siblings have more opportunities to learn how to negotiate differences. They've had to learn how to live harmoniously with others

They not only have to learn to deal with the bad, they get more good:

In large families younger children receive loving attention from not just two parents but many older siblings as well. If they fall down, many hands reach down to help them up. If they aim to accomplish a goal, whether it’s learning to throw a ball or succeeding at a school athletic event, many sibs are there to coach and assist them, and many voices then chime in to celebrate their victories.

And it continues into adulthood:

When illness strikes, there’s an unexpected job loss, or grief besets adults, adult siblings can come to the rescue. Their help can lower the stress on the sibling with the problem and his her spouse.

That doesn't even count the benefits of your siblings spouses as additional siblings. With underpopulation looming, if you're able, my armchair suggestion is to have one more kid than you think you can handle, then drop what's necessary to keep your sanity. I'm not only am excited about trying to create my own clan, I'm sure the benefits 14 first cousins (more than half in town) are also measurably positive!

Bonus link: Various other correlations of divorce rates

Future Bigotry

The gay marriage debate rages on and no one is safe from it. Not presidential candidates, not fast food chicken restaurants, and not even improv comedy shows. Alchemy, the comedy theater I run, had one of our students and friends of the company tell stories to inspire our Local Legends improv show a few weeks ago. Walter has been a menu printer, breakfast photographer, news columnist, and yes, he is gay. His stories covered all parts of his life, including some thoughts about the Chick-fil-A controversy (you can actually read them in his worth-reading Greenville News column). It was interesting to hear a downtown (think liberal) Greenville, SC (think conservative) crowd respond to his stories.

I haven't really given the issue much thought recently and I honestly haven't really kept up with the news about the controversy (in fact you may notice from the lack of blogging here, I haven't kept up with any news recently). But his stories got me to look back at the link I posted in 2009 about when gay marriage will be legalized in each state (so far we are little behind the prediction). There's no doubt the direction of change in the debate is for gay marriage. I can't imagine anyone who thinks it will be harder to get married in 5 years. Gay marriage will certainly be more like abolition and less like prohibition.

However, the bigger issue for me isn't will gay marriage happen, it will and it should, but what are the other issues for the future? I came across a two year old Washington Post article that had some possible predictive criteria:

First, people have already heard the arguments against the practice. The case against slavery didn't emerge in a blinding moment of moral clarity, for instance; it had been around for centuries. 

Second, defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity. (As in, "We've always had slaves, and how could we grow cotton without them?") 

And third, supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they're complicit. Those who ate the sugar or wore the cotton that the slaves grew simply didn't think about what made those goods possible.

The writer then suggests 4 issues he thinks will one day be seen as common sense:

1) Over-incarceration, overcrowded, cruel prisons: I agree and have already posted on the issue2) Inhumane farming of animals: Although I have come to appreciate animals more, we are different. This issue will change, but not as much as the activists think.
3) Institutionalized and isolated elderly: My family is already seeing the change as the market/government/family adjusts for this demand. Though government safety net constraints will limit this.
4) Environmental destruction: As you know, I'm skeptical of overpopulation and unstoppable climate change.

Other suggestions I've read were waterboarding (already changing), high school football (Frank Deford has convinced me several times over), military drones (maybe I'm uninformed, but I don't really care about this specifically), gun control (I recently found out that I am the only member of my immediate family that lives in America that doesn't own a gun).

Here are my 3 predictions: Drugs (less restriction), debt (less socially/politically acceptable), and privacy (we'll care less about it). So what are your predictions of current beliefs that will be labeled as future bigotry?

Worthwhile Sentences on Relationships

From Justin Landwehr: "Maybe I don’t want to care about impressing you, but I sure as hell want you to care about impressing me"

From economist Al Roth: "Let’s just say that marriage is a dynamic game that you play over a lifetime."

From the Simple Dollar: "The trick to a good presentation is to realize that the audience mostly just wants for the presentation to be over so they can do other things"

From Leela Turanga Turanga Leela: "Society is never gonna make any progress until we all learn to pretend to like each other."

From Anna Jonathan Franzen: “Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are.”

Dreams May Help Calm Us

By exposing us to our bad memories when our brain can better handle them:

During REM sleep, which is the dreaming stage of sleep, the brain stops releasing stress chemicals. Now a new study finds that as we dream we can even soothe our stressful associations to certain experiences. 

Scientists scanned the brains of 35 subjects while they viewed emotionally arousing images. Half of the subjects viewed the images in the morning and again in the evening of the same day. The other half viewed the same images in the evening and then again the next morning after sleeping. 

