The Suffocation of Marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow Without Enough Oxygen

This article distills insights from historical, sociological, and psychological perspectives on marriage to develop the suffocation model of marriage in America. According to this model, contemporary Americans are asking their marriage to help them fulfill different sets of goals than in the past. Whereas they ask their marriage to help them fulfill their physiological and safety needs much less than in the past, they ask it to help them fulfill their esteem and self-actualization needs much more than in the past. Asking the marriage to help them fulfill the latter, higher level needs typically requires sufficient investment of time and psychological resources to ensure that the two spouses develop a deep bond and profound insight into each other's essential qualities. Although some spouses are investing sufficient resources—and reaping the marital and psychological benefits of doing so—most are not. Indeed, they are, on average, investing less than in the past. As a result, mean levels of marital quality and personal well-being are declining over time. According to the suffocation model, spouses who are struggling with an imbalance between what they are asking from their marriage and what they are investing in it have several promising options for corrective action: intervening to optimize their available resources, increasing their investment of resources in the marriage, and asking less of the marriage in terms of facilitating the fulfillment of spouses’ higher needs. Discussion explores the implications of the suffocation model for understanding dating and courtship, sociodemographic variation, and marriage beyond American's borders.     

Unpacking grit: Motivational correlates of perseverance and passion for long-term goals

In two cross-sectional studies, we explored the motivational orientations correlates of the character strength of grit and its two component facets: perseverance of effort and consistency of interests over time. Specifically, we examined how individual differences in grit are explained by distinct approaches to pursuing happiness in life: pleasure in immediately hedonically positive activities, meaning in activities that serve a higher, altruistic purpose, and engagement in attention-absorbing activities. In both samples, grit demonstrated medium-sized associations with an orientation toward engagement, small-to-medium associations with an orientation toward meaning, and small-to-medium (inverse) associations with an orientation toward pleasure. These motivational orientations differentially related to the two facets of grit: pursuing engagement was more strongly associated with perseverance of effort, whereas pursuing pleasure was more strongly (inversely) associated with consistency of interests over time. Collectively, findings suggest that individual differences in grit may derive in part from differences in what makes people happy.     

Tracking the line of primary gaze in a walking simulator: modeling and calibration.

This article describes a system for tracking the line of primary gaze (LoPG) of participants as they view a large projection screen. Using a magnetic head tracker and a tracking algorithm, we find the onscreen location at which a participant is pointing a head-mounted crosshair. The algorithm presented for tracking the LoPG uses a polynomial function to correct for distortion in magnetic tracker readings, a geometric model for computing LoPG from corrected tracker measurements, and a method for finding the intersection of the LoPG with the screen. Calibration techniques for the above methods are presented. The results of two experiments validating the algorithm and calibration methods are also reported. Experiments showed an improvement in accuracy of LoPG tracking provided by each of the two presented calibration steps, yielding errors in LoPG measurements of less than 2 degrees over a wide range of head positions. Source code for the described algorithms can be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive, http://www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Relationship Trajectories: A Meta-Theoretical Framework and Theoretical Applications

This article introduces a metatheoretical framework—the Relationship Trajectories Framework—that conceptualizes how human mating relationships develop across their complete time span, from the moment two people meet until the relationship ends. The framework depicts relationships as arc-shaped evaluative trajectories that vary on five dimensions: shape (which includes ascent, peak, and descent), fluctuation, threshold, composition, and density. The framework can depict single trajectories in isolation or two partners’ trajectories with respect to each other (dyadic trajectories). Two theoretical models demonstrate the generative power of the framework—the relationship coordination and strategic timing (ReCAST) model and the sociosexuality trajectory model—both of which integrate close relationships and evolutionary psychological perspectives on mating. Finally, additional examples illustrate how the framework can generate new research questions about core relationships topics.     

Holism,Meaning Similarity and Inferential Space—a Measurement Theoretic Approach

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Proponents of meaning holism often invoke notions of meaning similarity and semantic spatiality in order to counter accusations that holism renders language...