{"id":778,"date":"2014-05-16T06:33:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T22:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.klinikong.com\/?p=778"},"modified":"2014-05-16T06:33:11","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T22:33:11","slug":"the-generous-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/16\/the-generous-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Generous Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

An article by Tara Parker-Pope<\/em><\/p>\n

From tribesmen to billionaire philanthropists, the social value of generosity is already well known. But new research suggests it also matters much more intimately than we imagined, even down to our most personal relationships.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the University of Virginia\u2019s National Marriage Project recently studied the role of generosity in the marriages of 2,870 men and women. Generosity was defined as \u201cthe virtue of giving good things to one\u2019s spouse freely and abundantly\u201d \u2014 like simply making them coffee in the morning \u2014 and researchers quizzed men and women on how often they behaved generously toward their partners. How often did they express affection? How willing were they to forgive?<\/p>\n

The responses went right to the core of their unions. Men and women with the highest scores on the generosity scale were far more likely to report that they were \u201cvery happy\u201d in their marriages. The benefits of generosity were particularly pronounced among couples with children. Among the parents who posted above-average scores for marital generosity, about 50 percent reported being \u201cvery happy\u201d together. Among those with lower generosity scores, only about 14 percent claimed to be \u201cvery happy,\u201d according to the latest\u00a0\u201cState of Our Unions\u201d report from the National Marriage Project.<\/a><\/p>\n

While sexual intimacy, commitment and communication are important, the focus on generosity adds a new dimension to our understanding of marital success. Though this conclusion may seem fairly self-evident, it\u2019s not always easy to be generous to a romantic partner. The noted marriage researcher John Gottman has found that successful couples say or do at least five positive things for each negative interaction with their partner \u2014 not an easy feat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn marriage we are expected to do our fair share when it comes to housework, child care and being faithful, but generosity is going above and beyond the ordinary expectations with small acts of service and making an extra effort to be affectionate,\u201d explains the University of Virginia\u2019s W. Bradford Wilcox, who led the research. \u201cLiving that spirit of generosity in a marriage does foster a virtuous cycle that leads to both spouses on average being happier in the marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social scientists are now wondering if this virtuous cycle extends to children too. In a study of 3-year-old twins, Israeli researchers have identified a genetic predisposition toward generosity that may be further influenced by a parent\u2019s behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that children with more-engaged parents are more likely to be generous toward others, which may bode well for their future relationships \u2014 and their parents\u2019 too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see meaningful differences in parents\u2019 behaviors,\u201d said Ariel Knafo, the principal investigator and a psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. \u201cIn the long run we\u2019d like to be able to see whether it\u2019s children\u2019s generosity that also makes parents more kind or the other way around. Probably it\u2019s both.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article by Tara Parker-Pope From tribesmen to billionaire philanthropists, the social value of generosity is already well known. But new research suggests it also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[156,157,214,276],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-body","category-mind","tag-generosity","tag-generous","tag-marriage","tag-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klinikong.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}