Abstract:
Is love predictable in its choices? Linear Determinism, Randomness or Complexity?
By applying theoretical coordinates of current sociological interpretations
of intimacy and conceptual categories of New General System Theory, the
paper reflects on one-factor and linear determinism implicitly underlying mate
selection processes in Structural Coupling Theory and its implications for Intimate
Partner Violence (IPV). Assuming personality structure as the predictor of
partner choice as well as victimization risk, SCT circumscribes victimization
risk just to one category of women (insecure/avoidant women coupling with
ambivalent partners). We propose that adaptive complex system and non-banal
machine concepts are more effective to understand the mate selection process
than linear deterministic approach, which appears too mechanistic for a process
that exhibits an inextricable dimension of uncertainty and unpredictability. Research
results on a sample of 100 victims of IPV do not corroborate the linear
one-factor determinism underlying Structural Coupling Theory neither its implications.
Rather they go in the direction of Complexity
