Professor discusses the complicated knot of troubled marriages

For troubled couples, honing communication skills may work just as well as techniques to increase empathy — or, for that matter, watching romantic comedies with each other and talking about them afterward.

That’s great news for movie fans, but maybe not for social learning theory, which drives many communication-based marriage interventions.

“Watching movies and talking about it matters. It’s tending the relationship,” explained Professor Matt Johnson, chair of Binghamton University’s Department of Psychology and author of the 2016 book Great Myths of Intimate Relationships: Dating, Sex, and Marriage. Also a psychologist in private practice, Johnson gave the 2020 Harpur Dean’s Distinguished Lecture on “Predicting Marital Discord and Divorce” on March 10.

The lecture represents an opportunity to share Harpur College’s brilliant faculty with the Binghamton community, said Dean Elizabeth Chilton, who is responsible for picking the annual speaker. “His research is so relevant to many of us. It’s fascinating,” she said.

Life satisfaction often hinges on a healthy relationship with one’s spouse or partner, according to research. Discord can not only shatter marriages, but downgrade physical and mental health, and is associated with all but one of the top 11 mental illnesses, Johnson said. Relationship stress can also crater job performance, impacting not only absenteeism and tardiness, but the size of your paycheck.

What’s more: These effects can linger long after a marriage dissolves. “Generally speaking, our overall satisfaction with life stays at an even keel,” Johnson explained to a rapt audience of nearly 100 campus and community members in the Innovative Technologies Complex. “Divorce is one of the few things that will knock your overall life satisfaction down and it won’t recover.”

Watch Professor Johnson’s talk on Harpur College’s Facebook page.

What social learning theory misses

Readily accepted by couples and therapists alike, social learning theory lies at the heart of clinical psychology: We learn which behaviors are rewarded, which are punished or ignored, and change our behaviors accordingly.

“Couples like this theory. They get it. How else do we understand our relationships if not our interactions with each other?” he said.

The problem, however, is that social learning theory doesn’t hold up in terms of actual results. By looking solely through the lens of social learning theory, researchers, clinicians and public policy makers alike are missing important factors, such as enduring vulnerabilities, contextual stress and issues such as adultery and domestic violence.

Take one couple who entered Johnson’s office: The wife looked at the husband who, after a long moment of silence, confessed that they have a communication problem.

“Yes, he did not communicate to me that he was having an affair,” she retorted.

Filling in the gaps

Aggression and violence are the number one predictors of divorce, and fall into two basic types. One is reactive, driven by “hot anger” and perpetrated by both sexes; this type may benefit from intervention. The other — termed “intimate terrorism” — is perpetrated almost solely by men, comes out of nowhere and focuses on subjugation; this type isn’t treated by marriage therapy, and the solution is for the victim to “become unavailable to the perpetrator,” Johnson said.

Enduring vulnerabilities that may predispose individuals to marital conflict include personality disorders, mental health conditions and life experiences. There can even be some genetic involvement; a 2019 study led by Binghamton University Associate Professor of Psychology Richard Mattson evaluated the links between different combinations of the oxytocin receptor gene and marriage quality.

Context — one’s larger environment and circumstances — matters, too, Johnson said. Take the proven correlation between poverty and marriage. Public policy initiatives tend to promote marriage among the poor, but the lines of influence go in the opposite direction: Stress makes healthy relationships difficult.

“If you’re living in a violent neighborhood, work two to three jobs, are taking public transportation and worried about your kids, you’re not going to have a lot of resources left to invest in your relationship,” Johnson explained.

While social learning theory remains a part of every marriage intervention, research is needed to correct these blind spots. Some of that research is being conducted by Johnson’s former students, who are now pursuing successful careers in academia, private practice or the military. He also cited his Harpur colleagues, who continue to investigate the impact of relationships in fields as wide-ranging as history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and poetry.

“There’s still so much we now don’t understand about what predicts marital discord and divorce, and I look forward to working with my colleagues at Harpur College in figuring it out,” he concluded.