A Self-Organizing Comparative-Advantage Slider Model of Role Distribution and Regulation in Romantic Dyads - DSS I

This preprint presents a conceptual and formal framework for understanding how romantic dyads self-organize role distribution across multiple functional and regulatory domains (e.g., planning, emotional regulation, conflict repair, social coordination). The model treats domain-level role share as approximately zero-sum at a given time, while allowing relationship outcomes to remain positive-sum and collaborative. Building on interdependence theory, dyadic coping models, interpersonal emotion regulation, and vulnerability–stress–adaptation frameworks, the paper introduces a “slider” representation of emergent specialization based on comparative advantage and capacity constraints. A central theoretical contribution is the distinction between emergent role configurations and the misattribution of intent (agency), which can moralize asymmetry and amplify relational strain in tightly coupled dyads. The framework yields testable hypotheses for dyadic longitudinal, cross-sectional, and experimental designs (e.g., APIM, EMA, intervention studies), and includes operationalization suggestions and applied intervention analogs such as Slider Reframing Training (SRT). This preprint is intended for researchers and practitioners in personality and social psychology, relationship science, and behavioral regulation. Mathematics in the Dyadic Systems Series is representational rather than foundational. Formal notation is used to make proposed mechanisms, constraints, dependencies, and directional tendencies explicit, internally consistent, and empirically addressable. The equations are neither exhaustive descriptions of lived relational dynamics nor claims that dyads perform numerical optimisation. The theoretical contribution resides in the identified system mechanics; formalisation provides a disciplined language through which those mechanics can be communicated, examined, and tested.