The Science of a Happy Marriage

Why do some men and women cheat on their partners while others resist the temptation?
To find the answer, a growing body of research is focusing on the science of commitment. Scientists are studying everything from the biological factors that seem to influence marital stability to a person’s psychological response after flirting with a stranger.
Their findings suggest that while some people may be naturally more resistant to temptation, men and women can also train themselves to protect their relationships and raise their feelings of commitment.
Recent studies have raised questions about whether genetic factors may influence commitment and marital stability. Hasse Walum, a biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, studied 552 sets of twins to learn more about a gene related to the body’s regulation of the brain chemical vasopressin, a bonding hormone.
Over all, men who carried a variation in the gene were less likely to be married, and those who had wed were more likely to have had serious marital problems and unhappy wives. Among men who carried two copies of the gene variant, about a third had experienced a serious relationship crisis in the past year, double the number seen in the men who did not carry the variant.
Although the trait is often called the “fidelity gene,” Mr. Walum called that a misnomer: his research focused on marital stability, not faithfulness. “It’s difficult to use this information to predict any future behavior in men,” he told me. Now he and his colleagues are working to replicate the findings and conducting similar research in women.
While there may be genetic differences that influence commitment, other studies suggest that the brain can be trained to resist temptation.
A series of unusual studies led by John Lydon, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal, have looked at how people in a committed relationship react in the face of temptation. In one study, highly committed married men and women were asked to rate the attractiveness of people of the opposite sex in a series of photos. Not surprisingly, they gave the highest ratings to people who would typically be viewed as attractive.
Later, they were shown similar pictures and told that the person was interested in meeting them. In that situation, participants consistently gave those pictures lower scores than they had the first time around.
When they were attracted to someone who might threaten the relationship, they seemed to instinctively tell themselves, “He’s not so great.” “The more committed you are,” Dr. Lydon said, “the less attractive you find other people who threaten your relationship.”
But some of the McGill research has shown gender differences in how we respond to a cheating threat. In a study of 300 heterosexual men and women, half the participants were primed for cheating by imagining a flirtatious conversation with someone they found attractive. The other half just imagined a routine encounter.
Afterward, the study subjects were asked to complete fill-in-the-blank puzzles like LO_AL and THR__T.
Unbeknownst to the participants, the word fragments were a psychological test to reveal subconscious feelings about commitment. (Similar word puzzles are used to study subconscious feelings about prejudice and stereotyping.)
No pattern emerged among the study participants who imagined a routine encounter. But there were differences among men and women who had entertained the flirtatious fantasy. In that group, the men were more likely to complete the puzzles with the neutral words LOCAL and THROAT. But the women who had imagined flirting were far more likely to choose LOYAL and THREAT, suggesting that the exercise had touched off subconscious concerns about commitment.
Of course, this does not necessarily predict behavior in the real world. But the pronounced difference in responses led the researchers to think women might have developed a kind of early warning system to alert them to relationship threats.
Other McGill studies confirmed differences in how men and women react to such threats. In one, attractive actors or actresses were brought in to flirt with study participants in a waiting room. Later, the participants were asked questions about their relationships, particularly how they would respond to a partner’s bad behavior, like being late and forgetting to call.
Men who had just been flirting were less forgiving of the hypothetical bad behavior, suggesting that the attractive actress had momentarily chipped away at their commitment. But women who had been flirting were more likely to be forgiving and to make excuses for the man, suggesting that their earlier flirting had triggered a protective response when discussing their relationship.
“We think the men in these studies may have had commitment, but the women had the contingency plan — the attractive alternative sets off the alarm bell,” Dr. Lydon said. “Women implicitly code that as a threat. Men don’t.”
The question is whether a person can be trained to resist temptation. In another study, the team prompted male students who were in committed dating relationships to imagine running into an attractive woman on a weekend when their girlfriends were away. Some of the men were then asked to develop a contingency plan by filling in the sentence “When she approaches me, I will __________ to protect my relationship.”
Because the researchers could not bring in a real woman to act as a temptation, they created a virtual-reality game in which two out of four rooms included subliminal images of an attractive woman. The men who had practiced resisting temptation gravitated toward those rooms 25 percent of the time; for the others, the figure was 62 percent.
But it may not be feelings of love or loyalty that keep couples together. Instead, scientists speculate that your level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons — a concept that Arthur Aron, a psychologist and relationship researcher at Stony Brook University, calls “self-expansion.”
To measure this quality, couples are asked a series of questions: How much does your partner provide a source of exciting experiences? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? How much do you see your partner as a way to expand your own capabilities?
The Stony Brook researchers conducted experiments using activities that stimulated self-expansion. Some couples were given mundane tasks, while others took part in a silly exercise in which they were tied together and asked to crawl on mats, pushing a foam cylinder with their heads. The study was rigged so the couples failed the time limit on the first two tries, but just barely made it on the third, resulting in much celebration.
Couples were given relationship tests before and after the experiment. Those who had taken part in the challenging activity posted greater increases in love and relationship satisfaction than those who had not experienced victory together.
