The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models

The Mathematics Of Marriage Provides The Foundation For A Scientific Theory Of Marital Relations. The Book Does Not Rely On Metaphors, But Develops And Applies A Mathematical Model Using Difference Equations. The Work Is The Fulfillment Of The Goal To Build A Mathematical Framework For The General System Theory Of Families First Suggested By Ludwig Von Bertalanffy In The 1960s. Applying Ideas Such As Phase Space, Null Clines, Influence Functions, Inertia, And Uninfluenced And Influenced Stable Steady States (attractors), The Authors Show How Other Researchers Can Use The Methods To Weigh Their Own Data With Positive And Negative Weights. While The Focus Is On Modeling Marriage, The Techniques Can Be Applied To Other Types Of Psychological Phenomena As Well.--jacket. 1. What Do We Mean By Theory? -- 2. What Phenomena Are We Modeling? -- 3. Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling -- 4. Calculus -- The Mathematics Of Change -- 5. Introduction To Dynamic Modeling -- 6. Modeling Catastrophic Change -- 7. Intuitive Discussion Of Phase Space Plots -- 8. Interacting Dyadic Systems -- 9. Writing The Equations Of Marriage -- 10. Initial Results Of Our Modeling -- 11. Who Needs All This Math? -- 12. Applying The Model To Newlyweds -- 13. Repair And Damping -- 14. Extending The Marriage Model -- 15. The Core Triad Of Balance -- 16. The Marriage Experiments -- 17. How To Prepare Data For Modeling. John M. Gottman ... [et Al.]. A Bradford Book. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [343]-359) And Index.