This edited volume presents examples of social science research projects that employ new methods of quantitative analysis and mathematical modeling of social processes. This book presents the fascinating areas of empirical and theoretical investigations that use formal mathematics in a way that is accessible for individuals lacking extensive expertise but still desiring to expand their scope of research methodology and add to their data analysis toolbox. Mathematical Modeling of Social Relationships professes how mathematical modeling can help us understand the fundamental, compelling, and yet sometimes complicated concepts that arise in the social sciences. This volume will appeal to upper-level students and researchers in a broad area of fields within the social sciences, as well as the disciplines of social psychology, complex systems, and applied mathematics.

Divorce rates are at an all-time high. But without a theoretical understanding of the processes related to marital stability and dissolution, it is difficult to design and evaluate new marriage interventions. The Mathematics of Marriage provides the foundation for a scientific theory of marital relations. The book does not rely on metaphors, but develops and applies a mathematical model using difference equations. The work is the fulfillment of the goal to build a mathematical framework for the general system theory of families first suggested by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy in the 1960s.The book also presents a complete introduction to the mathematics involved in theory building and testing, and details the development of experiments and models. In one "marriage experiment," for example, the authors explored the effects of lowering or raising a couple's heart rates. Armed with their mathematical model, they were able to do real experiments to determine which processes were affected by their interventions. Applying ideas such as phase space, null clines, influence functions, inertia, and uninfluenced and influenced stable steady states (attractors), the authors show how other researchers can use the methods to weigh their own data with positive and negative weights. While the focus is on modeling marriage, the techniques can be applied to other types of psychological phenomena as well.

The central topic of this book is the mathematical analysis of social systems, understood in the following rather classical way: social systems consist of social actors who interact according to specific rules of interactions; the dynamics of social systems is then the consequences of these interactions, viz., the self-organization of social systems. According to particular demands of their environment, social systems are able to behave in an adaptive manner, that is they can change their rules of interaction by certain meta rules and thus generate a meta dynamics. It is possible to model and analyse mathematically both dynamics and meta dynamics, using cellular automata and genetic algorithms. These tools allow social systems theory to be carried through as precisely as the theories of natural systems, a feat that has not previously been possible. Readership: Researchers and graduate students in the fields of theoretical sociology and social and general systems theory and other interested scientists. No specialised knowledge of mathematics and/or computer science is required.

This book shows, for the very first time, how love stories -- a vital issue in our lives -- can be tentatively described with classical mathematics. Focus is on the derivation and analysis of reliable models that allow one to formally describe the expected evolution of love affairs from the initial state of indifference to the final romantic regime. The models are in full agreement with the basic philosophical principles of love psychology. Eight chapters are theoretically oriented and discuss the romantic relationships between important classes of individuals identified by particular psychological traits. The remaining chapters are devoted to case studies described in classical poems or in worldwide famous films.