Gottman’s Relationship Findings
Dr. John Gottman is an American psychologist and expert on conducting relationship and marriage research. His research, which was conducted at Gottman’s Love Lab, was able to predict with high levels of accuracy which couples would stay together and which would end in divorce. What is so compelling about Gottman’s work is that it is based on scientific evidence. This means that couples can feel confident in his findings and use them to improve their own marriage. This article will break down some of the key concepts from his findings so that anyone can understand and apply them.
5:1: For a relationship to work out there must be at least five positive interactions to every one negative interaction.
Four Horsemen: The four predictors of divorce: Criticism (complaints targeted towards partner), Defensiveness (counter complaints and acting like innocent victim), Contempt (disrespect, feeling of superiority, name-calling), Stonewalling (emotional withdrawal from conflict).
Friendship: In relationships, friendship is extremely important. Three ways to increase friendship include the following: love maps (asking questions about your partner’s inner world), Fondness and admiration (communicating affection, appreciation, and respect often), Bids for emotional connection and turning towards (responding with enthusiasm). Friendship is the basis of regulating conflict.
Positive Sentiment Override: The positive experience each partner has of the other overrides the negative experiences. In other words, the negative experiences don’t matter as much because there is more positive. This indicates that friendship is high.
Conflicts: 69% of conflicts in marriages are never solved. These conflicts are due to personality differences. The idea in marriage is not to ever have conflicts, but to accept one another’s differences.
Life dreams: Find out what each partner’s life dreams are within the relationship. Find a way to honor one another’s life dreams. This will make each partner feel safe in the relationship and conflicts will become a source of intimacy rather than discord.
Gentleness: Successful couples present issues to one another in a very gentle way. This is also known as ‘softened start up.’
Accepting influence: In successful relationships, each partner will accept influence from one another. This is especially important for men to do, as women often naturally accept influence from men.
Calm down: When our hearts get above 100 beats per minute, we are in fight-or-flight and not very good problem solvers. Take breaks and self-soothe before resolving conflicts.