Are You Determined?

Continuing from my last posting, I want to talk about science and where it is heading, ideologically. In many ways, this post builds on the last one, to set a foundation for the next one which will be about romantic behavior.

Before I go further, realize that I am a huge believer in the value of science as well as a scientist. I believe that science has made all our lives immensely better. Way better.

Here’s a basic fact about science. Science cannot address things that cannot be measured. Sound measurement is about knowing what to look for and when to try to capture it. Science is dependent in many areas on technology, and technology limits what can be observed. For example, if you have followed physics in the past decades (you know you love it!), smaller and smaller particles have been found. Just when scientists think they may be at rock bottom in terms of fundamental particles, someone smart comes along and proposes or demonstrates more, even smaller things, at another level lower.

Ironically, to measure the smaller particles (known or hypothesized), the machines have to be larger and larger. The largest machine on earth right now to measure the smallest particles we’ve “seen” yet is in Europe, and it’s call The Large Hadron Collider. That’s not where BMW, and Volvo, and Mercedes test the safety of their cars. But, it is an oval. Go read about it sometime. We in the US were building a HUGE collider in Texas but that got abandoned (after spending a couple billion dollars or so) because of how much more it was going to cost.

Where was I going with that? Actually, not in a circle. Science is limited by what it can measure and analyze (some things can be measured well but we have very poor abilities to analyze the mass of data thoroughly: weather patterns, brain functions, entire genomes, and how Justin Bieber got so popular).

Here’s a crucial idea that was embedded in the ideas in my last post. Suppose you are both a scientist and a believer that there is nothing else in reality or the universe except things that are material. By this I mean you are a devout materialist. Typically, this would mean to most people that you don’t believe in God or spirits or stuff like that. But it means something more than that if the belief is totally, philosophically, grounded in the idea that all there is is what is material. In other words, all there is in existence is stuff that can potentially be measured because all there is, really, is material and energy (another type of material for sake of argument here). Really important point: Not all scientists are total materialists in this sense, but many and maybe most are. And, whether particular scientists are or not, science functions as if all there is is the material universe.

I think that means that the Big Belief at the end of the Scientific Rainbow is this: If you could measure everything well (or enough of everything), and you had a super computer powerful enough to make sense of how everything that was measured related to everything else that was measured, you could theoretically explain everything that exists and everything that happens. Science rests on the assumption that meaningful things can be measured and studied. The most far out extension of that basic idea is that there is really nothing else but what could potentially, eventually, be measured and studied. If you really believe that, then you can easily believe that a butterfly flapping it’s wings in the heart of the Amazon jungle is somehow connected to everything else that has happen and will happen in the universe. You just have to have the data and the understanding of how the flapping connects to the things around it, and the things around those things, and the things around those things and . . .

The quandary in all of that is that the strongest view of this idea leads one to push personal choice further and further to the side. At least to me, it reduces ultimately to a strictly deterministic view of the universe. I do not really see how it can go anywhere else. Potentially, if I knew every variable possible and could understand how they relate, I could predict exactly who would read this blog entry and who, when starting to read it, would read this far. And if I understand all the variables well enough, I could predict that before I wrote it. (And could have predicted that I’d write it.) Okay, I’m nearing the strange edge of how material and time intersect here, so let’s move away from that chasm. I’m not Einstein.

The prediction that follows from all of this is pretty simple. While science has, and continues to be, immensely valuable to everyday life, it will also keep pushing the edge on the fundamental notion that people choose what they do, and that presents some serious challenges for thinking about personal responsibility.

Next time, I will focus on how these ideas affect scientists’ views of the romantic behavior of individuals.

*

Did You Decide To Read This?

Am I responsible for writing this? Surely, you think the answer to both questions is “yes.” But don’t be hasty in your, um, decision about it. There is a strong movement in our country that challenges the general viewpoint that people choose what they do and are therefore responsible for what they do. The movement is led by a community that you may not guess to be at the heart of these ideas. It’s a non-secret society. (There is no secret handshake or hidden meetings. Actually, there ARE some hidden meetings, but there are lots of public ones, too, and their sacred texts, called journal articles, are public for all to read.) They call themselves Scientists. I am one of them.

Let me give you an example in this post and then more in future ones. Then we’ll see where that takes us over the course of some thoughts on the nature of us. (I say we’ll see where that takes us, which sounds rather passive than active, because, remember, you are not really choosing to read this and I did not really choose to write this, either.) Are you confused yet? That’s okay, it’s nothing you did. At least not consciously.