Those who slept between viewings reported a significant decrease in their emotional reaction to seeing the images the second time. And brain scans corroborated the self-reports, showing a reduction of activity in the amygdala, an area responsible for processing emotions.

So it helps us learn emotionally and intellectually. I wonder if this a reason to argue with your wife before you got to bed or to definitely not argue with your wife before you go to bed.

Why Men Have Less Friends

Or why the move to be closer to family has been harder for me than for my wife:

Drawing on decades of research, Thomas Joiner weaves a neglected story about how the manly pursuit of status, power, wealth and autonomy leads to great rewards in work and play but at the expense of loving, caring friendships. This is laid out beautifully in his book to be released this week titled, Lonely at the Top: The High Costs of Men's Success.

Although not complete, this article is the simplest explanation I've heard yet.

Emptying the Bottle: Mid-November '11 Links

Google recently canceled their sharing format, so I've switched to posting them on Twitter. So as usual, here is a list of the worthwhile links I've found recently:

• There's a billion-bug highway above you that you can't see [video] (earlier).
• Story of how modern day science can protect us emotionally [audio].
• Tear jerking marriage interview to inspire us all [audio].
• Why sandwiches taste better when someone else makes them.
• Blackberry outages cut Abu Dhabi traffic accidents by 40%.
• I am the 59%. Find out your number (earlier).
• Freakonomics on football momentum and icing the kicker [videos].
• Famous boos throughout history.
• Follow The Fake PewResearch Center on Twitter.
• A "Life Isn't Fair" Hallmark greeting card [photo].
• Siri meets Furby [video].

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Only You Can Improve Your Relationships

We all have relationship problems. I've talked about a lack of dedication, giving too much (or too little),  focusing too much on the short-run, sharing too much (or too little), or fostering anger instead of resolving conflict. The pattern in all of those previous posts is what I can do, not what the other person can do. Here's why:

This research examined the consequences of targeting the self versus the partner when trying to improve intimate relationships. As predicted, when participants (N = 160) focused their relationship improvement attempts on changing the partner, individuals reported more negative improvement strategies, lower improvement success, and, in turn, more negative relationship evaluations. Self-focused improvement attempts and participants’ own self-regulation efforts, however, were not associated with more positive relationship evaluations or improvement. Instead, individuals reported more improvement and greater relationship quality when partners were perceived to be engaging in successful self-regulation efforts. The results suggest that targeting the partner may do more harm than good despite that relationship evaluations pivot on whether the partner produces change.

To clarify, trying to change your partner only makes it worse. Trying to change yourself doesn't improve it for you, but it does for your partner. So we should always focus on self improvement and find others who do the same. If you can understand each other, you can love each other.

Pick Your Bias(es)

Great list from the Spousonomics blog:

1. Confirmation bias. Everything you see only confirms what you already believe to be true–whether or not it really is. Jenny recently decided that her family was perfect because a new study confirmed that families with two girls are happiest–and she has two girls!

2. Optimism bias. You view and interpret facts in a self-serving way. Like believing you do more than 50% of the housework, while your spouse believes same about herself.

3. Hindsight bias. Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along effect. Things that happened in the past were so predictable. You KNEW you shouldn’t have hung up on your mother-in-law, but now it’s too late and she’s not speaking to you.

4. Correspondence bias. The tendency to make trait inferences about someone based on their behavior. Your wife steals the sheets. She must not care if you’re cold.

5. Actor-Observer bias: Similar to above. You believe others do things because of their personality, but you do things because of the situation, i.e. your husband didn’t pick up the milk because he only thinks of himself, but you didn’t pick up the milk because you’re busy doing a million things.

6. Self-serving bias. You choose the explanation that makes you look best. If your kid gets a bad grade on his English test, it’s because the teacher is bad. If he gets an A, it’s because he’s a genius (thanks to your good genes).

7. Ingroup bias. Other couples suck compared to you guys.

Thinking About Relationships Long Term

I've boasted regularly about the new blog and book, Spousonomics. Whether it's date night, conflict, or marriage in general, economics has a lot to say about marriage. The authors recently requested questions on the Freakonomics blog, and mine got accepted. Here the question and answer:

Q. How do you avoid the counting-favors game? -Harrison Brookie

A. Or put another way, how to stop score-keeping? An excellent question and one that applies to virtually every couple, partnership and business relationship on planet earth. Research on incentives shows that counting favors is a double-edged sword. Say you’re trying to construct an agreement for how to pay an employee (or spouse). You could count every little thing he or she does or doesn't do, and pay for or punish each one. But this signals a lack of trust: Why else would you have to keep such close score? Evidence has shown that when a partner feels a lack of trust, he or she is more likely to cheat the system and less likely to volunteer to do something on his or her own. This is called “crowding out” of intrinsic motivation.

