flickering pictures

James Murray, an emeritus professor at both Oxford and the University of Washington, claims that his new “Murray marriage equation” can predict the success or failure of any romantic relationship 94 per cent of the time. He breaks people into three categories — respectful Validators, brooding Conflict Avoiders and less-than-pleasant Volatiles — and after applying some sketchy-sounding science, predicts either a blissful life of mutual fulfillment or a miserable future peppered with lawyers’ bills and alimony payments.

Isn’t science fun?

The Times Online reports:

When a validator is married to an avoider or to a volatile, their marriage is unstable and unlikely to last. Marriages between volatiles could go either way, it seems; as everyone knows, some people thrive on throwing things at each other. So that makes five types – it seems volatile-avoider matches are so unstable, Murray didn’t find any for his study.

All this can be observed and quantified from the signals in 15 minutes of videotaped interview, in which husband and wife talk about something contentious such as money or mothers-in-law. In a 12-year American study of 700 newly married couples, Murray’s formula has been right in 94% of cases and, where divorce was predicted, 100% right. That makes it impossible to ignore.

This sounded to me like a whole lot of nonsense, at least until I read those numbers and realized that this guy must have some idea what he’s doing. We’re socialized to think our personalities are one-of-a-kind and impossible to categorize, but could it be that we’re a little less unique than we like to think?

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