This example I’ll share in this post just happens to come from a field close to my field of psychology, and it’s recent, so it serves my purpose well. (There I go again, talking like I have a choice in what I’m writing. Dang, it’s going to be hard to adjust to the notion that I’m not a decider. And, if I’m not a decider, does that mean I’m always a slider?)

A recent column in the Wall Street Journal reviewed the core thesis of a book called “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Unconscious Brain.” Incognito was written by a cognitive neuroscientist named David Eagleman, and the column I wrote was written by Christopher Chabris. You can read the column here, if you like (well, I mean HERE). I’ve not read the book, only the column, so I cannot vouch for the book and am trusting Chabris for getting the basic points right. That’s not too hard to do since I know the main idea quite well from various things I’ve read over the years in my field of psychology. I’ll quote Chabris. He writes:

“In "Incognito," the neuroscientist and polymath David Eagleman argues that the actions of the unconscious are so powerful and pervasive that they "dethrone" the conscious mind and, when combined with the inescapable influences of genes, undermine our traditional ideas of self-control and free will. Most of "Incognito" is an attempt to replace the intuitive notion of the mind as a unitary, conscious actor with a description of how the brain really works, drawing on recent research.”

By the way, I want to be a polymath, too. That sounds so cool. I’m pretty sure I’d like this book Incognito, a lot. However, my current reading backlog is pretty huge, and my writing backlog, huger, so it may be awhile before I get to it. I’m going to cut to the chase now (I write with irony in this 6th paragraph). What Eagleman and many other researchers have concluded is that there is a vast amount of processing and, yes, decision making that happens outside of our conscious awareness I’ll go out on a steady, short limb here: Most of us think it’s our conscious mind that decides what we do. However, I can vouch for the fact that there is a lot of compelling evidence for the idea that quite a lot of processing does seem to happen in our minds outside the realm of our deciders. If that’s true, it raises interesting and thorny questions about what we’re really in control of or choose.

Eagleman gets the implication of this. Totally.  I’ll quote Chabris because his column is so readily available.

“Mr. Eagleman wants us to revamp our criminal-justice system in light of neuroscience. He begins with a good point: We tend to excuse behavior when we can identify an "organic" cause for it, such as a brain tumor, and we tend to blame perpetrators when no such excuse can be found. But, he observes, this is just an artifact of our current state of knowledge. As we become able to measure more and more abnormalities, the scope of blameworthy actions will shrink and shrink.”

Chablis writes a nifty ending to his column after those words, but you’ll have to go to his column to read it.

That last comment in the quote above about the scope of blameworthy actions shrinking ever more is an important point--one that most scientists will readily recognize as having an analogue in their own field. The common theme is this: as we are able to measure more and more—provided this measurement coincides with substantial growth in the capability of organizing and analyzing the mass of what is measured—the realm of mystery, serendipity, and free will shrinks. As more is explained, the part we now attribute to chance and/or choice will evaporate into explanation. What that means to me is an increasing sense of determinism in the minds of scientists and other scholars. There are many implications of this, but the most profound ones are related to our notions of decisions, accountability, and responsibility.

I’m going to choose to return to these themes in my next blog posting or two. I want to discuss this philosophically, but then focus on how this issue shows up in the notion of selection effects in my field of social science.

*
[Light edits on 7-24-2017]

YouTube of my Core Sliding vs. Deciding Talk

Last year, I gave one of my favorite talks to the teachers at the school where my sons attended High School. That school is Denver Academy, and they excel at working with young people for whom typical school strategies are less than optimal. My wife Nancy and I really believe in what they do and wish more children could have what our sons have had there. So, when they asked me if I would give a talk to the teachers on an inservice day, I was happy to say yes.

The talk I gave is one of my core talks. It focuses on patterns and changes in how romantic relationships form these days, and what some patterns may mean for eventual success in relationships--especially marriage.

If you are interested, you can see it at YouTube by either clicking HERE or Googling "Scott Stanley Tedx Denver Academy".

I know of people who have found this talk online and have used it with high school or college classes for discussion starters. If that's something you do (teach), I think it's a great idea (whether or not you agree with all the things I bring up!).

Have at it.

*

Does it work? Does Relationship and Marriage Education Work?