There are clear benefits to counting favors, you get the other to do more. But I'd never considered the costs. Like Dan Ariely stated in his book, there two different kinds of exchanges, market and social. When you treat a relationship like a system of platonic exchanges, the intrinsic desire to help disappears. If you plan on being in a relationship long term, which I certainly do, it's probably better for you to stop keeping count.

Conditioned For Marriage

There's been a lot of chatter on the web recently about "the end of marriage". Unsurprisingly, I'm skeptical. Here's some evidence that humanity is trained for committed relationships:

Single, male subjects rated a woman the most attractive at the peak of her ovulation, scientists found, which is to be expected since that's when she's the most fertile. On the other hand, male subjects in a committed relationship behaved the opposite by giving the woman lower attractive marks during her fertility peak.

Here's why:

The authors hypothesize that people in relationships are more likely to subconsciously reduce thoughts of temptation. Researchers call these tendencies "relationship maintenance strategies," where we downplay the attractiveness of others we might be tempted by.

Marriage Advice on Conflict

Conflict is important for any relationship and like most things, it has a learning curve. Here's a good question from the Spousonomics blog:

Have you figured out a way to argue more efficiently? Like, to reach resolution and smiles more quickly?

and here's the fabulous answer:

Never ever call names. Never ever threaten to leave. Don’t apologize for things you aren’t sorry for, that’s just mean, and for the love of all things Holy don’t fight about things that don’t matter. If you sit down and look at your part in things it’s unlikely that what you’re angry about matters one bit.

Economics of Marriage, Part II

Last month I mentioned a new blog I was following, Spousonomics. Not only do the authors have regular interesting insights, they've begun a very popular series of Economists in Love. In it they interview married economists about how those two parts of their lives interact. Previous entries include Jeff Ely, Shelly Lundberg and Dick Startz, Daniel Hamermesh, Seth Gitter. Their most recent entry is a behavioral economist I've had the pleasure of meeting, Dan Ariely. He offers his marital wisdom in video form:

Emptying the Bottle: Early-January '11 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• RegretTheError.com posts corrections, retractions, and apologies in the press.
• Julian Assange is upset about the information leaked about his charges (earlier).
• In rich and fat countries, do overweight politicians have an advantage?
• With a lack of safe disposal, smoking bans actually increase fires.
• Popularity of internet activities in each generation [chart].
• Talking hands free in the car makes your forget to compensate for talking.
• Cigarette taxes cover spillover costs, but alcohol taxes do not.
• Interactive map of American English dialects.
• Sex after marriage rates higher in stability, satisfaction, and "sexual quality".
• Socially insecure men have a higher aggression towards immigrants (earlier).
• Employer provided health care may decrease unemployment (earlier).
• Prisoners' release dependent on future kidney donation (earlier).
• How the world has changed from 2000 to 2010 [graphic].

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Resolving Conflict with Customers (and Spouses)

Here's are the highlights of an article from Slate Magazine about dealing with rude customers. It applies to relational conflict as well:

Aikido. This concept is borrowed from Japanese martial arts. "Masters of aikido do not resist the physical force of their opponents,"

Here's an example:

Don't interrupt the volcano while it's spewing lava! Take notes instead. Once the eruption is over, acknowledge your customer's anger by saying something like, "I know you're angry. I would be, too." If that doesn't calm your volcano down, remove him from the crowd so he can subside without losing face in front of the other customers.

Here it gets real good:

"All of us have a strong tendency to like people who are most similar to us," Barlow and Moller write. You must therefore find something in yourself that resembles the customer and display it. Obviously this is going to be tricky when the customer is in a really bad mood. If he's shouting, you don't want to start shouting, too. But neither do you want to be smiling. Instead, put on a sober face and make eye contact to acknowledge that this is a serious problem (even if it isn't).

Here's the marriage application:

The aikido method reminds me of some advice a mentor gave me when I got married 20 years ago. When fighting with your wife, he said, never apologize too early. Angry people need time to vent, he explained; apologize too quickly and your wife won't get what's made her mad off her chest.

Emptying the Bottle: Late-December '10 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• Interactive graphic of slavery in America (hat-tip to Justin W).
• Then and now photography with repeat pictures of changing landscapes [photos] (earlier).
• Coming soon to 2011, an internet-browser-only computer.
• Essays with more legible handwriting were evaluated more positively.
• Forget the gold standard, how about the classic giant stone disc standard [audio] (earlier).
• Divorce can make you sick and remarriage is the solution (earlier).
• Economists work harder at the beginning of their career when the benefits are larger.
• Penelope Trunk hate David Dellifield. The one from Ada, Ohio [read the comments too].
• Send your parents a personalized tech support care package.
• How about just public catastrophic health insurance? I'm on board. (earlier).
• iPhone adds to our trade deficit with China and it doesn't matter (earlier).
• Hans Rosling's economics of the last 200 years chart is misleading (earlier).

