Benjamin Karney (Université de Californie – Los Angeles) : Why Marriages Change: The Role of Stress and What To Do About It

Lundi 28 avril 2025 à 14h30 en salle du conseil

Abstract : 
On their wedding day, most newlyweds experience optimism and confidence about their future happiness. Yet, despite the fact that spouses are highly motivated to preserve these feelings, over time marriages tend to grow less satisfying and many end in divorce. This talk will present a model to explain how these unwanted changes come about. The first premise of the model is that spouses’ motives to believe positive things about their relationship operate more strongly on global evaluations than on specific perceptions. Thus, specific perceptions of problems in the relationship can accumulate even within globally satisfied spouses. The second premise of the model is that circumstances external to couples can facilitate or interfere with their ability to maintain positive feelings of intimacy and connection. Together, these premises explain how even highly motivated couples may experience declines in their initial satisfaction over time. A program of longitudinal research on diverse couples studied over the first 4 to 10 years of their marriages provides empirical support for this model. The talk ends with a discussion of the implications of this model for promoting stronger relationships.

Brief bio: 
Benjamin Karney is a Professor and Chair of Social Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an adjunct behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research examines intimate relationships, especially marriage, and focuses on how relationships are facilitated or constrained by the contexts in which they take place. Currently, he leads the Los Angeles Project on Newlywed Development (LAPOND), a longitudinal study of low-income couples, and co-directs (with Thomas Bradbury) the UCLA Marriage and Close Relationships Lab. He has received the Berscheid-Hatfield Award for Distinguished Mid-Career Achievement from the International Association for Relationship Research, and has twice received the National Council on Family Relation’s Reuben Hill Research and Theory Award for outstanding family science.