Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Is Love A Flimsy Foundation? Soulmate Versus Institutional Models Of Marriage, W. Bradford Wilcox, Jeffrey P. Dew

Faculty Publications

Steven Nock argued that love—understood narrowly in terms of emotional and sexual intimacy—was a flimsy foundation for relationships and that the institution of marriage provided a firmer footing for stable, high-quality relationships than love alone. Relying on data from the Marriage Matters Survey of 1414 married men and women in Louisiana (1998–2004), we extended Nock’s insights to consider whether contemporary marriages organized along institutional lines enjoyed more stability, satisfaction, and less conflict than marriages organized around a soulmate model. Largely consistent with Nock’s perspective, we found that individuals who embraced norms of marital permanency and gender specialization and were embedded …

Social Relationships And Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review, Julianne Holt-Lunstad

Faculty Publications

Background

The quality and quantity of individuals' social relationships has been linked not only to mental health but also to both morbidity and mortality.

Objectives

This meta-analytic review was conducted to determine the extent to which social relationships influence risk for mortality, which aspects of social relationships are most highly predictive, and which factors may moderate the risk.

Data Extraction

Data were extracted on several participant characteristics, including cause of mortality, initial health status, and pre-existing health conditions, as well as on study characteristics, including length of follow-up and type of assessment of social relationships.

Results

Across 148 studies (308,849 …