John Gottman

John Mordecai Gottman is a Ph.D. psychologist known for his work on marital stability and relationship analysis through scientific direct observations published in peer-reviewed literature. The lessons derived from this work represent a partial basis for the relationship counseling movement which aim to improve relationship functioning and the avoidance of those behaviors shown by Gottman and other researchers to harm human relationships.^[1] Dr. Gottman is a Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington. With his wife Dr. Julie Schwartz, Gottman heads a non-profit research institute (The Relationship Research Institute) and a for-profit therapist training entity (The Gottman Institute).^[2]

Predictions of divorce

In a 1998 study, Gottman developed a model to predict which newlywed couples will remain married and which will divorce four to six years later. He claims that his model has 90% accuracy. He also claims 81% percent accuracy for another model about which marriages survived after seven to nine years.^[3] His prediction method, which relies on Paul Ekman's method of analyzing human emotion and microexpressions, is also featured in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink and the television series The Human Face.

The predictive power of Gottman's model, however, is disputed. Journalist Laurie Abraham writes, "What Gottman did wasn't really a prediction of the future but a formula built after the couples' outcomes were already known. This isn't to say that developing such formulas isn't a valuable—indeed, a critical—first step in being able to make a prediction. The next step, however—one absolutely required by the scientific method—is to apply your equation to a fresh sample to see whether it actually works. That is especially necessary with small data slices (such as 57 couples), because patterns that appear important are more likely to be mere flukes. But Gottman never did that."^[4] The Gottman Relationship Institute claims this is incorrect, and that 6 of 7 of Gottman's studies have been properly predictive. ^[5] However, Gottman's 2002 paper makes no claims to accuracy in terms of binary classification, and is instead a regression analysis of a two factor model where skin conductance levels and oral history narratives encodings are the only two statistically significant variables. Facial expressions using Ekman's encoding scheme were not statistically significant.^[6]

Contempt and marriage

In the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking author Malcolm Gladwell discusses John Gottman's theories of how to predict which couples will stay married. Part of Gottman's theory states that there are four major emotional reactions that are destructive to a marriage: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Among these four, Gottman considers contempt the most important of them all. ^[7]

Seven Principles

In his book, The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work, Gottman discusses behaviors that he has observed in marriages that are successful and those that are detrimental to marriage based on his research conducted at his lab in Seattle, Washington. He has outlined seven principles that will reinforce the positive aspects of a relationship and help marriages endure during the rough moments.

1. Enhance Your Love Maps. Gottman defines a love map as the place in your brain where you store information pertaining to your partner. This is crucial in really knowing your partner, their dreams, hopes, interests, and maintaining their interest throughout the relationship.
2. Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration. This means laying down a positive view about your spouse, respecting and appreciating their differences.
3. Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away. Acknowledging your partner's small moments in life and orienting yourself towards them will maintain that necessary connection that is vital for the relationship.
4. Let Your Partner Influence You. It is important to maintain your own identity in a relationship, but it is equally important to yield to your partner and give in. If both partners allow one another this influence, then they will learn to respect one another on a deeper level.
5. Solve Your Solvable Problems. It is important to compromise on issues that can be resolved, which Gottman believes can be accomplished by these five steps: soften your startup, learn to make and receive repair attempts, soothe yourself and each other, compromise, and be tolerant of each other’s faults.
6. Overcome Gridlock. Major issues that cannot be resolved because both partners’ views are so fundamentally different involves understanding of the other person and deep communication. The goal is to at least get to a position that allows the other person to empathize with the partner's view, even if a compromise cannot be reached.
7. Create Shared Meaning. Create a shared value system that continually connects the partners through rituals/traditions, shared roles and symbols.^[8]

Personal life

John Gottman was born in the Dominican Republic to Orthodox Jewish parents. His father was a rabbi in pre-WWII Vienna. John was educated in a Lubavitch yeshiva elementary school in Brooklyn, and currently identifies with Conservative Judaism.^[9]

Works

Gottman has published over 190 papers, and is the author or co-author of 40 books, notably:^[10]

• Why Marriages Succeed or Fail…and How You Can Make Yours Last (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
• Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting (Simon and Schuster, 1997) – written with Joan Declaire
• The Marriage Clinic (W.W. Norton, 1999), W W Norton page
• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Crown Publishers, 1999) – a New York Times bestseller
• The Relationship Cure, A 5-Step Guide for Building Better Connections with Family, Friends, and Lovers (Crown Publishers, 2001)
• Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage: America's Love Lab Experts Share Their Strategies for Strengthening Your Relationship (Crown Publishers, 2006)
• And Baby Makes Three: The Six-Step Plan for Preserving Marital Intimacy and Rekindling Romance After Baby Arrives (Crown Publishers, 2007)

References