Now the researchers are embarking on a series of studies to measure how self-expansion influences a relationship. They theorize that couples who explore new places and try new things will tap into feelings of self-expansion, lifting their level of commitment.
“We enter relationships because the other person becomes part of ourselves, and that expands us,” Dr. Aron said. “That’s why people who fall in love stay up all night talking and it feels really exciting. We think couples can get some of that back by doing challenging and exciting things together.” finger
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Ryan Zimmerman propels Washington Nationals past Colorado Rockies

Without exercising hyperbole, Ryan Zimmerman could claim each successive game he plays as the most significant of his career. Superstardom approaches for Zimmerman, but what he knows most intimately in the major leagues is losing. The Washington Nationals, the only team he's ever played for, the franchise he more than any player represents, have not sniffed contention since the moment Zimmerman arrived until now.
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This season has served as Zimmerman's initiation to winning baseball, an introduction that continued Thursday night with a 14-6, eight-inning victory over the Colorado Rockies at rain-soaked Coors Field. Before 20,795 fans, Zimmerman went 3 for 5, blasted two home runs and drove in a career-best six runs, making moot John Lannan's uneven return to the mound.
The Nationals will wake up Friday morning in an unfamiliar position, with a chance to finish the day tied for first place. They moved to 20-15, one game behind the Philadelphia Phillies and five games above .500 for the first time since Sept. 17, 2005 ¿ 16 days after Zimmerman made his major league debut.
"I always kind of wondered what it would be like to have people talk about how good you're playing instead of how bad you're playing," Zimmerman said. "It's been fun so far. We have a lot of work left to do. We're excited to kind of keep going."
After eight consecutive games decided by one or two runs, Washington could finally relax thanks to a seven-run outbrust in the eighth that tied a Nationals record for runs in one inning. Cristian Guzmán provided the biggest blow, a pinch-hit, three-run triple. By that time, puddles had collected on the infield.
"To kind of add on, because we've had a chance to do that a couple times and we haven't done it, to finally come up with the hits that take from that one-run lead to a four- or five-run lead was good for us," Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman provided the difference in the Nats' latest victory. He crushed both his home runs on sliders from Rockies starter Jhoulys Chacin, a two-run shot in the first and a three-run blow in the fifth. He added an RBI single during the eighth-inning onslaught.
At first, it seemed Lannan had allayed any concerns about his sore elbow. Pitching under horrendous conditions, he held the Rockies scoreless through four innings, allowing two walks and two hits. But he could not escape the fifth. The Nationals had just taken a 6-0 lead on Zimmerman's second home run, but Lannan allowed four hits and a walk while retiring only two, allowing the Rockies back into the game.
In the fifth, Lannan felt some stiffness his flexor tendon, the part of his elbow that flared before and forced him to miss his last start. Lannan did not see the new soreness as a long-term issue, although Manager Jim Riggleman wants to see how Lannan feels once he arrives at the park Friday.
"The first four [innings] felt good, warming up felt good," Lannan said. "And then it tightened up. When it happens, it's kind of tough to really control, to really get out there and extend. The ball was up, and I wasn't able to make big pitches when I needed to. No excuses. It feels fine now. In that inning, it kind of tightened up on me."
Much of the focus surrounding the Nationals' uplifting start has been on what is new. The changes make it tempting to overlook Zimmerman and what he's endured to play, at last, on a winning team. By May 14 during every other full season of Zimmerman's tenure, the Nationals were somewhere between six and 12 games out of first place. Zimmerman had lost 359 times in the 602 games in which he appeared before this season. That makes a .404 winning percentage -- 65-97 over a full season.
"He's been through a lot of losing," Manager Jim Riggleman said. "I'd like to see him get rewarded with some meaningful games late in the season. You like to get to the point where you get to the ballpark and you're playing for something late."
Before this year, not counting the first 10 games of a season, Zimmerman had spent five days of his career out of last or fourth place and zero days in first or second. Zimmerman noticed a difference in spring training: He could look around the clubhouse and reasonably expect who would play around him the rest of the season.
"It's a little more professional feel," Zimmerman said. "As far the people shuffling in and out, it's a lot easier to become a team hanging around the same guys. It's just a better atmosphere all the way around.
"The guys we have here now all know what we need to do. You don't have to worry about anyone else. You don't have to do any of that stuff. We're all playing for the same thing."
On Thursday night, the Nationals matched their largest margin of victory this season and highest hit total in a game with 16. Zimmerman enhanced his gaudy stats, sending his slugging percentage to .691, his on-base percentage to .375 and his home run total to eight. The best part is, it all means something.
"It's weird. Obviously, these games mean everything," Zimmerman said. "You see teams miss the playoffs by a game or two every year. If they had won two or three more games in May, they would have won it. We just go game to game. As cheesy as it sounds, I think that's the way you have to do it. It's kind of pointless to get too high or too low. It's not an exciting way to look at it, but that's how you have to." Swan Self Assessment
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