Of Memes and Marriage: Toward a Positive Relationship Science
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FRANK D. FINCHAM Florida State University STEVEN R. H. BEACH University of Georgia* Of Memes and Marriage: Toward a Positive Relationship Science Marital and family research has tended to focus Selfish Gene, when he offered the concept of on distressed relationships. Reasons for this the meme:Ameme is the conceptual analogue focus are documented before keys to establishing to the gene in that it is the core element of an a positive relationship science are outlined. idea that is transmitted and replicated over time. Increased study of positive affect is needed to Instead of DNA replicating within a physical better understand relationships, and the best milieu, however, the meme replicates within way to accomplish this goal is to embrace a given cultural and conceptual context. Just the construct of ‘‘relationship flourishing.’’ as genes may have multiple alleles, with the The behavioral approach system and the frequency of the alleles being determined by behavioral inhibition system are described and environmental selection pressures, memes may their potential role in understanding positive also have positive and negative forms, and they relationship processes is described using, as may also be subject to selection pressures. examples, commitment and forgiveness. A link If we use this metaphor to examine the liter- to positive psychology is made, and it is ature on marriage and family, we immediately proposed that the study of positive relationships notice that there are many important memes, but constitutes the fourth pillar of this subdiscipline. most concern their negative form in that they Finally, the potential for focus on positive focus on deficits and dysfunction. For instance, relationship processes to integrate multiple the idea that explanations guide responses to literatures is noted. partner behavior gave rise to a substantial lit- erature on attributions in families. In itself, the ‘‘The time has come,’’ the Walrus said, attribution meme could easily focus on either ‘‘To talk of many things.’’ positive or negative explanations and either pos- —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass itive or negative outcomes (i.e., it could have multiple ‘‘alleles’’). In practice, however, the The biologist Richard Dawkins (2006) provided variant that has thrived is the variant focused a metaphor for thinking about the flow and on the negative, that is, how conflict-promoting transmission of ideas in his classic text The attributions play a role in the generation of mar- ital distress and, to a lesser degree, on conflict in parent-child relationships. The literature on pos- Florida State University (ffi[email protected]). itive attributions is sparse in comparison. The *510 Boyd GSRC, University of Georgia, Athens, GA value of the meme metaphor is that it directs us 30602. to consider the selection pressures in our field Key Words: family relationships, marital relationships, that may promote the proliferation of negative positive psychology. conceptual ‘‘alleles.’’ 4 Journal of Family Theory & Review 2 (March 2010): 4–24 DOI:10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00033.x Of Memes and Marriage 5 Of course, we do not wish to overtax the Social Science Citation Index yielded 42 the meme metaphor. Rather, we use it to articles with ‘‘family strengths’’ in the title that highlight the reasons the field has allowed average 4.41 citations per year. In contrast, 375 the proliferation of alleles that focus on the articles include ‘‘family conflict’’ in the title negative, and we explore these reasons in the first that average 224.44 citations per year. In 2008 section of this article. We begin by examining the former were cited 17 times, whereas the the ‘‘negative is interesting, important, and latter were cited 1,256 times. Such data strongly substantial’’ meme that permeates the field support DeFrain and Asay’s, 2007, observation as well as methodological considerations and that ‘‘Most of the research in the 20th Century in attentional biases that reinforce this focus. We America focused on why families fail’’ [p. 302].) then turn to consider ‘‘relationship flourishing,’’ This is especially the case when it is noted that a topic that may help counterbalance the many studies that ostensibly examine the bright field by promoting greater attention to positive side of relationships (e.g., marital satisfaction) relationship process. The second half of the really seek to understand their ‘‘dark side’’ (e.g, paper discusses some key distinctions for a marital distress). positive relationship science and, in doing so, In seeking to understand the focus on deficit briefly discusses two memes, commitment and and dysfunction (the ‘‘negative’’), it is worth forgiveness. The link to positive psychology and noting that marital and family researchers are its rich ‘‘meme pool’’ is made before concluding certainly not alone in this regard. For example, the article. ‘‘Sociologists of mental health and illness have generally assumed that the only conditions worth studying are those that are problematic Why Has Marital and