Mean-field games for marriage

PLoS One. 2014 May 7;9(5):e94933. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094933. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

This article examines mean-field games for marriage. The results support the argument that optimizing the long-term well-being through effort and social feeling state distribution (mean-field) will help to stabilize marriage. However, if the cost of effort is very high, the couple fluctuates in a bad feeling state or the marriage breaks down. We then examine the influence of society on a couple using mean-field sentimental games. We show that, in mean-field equilibrium, the optimal effort is always higher than the one-shot optimal effort. We illustrate numerically the influence of the couple's network on their feeling states and their well-being.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Emotions / physiology
  • Family Relations
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Marriage*
  • Models, Theoretical*

Grants and funding

This study is supported the SRI Uncertainty Quantification Center in Computational Science and Engineering, KAUST. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.