I have long been a believer that solid forms of marriage and relationship education (MRE) can help individuals and couples to have stronger, happier relationships. By education, I mean strategies that teach skills, strategies, and attitudes associated with success in relationships; I do not mean therapy, though therapy can be useful if done well. I started working with my colleague, Howard Markman, in 1977 when I was a junior at Bowling Green State University and he was a young assistant professor. His passion then, now shared by me and all our colleagues, was to build prevention oriented, relationship education strategies to help couples prevent major problems in marriage before the problems could get a serious foothold. His particular vision was to make such programs as empirically based as possible. Over the years, we and our colleagues have developed one of the better known approaches, called PREP (The Prevention and Relationship Education Program). [By the way, we recently changed the word “enhancement” to “education” in the acronym, to reflect the terms favored in the field at this time.]

By “empirically based,” we mean something specific. First, we mean basing the content of such programs on sound science about how relationships work, how they fail, what is risky, and what is protective. Empirically based programs utilize the scientific knowledge that is out there to inform the strategies. Second, empirically based programs are tested in outcome studies. Empirically based curricula should be tested and found to be helpful, or, if not directly tested, at least include some of the types of strategies used in programs that have been tested. Third, empirically based programs are regularly refined. By this we mean that scientifically based programs are always changing in some aspects based on new knowledge that is being generated in the field. New studies may suggest an idea is outdated, or may suggest a great new way to get a complicated point across to people, or may show that some type of strategy is more effective than another. Like many other things that stay cutting edge these days, empirically based programs of relationship education stay up on what is going on. These points are foundational to the work we do on PREP and all the curricula we have developed over the years.

There are two primary types of educational models are designed to help achieve success in relationships—especially marriage: Services designed for existing couples and services designed for individuals whether or not they are currently in a relationship. The field has focused the most energy, for decades, on couples. Many studies and approaches focus on couples who are planning marriage or couples who are already married and want to tune up their relationship. There are many studies—outcome studies—testing the effectiveness of MRE with couples. The more recent, rapidly growing focus is on relationship education for individuals. The difference between individual focused models and couple focused ones is very important. Most couple focused approaches assume the work is with existing, committed couples, who want their relationships to work.

The stronger individually focused models tend to be designed to help individuals realize their own aspirations for success in love and marriage, not only by teaching skills but also by helping participants recognize healthy and unhealthy relationship patterns, and to consider carefully if a particular partner is a good choice for them (and their child, if they have one or more). Even when there is an existing relationship, individually oriented models do not assume that it’s healthy or that it should continue. A lot of the effort in individually oriented programs is focused on getting people to go slower, make better choices, and to be thinking clearly about what will get them closer to their own goals for happy, healthy and lasting love; in other words, to be deciding rather than sliding when it comes to key turning points. There are growing uses of this approach with individuals such as high school students, college students, single parents, adults receiving government supports (like Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), military service personnel, and so forth. You might wonder why some government or private systems would care about the love lives of individuals. The answer to this is really pretty simple, and it’s summed up best by a colleague of mine named Marline Pearson. In extensive work with teens and those in young adulthood, her battle cry has been, “Your love life is not neutral.” By this, she simply means that what people do in their love lives can have a huge impact on whether or not (or when) they will achieve other important life aspirations (educational, vocational, familial, etc.). I’ll write more about this in a future post.

Do these educational approaches to helping people build lasting love work? I believe there is a lot of evidence that they do. Do they work as well as they could? No. See point three above under the notion of what an empirically based, best practices model does—it regularly gets improved as more is learned. That is essential because many of us in this field want to learn how to continually improve what we do. There is always more to learn. Back to the point about if such strategies work. Here is what I know:

• A large number of studies show that MRE for couples works. Since it’s a newer field, there are fewer studies, but promising none-the-less, showing that individual oriented relationship education works.

• There are now a number of important, meta-analytic studies showing that MRE works, particularly when it comes to helping couples communicate and manage conflict better. There is also evidence that MRE helps couples maintain overall relationship quality (such has marital happiness). Meta-analytic studies are very valuable because they are studies of the effects of many other studies all included in one large analysis. I will include some citations for such studies at the end of this post.

• Studies in this field generally show that those who need help the most are most likely to get the greatest benefit from such services. This is not always true, but, in general, when studies examine higher versus lower risk couples or individuals, those at greater risk often benefit the most. However, the benefits for higher risk couples may be shorter-lived, suggesting the need to provide occasional booster shots (to augment the original inoculation) to help couples stay on track. Higher risk can mean many things, such as being from a family wherein your parents divorced.

