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A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution

BACKGROUND: Marital dissolution is ubiquitous in western societies. It poses major scientific and sociological problems both in theoretical and therapeutic terms. Scholars and therapists agree on the existence of a sort of second law of thermodynamics for sentimental relationships. Effort is require...

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Autor principal: Rey, José-Manuel
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847599/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20360987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009881
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author Rey, José-Manuel
author_facet Rey, José-Manuel
author_sort Rey, José-Manuel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Marital dissolution is ubiquitous in western societies. It poses major scientific and sociological problems both in theoretical and therapeutic terms. Scholars and therapists agree on the existence of a sort of second law of thermodynamics for sentimental relationships. Effort is required to sustain them. Love is not enough. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Building on a simple version of the second law we use optimal control theory as a novel approach to model sentimental dynamics. Our analysis is consistent with sociological data. We show that, when both partners have similar emotional attributes, there is an optimal effort policy yielding a durable happy union. This policy is prey to structural destabilization resulting from a combination of two factors: there is an effort gap because the optimal policy always entails discomfort and there is a tendency to lower effort to non-sustaining levels due to the instability of the dynamics. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These mathematical facts implied by the model unveil an underlying mechanism that may explain couple disruption in real scenarios. Within this framework the apparent paradox that a union consistently planned to last forever will probably break up is explained as a mechanistic consequence of the second law.
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spelling pubmed-28475992010-04-02 A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution Rey, José-Manuel PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Marital dissolution is ubiquitous in western societies. It poses major scientific and sociological problems both in theoretical and therapeutic terms. Scholars and therapists agree on the existence of a sort of second law of thermodynamics for sentimental relationships. Effort is required to sustain them. Love is not enough. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Building on a simple version of the second law we use optimal control theory as a novel approach to model sentimental dynamics. Our analysis is consistent with sociological data. We show that, when both partners have similar emotional attributes, there is an optimal effort policy yielding a durable happy union. This policy is prey to structural destabilization resulting from a combination of two factors: there is an effort gap because the optimal policy always entails discomfort and there is a tendency to lower effort to non-sustaining levels due to the instability of the dynamics. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These mathematical facts implied by the model unveil an underlying mechanism that may explain couple disruption in real scenarios. Within this framework the apparent paradox that a union consistently planned to last forever will probably break up is explained as a mechanistic consequence of the second law. Public Library of Science 2010-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC2847599/ /pubmed/20360987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009881 Text en José-Manuel Rey. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rey, José-Manuel
A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution
title A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution
title_full A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution
title_fullStr A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution
title_full_unstemmed A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution
title_short A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution
title_sort mathematical model of sentimental dynamics accounting for marital dissolution
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847599/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20360987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009881
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