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Spousonomics' Suggestion for Date Night

I recently came across a blog called Spousonomics all about "using economics to master love, marriage and dirty dishes". It's based on a book of the same name. In one of their posts the authors suggest not only regular date nights, but unique ones. These new experiences flood the brain with same chemicals that bring us back to the same feelings we had when we first fell in love. Encouraging these kinds of "active choices", ensure that our routine isn't irrationally impacting our actions. This is idea is what convinced my lovely wife and I to go to downtown Raleigh to the only outdoor skating rink in North Carolina last week. Just look how romantic this advertisement makes it look!

It was cold. It was inelegant. It was memorable. So get out and there and follow your heart (and your utility curve). My wife and I are heading out again tonight for a improv company Christmas party!

Know Thy Spouse

In yesterday's post about how men and women view fighting differently, my wife was nice enough to give her thoughts. This was the GoogleChat conversation we had during it:

me: [link to my comment]
Traci: ew, i dont like the sweetie thing
me: haha, i was trying to think of a nice name what wasn't sexual
me:[link to my second comment]
Traci: im not responding
me: haha, i love you
Traci: your definition of fight is different than mine
me: say that then and explain it, because i disagree
Traci: nah
me: haha, then we will never improve!
Traci: you just want me to comment, you dont really want to improve
me: haha, i might post this chat on my blog
Traci: i was just typing that you weren't allowed to but then i erased it
me: now i have to

Views of conflict aside, nothing better for a marriage than knowing and accepting each other.

Applying Preference for Change in Marriage

In a recent post considering what core belief makes conservatives and liberals different, I argued that change is the best measure. Liberals embrace change and conservatives are weary of it. It resulted in a great discussion that ended with the question of whether this idea is practically helpful. Taking that as a challenge, I found a clear example of where the conservative/liberal views of change are both true and helpful, in marriage.

It is a fairly common understanding that women are more liberal than men, by a margin as wide as 12%. If we then apply the preferences for change, it helps explain common marital disagreements. Pop culture and my own marital experience confirm the idea that women are more satisfied in marriage when things are improving. For example, for my wife, our marriage is doing well if we are regularly dealing with our problems. If we aren't fighting, we probably aren't growing. For me, I feel like our marriage is doing well if we don't fight at all (my wife has taught me the folly of this idea, hence this earlier post).

Women, who are on average more liberal, are optimistic about the change the next fight will bring. Men, who are on average more conservative, are worried about the change the next fight might bring. I think both perspectives can be true. For many couples fighting leads to future baggage and more fights. For others fighting leads to dealing with past baggage and less (or at least healthier) fights. I'm curious, have other couples seen this to be true?

Emptying the Bottle: Early-July '10 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• Marriage doesn't always make you happier.
• Low self esteem is more likely associated with interest in celebrities (earlier).
• Victory for user created content sharing online.
• North Korea's World Cup fans were really volunteers from China.
• Israel bans subtly airbrushing models.
• Overworking, terrible for your health (earlier).
• Invest, not donate, to the already growing Africa.
• A psychological case for lighter textbooks and more comfortable desks.
• The economic data on prostitution.
• The real problem with Wal-mart is it's selling food too cheap (earlier).
• Fed blames layman economics bloggers. Tyler comes to the rescue.
• Worried immigrants might take taxpayer safety nets, charge them (earlier).

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Importance of Secular Counseling

Pastor Ted Haggard is well known for his scandal with a male prostitute. He is less well known for his humble and honest personal response to situation. Even going as far to publicly call himself a "a deceiver and a liar". He says he struggled for years, with small bouts of "freedom" every so often, but no real relief. In an interview he wisely describes one of his biggest mistakes:

Spiritual problems can be solved spiritually and physical problems need to be solved physically. Spirituality gives us power to address different issues but if you need an appendectomy you need to go to the hospital. If you need counseling, you need to go to a counselor... I needed counseling and I tried to pray about it and it didn't work. Counseling helped me accept me for who I am so I could get my life in order.

His counselors were professionals who happened to be Christians, not the other way around. There is a negative connotation to the going to therapy that even I have had. My wife and I had premarital counseling and I'm sure we will go to counseling in the future. Not because we have marriage-threatening problems, but because we don't want them.

Related: Ted Haggard is starting a new church, with a tithing lottery.