• There is plenty of evidence that MRE services are much more available to middle income and up couples. This has been changing in the past decade, mostly related to various government efforts, but generally, like in any other area, effective services are the least available to those who are economically disadvantaged. For a great example of recent, positive evidence that such efforts can be successful, see the link (here) that I posted in an earlier entry on this blog.

• A few studies show that MRE can reduce the odds of divorce or break-up. This has been harder to show than changes on dimensions such as communication quality largely because few studies track couples long enough for break-up and divorce to be evaluated. And tracking is crucial here. If you cannot track most of your original sample (people move, and such), you have less opportunity to meaningfully test for these possible benefits.

An ongoing study of ours provides a good example of evidence of MRE helping couples reduce the odds of divorce. We are currently conducting a pretty large study of our program, PREP, as used by chaplains in the US Army. Chaplains in all branches of the services have used PREP, as well as other approaches, to help people in their marriages for many years. PREP has been used extensively. In this particularly study, funded by NIH, we randomly assigned couples to receive either PREP or serve in a control group that did not receive PREP (at least not at the same time. Some couples in the control group no doubt eventually have received it if they sought to do so.) There are two parts of the sample in this project of ours. (The largest wave began a few years ago with the smaller wave following about a year behind.) The initial wave of couples was much larger than the second wave, and tended to be couples exposed to high stress related to ongoing war efforts. With the initial, larger wave, we found that those couples receiving PREP had 1/3 the divorce rate (2%) one year later compared to the control group (6%). We did not find this difference in the smaller, second wave, however. When we average the two groups together, we find that the PREP couples have an overall divorce rate at the one year point that is 50% of that in the control group. This effect may well weaken over time—many preventive effects do, which argues for providing ongoing training and supports to couples who are undergoing numerous challenges. At any rate, this was one of the most encouraging findings in the MRE field to date because it is based on a large sample that we continue to follow in a study using the most rigorous scientific procedures for evaluating program outcomes. (for more information, click here)

When it comes to examining the evidence about the effectiveness of MRE, there are both optimists and pessimists. I believe that the evidence favors the optimists; however, I think pessimists can raise legitimate concerns about how to increase effectiveness. If you want to know more about studies on the benefits of MRE, you could find any or all of the following. There are many other important studies but these ones would get you on the right track. (I am not allowed to provide the actual papers to you because of copyrights, but if you are really curious and have access to an academic library, or you search online, you would be able to find the abstracts or whole papers in one way or another.)

Blanchard, V. L., Hawkins, A. J., Baldwin, S. A., & Fawcett, E. B. (2009). Investigating the effects of marriage and relationship education on couples’ communication skills: A meta-analytic study. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 203-214.

Carroll, J. S., & Doherty, W. J. (2003). Evaluating the effectiveness of premarital prevention programs: A meta-analytic review of outcome research. Family Relations, 52, 105-118.

Hawkins, A. J., Blanchard, V. L., Baldwin, S. A., & Fawcett, E. B. (2008). Does marriage and relationship education work? A meta-analytic study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 723 -734.

Hawkins, A. J., & Fackrell, T. A. (2010). Does relationship and marriage education for lower-income couples work? A meta-analytic study of emerging research. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 9, 181–191.

Also useful:

Halford, W. K., Markman, H. J., & Stanley, S. M. (2008). Strengthening couple relationships with education: Social policy and public health perspectives. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 497 - 505.

If you care about this area and whether or not MRE is effective, it is up to you to read what you can and form your own conclusion. As should be obvious, as a founder and developer of a major model of education used in this field (PREP), I have a financial interest in such efforts (in the spirit of full disclosure). However, I can tell you that my interest in actually helping people trumps all other interests here. Fortunately, many of the most important studies in this field—including the meta-analytic studies—were not conducted by Howard Markman or myself or our team. Of course, other studies have been conducted by us. There. That’s a brief (but long blog entry!) overview of the evidence suggesting MRE works. You will decide for yourself if such efforts may be useful to you personally or to others.

