Love does exist – and knowing if you have it may be more straightforward than you think.
It
involves asking two simple questions that economists say can accurately
predict whether or not you're likely to divorce in the future.
These
are: 'How happy are you in your marriage relative to how happy you
would be if you weren't in the marriage?' and 'How do you think your
spouse answered that question?'
People who thought they would be no
worse off being single than they were being married were more likely to
end up that way. But people who overestimated how happy their partners
were in their relationship were even more likely to find themselves on
their own six years later.
Back
in the 1980s, scientists asked these two questions to 4,242 couples,
and then asked them the same again roughly six years later.
Economists
Leora Friedberg and Steven Stern, at the University of Virginia,
recently analysed the data and found, unsurprisingly, people who thought
they would be no worse off being single than they were being married
were more likely to end up that way.
But
people who overestimated how happy their partners were in their
relationship were even more likely to find themselves on their own six
years later.
Only 40.9 per centof couples accurately identified how their spouse would answer the question.
This
meant that almost 60 per cent of couples had imperfect information
about each other, and roughly a quarter of those had 'serious'
discrepancies in overall happiness.
Overall, about seven per cent of couples
in the sample were divorced by the time the second survey was conducted.
Pictured is California billionaire Elon Musk and actress wife Talulah
Riley who were together for a year after they remarried, but have now
split
Women
tended to think that their husbands would be worse off than their
husbands thought they would be if they found themselves single again.
Men had the opposite reaction.
Overall, about seven per cent of couples in the sample were divorced by the time the second survey was conducted.
Among
those who correctly assessed how unhappy their partner might be in the
case of separation, the divorce rate was less than 6 per cent.
Of those men who overestimated how unhappy a divorce would make their wives, 13 per cent ended up on single.
Among women who overestimated how unhappy their husbands might be, 14.5 per cent end up divorced.
The researchers say overestimating happiness affects how couples settle conflicts through bargaining.
According
to bargaining theory, the more one spouse misjudges his or her
partner's happiness, the more likely he or she will bargain 'too hard'
and make a mistake.
As
an example Professor Stern explained, 'If I believe my wife is really
happy in the marriage, I might push her to do more chores or contribute a
larger portion of the family income.
'If,
unbeknownst to me, she's actually just lukewarm about the marriage, or
she's got a really good-looking guy who is interested in her, she may
decide those demands are the last straw, and decide a divorce would be a
better option for her.'
The findings reveal just how important
it is to know how willing your partner is to leave a relationship, the
scientists say. 'The idea of love here is that you get some happiness
from your spouse simply being happy'
In
this scenario, pushing a bargain too hard, based on misperception of a
partner's happiness, will result in a divorce that wouldn't otherwise
have occurred.
'This
data shows that people aren't being as tough negotiators as they could
be, and then we realised that we needed to include caring in the model
for it to make sense,' said professor Friedberg
'The idea of love here is that you get some happiness from your spouse simply being happy'
'For
instance, I might agree to do more house chores, which reduces my
personal happiness somewhat, but I get some offsetting happiness simply
knowing that my partner benefits.'
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