Family Research and preventable’’ (Horwitz, 2002, p. 148), a Focused on the Negative? sentiment that has been echoed repeatedly Before addressing the question posed in this about psychologists by those advocating a section, it is worth noting that a cursory review new positive psychology (e.g., Gable & Haidt, of publications in the Journal of Marriage and 2005; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). This Family from 2000 to 2008 yielded findings suggests that a widely distributed meme in the consistent with our initial premise. Specifically, source disciplines for relationship research is reference to the negative in article titles and the view that ‘‘the negative is inherently more abstracts were plentiful (e.g., ‘‘conflict’’ yielded interesting and more deserving of attention than 76 hits; ‘‘divorce’’ yielded 110). In contrast, the positive.’’ positive constructs were mentioned far less There are at least three good reasons for a frequently, and seldom were they the focus pervasive emphasis on the negative in research, of the article. For example ‘‘love’’ yielded and the first alone may help account for 16 hits and was only truly central to one the power of this meme to influence the article, a historical analysis of mate preferences distribution of positive versus negative alleles (Buss, Shackelford, Kirkpatrick, & Larsen, of other relationship-oriented memes. From an 2004). Other constructs associated with healthy evolutionary perspective, it appears that our relationships fared no better (e.g., appreciation attention to and processing of negative events yielded 5 hits; commitment, 22; forgiveness, 1; is more thorough than that of positive events, fun, 1) and again were predominantly mentioned possibly because it is more adaptive to recognize in the context of understanding deficits (e.g., and respond to them. After all, the costs of not marital instability). A similar pattern was doing so may have immediate and irreversible obtained from an examination of titles in the effects (e.g., ignoring the grizzly bear on our Journal of Family Psychology, suggesting that path), and so it is not surprising that brain the bias is not limited to a single discipline. wave activity (evoked response potentials) is Although it is no doubt possible to derive stronger for negative than equally extreme and somewhat different counts by using different likely positive events (Ito, Larsen, Smith, & terms, searching key words rather than titles, Cacioppo, 1998). It is perhaps not surprising or expanding the range of journals examined, that negative events tend to influence cognition, the relative abundance of attention to negative emotion, and behavior more strongly than outcomes is likely to be apparent across a wide positive ones (see Rozin & Royzman, 2001). In range of alternative searches. (Examination of fact, Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and 6 Journal of Family Theory & Review Vohs (2001, p. 362) argued that research across Methodologically Reinforced? a broad range of human functioning shows that The negative focus also appears to have been ‘‘bad is stronger than good in a disappointingly reinforced by our research methods. First, relentless pattern.’’ Happily, negative events there has been little attempt to equate the tend to be the exception rather than the rule extremity of positive and negative events in everyday life (Gable, Reis, & Elliot, 2000), studied in marital and family literatures, a task another possible reason for why we attend that is extraordinarily difficult. As a result, more to them and see negative behavior as more the negative behaviors studied are typically diagnostic of a person’s character than positive more extreme than positive ones, which may behavior (Vonk, 1994). account for their greater demonstrated impact The second reason for the focus on family (Rook, 1998). Second, as already noted, positive distress involves helping those in need. Who can behaviors are more common than negative ones. argue against the notion that those experiencing This means that their power likely lies not so pain and suffering should be helped before much in each occurrence but in their cumulative those who seem to be doing OK and who effect over time. Gottman’s (1994) contention are not showing visible signs of suffering? It that positive behaviors must outnumber negative is this compassionate viewpoint that prompted ones by at least five to one for a relationship scientific study of families at the turn of the to be successful is consistent with this view. 20th century, when changing economic and social conditions presented serious challenges Thus, comparisons based on single-event impact to them. With the family being observed to may inherently bias us toward the negative. An be ‘‘in transition from an institution to a implication is that one-shot laboratory studies companionship’’ (Burgess, 1926, p. 104), it is of marriages and families will inevitably yield not surprising that attention focused on marital an incomplete picture of a positive relationship quality and on divorce. This focus continued process because they require investigation over throughout the century and was, according to longer time frames.