*

Getting the Girl

Picking up from my last post, I am going to tell you about one of the most interesting hypotheses that rattles around in my head over the years. At least, it’s been interesting to me. And what are blogs for but for sharing? I have not written about this hypothesis before but I’ve mentioned it in many talks over the years. Before getting into it, you should know that this is a pretty naked theory about differences between men and women (not a theory about nakedness, though it’s related). Naked theories—I mean blunt-right-out-there-saying-there-are-some-important-differences between men and women—tend to be disturbing to many social scientists. Some of that reluctance to talk bluntly about sex differences has to do with the fact that such differences are very often over-emphasized beyond all relation to the actual findings. Some of the resistance to talking about such sex differences is more ideological—coming from a desire in some to stress equivalence over differences. As I made clear in earlier posts about sacrifice and oxytocin and sex differences, it’s important to remember that we’re talking about average differences and tendencies, but any given male or female can be an exception. Okay, caveat and qualification time is over. Let the thinking begin.

First, a tiny bit of data: There is growing evidence that, in many ways, women are outpacing men when it comes to various types of achievement, including as reflected in things like the number of men and women in college, the number completing college, the number seeking and getting advanced degrees, and the number having and keeping jobs, with or without college. For example, as noted in my last post, the average college campus now has 56% to 44% females to males. The ratio of females to males has steadily gone up in the past few decades. There are more women in college than men—and more women will graduate—in most wealthy nations. Here’s an interesting little nugget: By 2001-02, the percent of women graduating with business degrees was 50% where it has been only 9.1 % in 1970-01 (see). Women have also overtaken men in graduating with honors (see). If you want to read a variety of theories about what’s going on, see one of those two links I just noted. By the way, it’s not that men are less likely than ever before to go to college; rather, it’s that women have rapidly overtaken them when it comes to things like going to college, excelling, and completing college.

A very important point before we go further here: There are very good, clear reasons why women are advancing in all kinds of ways, and that is all to the good. It’s the gains relative to the efforts of males that I’m most interested in here. The difference in motivation and outcomes has also led to a bit of crisis for achieving women: How can you find a male-mate who matches up on achievement? This is not only an issue related to college and degrees, but you can hear similar concerns raised by less educated, steadily employed women who sometimes have trouble finding men who are similarly employed and producing income. (And, lest anyone accuse me of being simple, let me just say that this last point is very complicated by massive changes in the availability of different types of jobs in our economy. But that’s not my main focus here. I’m also not touching income disparities right now. But if you want to go there in the context of these types of points, see this link and this link. But do come back, because I have an idea you won’t see in these other links.)

So, my premise, shared by a growing number of folks is that women are now outstripping men in achievement motivation. If you believe that, we’re good to go on my theory of why. If you don’t believe that, well, you shouldn’t really care why I think that may, in part, be the case.

Time for the naked sex theory (pun unintentional, but intentionally left in): Men are slowly but steadily achieving less relative to women, in part, because they no longer have to achieve like they used to in order to “get the girl.” There, I said it. And I believe it. I don’t believe this the whole story, but I believe it is part of the story. The other parts are sprinkled throughout the earlier links I gave.

Men used to have to achieve more to get a woman. They had to show drive and economic potential, and they had to step it up in terms of commitment to the relationship. It’s always made tons of sense for women to hold out until they see evidence of responsibility and achievement (like education, a steady job, a ring, marriage, etc.) because women have been more vulnerable if things go wrong (women have babies and men do not, and it seems to still be true). So, all I’m sayin is that men are, in this present day, much more able to have sexual relationships with women without putting up achievement. When he had to achieve more to “get the girl,” the average male did so.

Am I saying that males are shallow and only interested in sex without commitment? No. In fact, I don’t think of the average male that way at all. However, I believe that societal changes of all sorts are contributing to an environment where men have less motivation than in the past to achieve and commit. And, if you think about it, that would also add more pressure to women to do all the more in terms of their own achievement so that they do not have to rely on men like they used to. Again, this part is a great trend for women and their opportunities that may, in part, be related to some not so great trends for men. And, in case you already thought this far, I’m not “blaming the victim” by suggesting that women are having trouble finding similarly motivated men because they give in too much sexually. I am saying that large changes in society have conspired to put both men and women in a tight spot when it comes to both achievement, mating, and the development of commitment that benefits both. Many of the changes are good, but some changes have resulted in complex dynamics that are not good.

Alright, think that over. If you want to read more that goes this direction, try this piece by Mark Regnerus, the sociologist I mentioned in my last post. He arrived at the essence of the same hypothesis I just presented here: that men are lagging in achievement motivation because sex has become more available at low levels of effort—for men. He wrote cogently about this in a piece in the online magazine, Slate (click here).

Go ahead. Indulge the idea that there might be some differences in the sexes that matter when it comes to sexual activity and achievement.

