I felt very challenged last week as I started reading Malcom Gladwell's book, Blink. He writes very well and has a way of weaving together different stories and scientific studies in a very coherent manner. One example early on especially hit close to home.
Gladwell talks about some research done by John Gottman on divorce. Gottman's approach was to have married couples come in and talk about something they disagreed on - such as a dog one liked but the other didn't - while everything from sweat glands to heart rates to body movement were measured. Of course, the entire thing was videotaped. The thing is, from a seemingly inconsequential discussion between a husband and wife lasting fifteen minutes, Gottman could predict to 90 percent accuracy if the marriage would end in divorce within fifteen years.
Gottman had big data. He would analyse the videotape second by second for emotional content, and combined this with the continuous physiological feedback his sensors measured. In some ways, the fact that he could make accurate predictions this way is almost expected. On the other hand, this sort of accuracy is staggering when you consider that he only saw each couple for fifteen minutes, and they were not even discussing their marriage or each other, at least on the face of it. What is more, the basis of his predictions turns out not to be a complex unintelligible formula, but fairly understandable principles.
One factor is that in order for a marriage to survive, there must be much more "positive" emotion than "negative" emotion in any interaction - in fact, five times as much positive emotion as negative. Defensiveness is a warning sign. So is stonewalling. As is criticism. The most dangerous factor according to Gottman is contempt - assuming or acting in a position of superiority. Have you ever rolled your eyes at a friend? That's contempt.
Reading a list like this makes me feel guilty because I see all the warning signs in myself. I am at times negative, being defensive and stonewalling. I have done my fair share of criticism. I am guilty of acting in contempt towards the people I loved most. It especially hurts because I feel like I try harder than most to make sure I do not do any of these things. My problem is partly that I have a very high level of "relationship failure anxiety" that others do not seem to have. Perhaps everyone else just hides it as I do.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from the book to think about (pp29-30):
"People are in one of two states in a relationship," Gottman went on. "The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It's like a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they'll say, 'Oh, he's just in a crummy mood.' Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative. In the negative sentiment override state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other. If their spouse does something positive, it's a selfish person doing a positive thing. It's really hard to change those states, and those states determine whether when one party tries to repair things, the other party sees that as repair or hostile manipulation. For example, I'm talking with my wife, and she says, 'Will you shut up and let me finish?' In positive sentiment override, I say, 'Sorry, go ahead.' I'm not very happy, but I recognize the repair. In negative sentiment override, I say, 'To hell with you, I'm not getting a chance to finish either. You're such a bitch, you remind me of your mother.'"