*

Markets and Sex

Got your attention? You could be thinking this will be about sex trafficking. Nope. Maybe this will be about the selling of sex, as in prostitution. Nope. I’m going to write some about how the number of men relative to women in a given geographic area affects dating and mating behavior. There is a lot of evidence that an uneven distribution of men and women affects how men and women behave toward one another. The word “market” here comes from the idea that there is a supply and demand dynamic between men and women based on this the relative numbers of men to women (or women to men, if you prefer).

I’ve read about this aspect of relationships, off and on, for many years. A few years ago, I read the book “The Logic of Life” by Tim Harford. Among many other interesting things, he discusses how having an uneven number of men and women in a society affects divorce rates and also the likelihood of settling down with a partner in poor communities (where many men are incarcerated, affecting the balance in the number of men to women). Here’s the basic idea. Whenever men or women are a relatively scarce resource, the gender with fewer numbers has more power in the “market” of mating and romance. A person in the smaller group has more options to choose from, which is the basis of greater power. And what that means is simply that they have to give up less to get more. Harford does a very nice job of talking about how great the skew in power is based on even a small difference in relative numbers.

I came across this idea recently in a USA Today article, entitled “More college 'hookups,' but more virgins, too.” It’s a fine article by Sharon Jayson, who I have talked to many times over the years. She covers a great many interesting points in her article, but none more interesting than the idea put forth by Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas-Austin. He asserts that the growing, higher ratio of women to men on college campuses has advanced the growing culture of uncommitted hook-ups. To quote from Jayson’s article (available here):

"The women wind up competing with each other for access to the men, and often, that means relationships become sexual quicker," says Regnerus, co-author of Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think About Marrying, released earlier this year.

This is a pretty powerful theory with empirical evidence to support it. Let me break it down a bit. The average college campus (according to the article) now has 56 to 44 percent females to males. Suppose Barbara is a sophomore on a campus where there are 67% females and 33% males. That would make the ratio of females to males 2 to one, right? There are two girls for every boy. Regnerus is making the point that Barbara will feel more pressure to be sexual, and sooner, with boys she has attraction to than on another campus where the ratio is 1 to 1. To attract a boy, she not only has to get his attention, but she has to keep it from going to one of the many other females around.

You know, there was a song about this idea called Surf City. The authors understood the point really well. It’s a song by Jan and Dean (somehow, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was also involved) named Surf City, and it was very popular.

The refrain was “Two Girls for Evvvverrrrrryy Boy.” Unless you are a newbie on the planet, the refrain is now going through your head. Take a moment to listen to it. Jan and Dean understood very well the dynamic that Regnerus is speaking to in the USA Today piece. Here is just a small sample of the verse:

“Yeah, and there's two swingin' honeys for every guy
And all you gotta do is just wink your eye”

That’s pretty straightforward. Guys in Surf City, the land of loads of females, don’t have to do a lot to get the girl. A wink will do. It used to be a wink and a nod, but with this deflation in the market of boy-meets-girl, it’s taking less and less. Have you noticed? (I’ll leave alone the definition of what “get the girl” means at present. Suffice to say, that for my purposes here, it means everything from a little to a lot.)

As Harford and Regnerus suggest (as have many other social scientists), in such circumstances, the girls will be competing against each other; over time, they will offer more sexual involvement, more quickly, and without being able to demand much commitment in return. You could wonder where morals and beliefs about what one should or should not do come in, and I’d say this: They surely matter a lot. Beliefs affect behavior. Morals matter, but contexts also have a powerful influence on behavior.

Back to Regnerus’ point. He’s saying that the growing hook up culture on campuses is, in addition to many other influences, further propelled by the growing tendency for women to outnumber men (on campus). If this keeps up, guys may not even have to wink.

I am now reading the book by Regnerus and Uecker noted above. It’s fascinating and I highly recommend it. Next time, if I dare, I’ll share my theory of why men are becoming less likely to get college degrees relative to women. Hint: I don’t’ think it’s all about women having improved options.

*

Results of Federally Funded Study in Oklahoma

As many of you know, there are a number of ongoing, important studies examining efforts to help couples strengthen their relationships. The primary goal of such efforts is to increase the number of children being raised by their own parents in stable, healthy family contexts. One of the large studies in this area is the Building Strong Families study. I recently wrote a guest blog on the results of this study from the large, Oklahoma site, which can be found at a popular policy site in Oklahoma (okpolicy.org). The blog entry I wrote can be found here.

I encourage you to check it out!

*