(look at that hair:)
Well I have read all of the books listed above, with the exception of Blink (which I am currently reading), for some reason I just skipped over it. Anyways I started reading it the other night and wanted to share a few things from it that are super interesting
So here is a little summary of Blink thanks to wikipedia:
The author describes the main subject of his book as "thin-slicing:" our ability to gauge what's really important from a very narrow period of experience. In other words, this is an idea that spontaneous decisions are often as good--or even better than--carefully planned and considered ones.
So anyways now that you have the basic understanding you can follow my thoughts.
Chapter 1: The Theory of Thin Slices: How a Little Bit of Knowledge Goes a Long Way
-So there is this psychologist by the name of John Gottman who has done research on marriage stability and divorce prediction for over 35 years. So one of Gottman's research projects (while he was at the University of Washington) was to bring in newlyweds to his "Love Lab"and videotape their interactions for 15 minutes and then he would predict whether or not he thought they would get a divorce or not (sounds crazy right?!?)
-So here's an example of what this looked like: Bill & Susan were led into a small room and sat down about 5 ft apart on two office chairs mounted on raised platforms. They both had electrodes and sensors clipped to their fingers and ears (which measures things like heart rate, temperature or their skin, and how much they're sweating; another term for this is Galvanic Skin Responses (GSR)...O the things I know), and under their chairs a "jiggle-o-meter" measured how much they moved around (ok really, jiggle, that doesn't sound very scientific, and it makes me think of fat, um try again Gottman). Two video cameras (one pointed at each person) measured everything they said and did; for 15 minutes they were left alone with the cameras rolling with instructions to discuss any topic from their marriage that had become a point of contention.
So what did Bill and Sue discuss? Their dog. They lived in a small apartment and had a very large dog. Bill didn't like the dog; Sue did. So for 15 minutes they discussed what they were going to do about the dog. Here's a little dialogue:
Bill: I'm just not a dog person.
This is how things started off. In a perfectly reasonable tone of voice Bill complains about the dog. Susan complains a little bit too. But there are also moments when they forget about what they are supposed to be arguing about.
When the subject comes up about whether the dog smells, the two banter back and forth with a half smile on their lips.
Susan: Sweetie! She's not smelly...
Bill: Did you smell her today? (ha! touche Bill)
Susan: I smelled her, she smelled good. I petted her, and my hands didn't stink or feel oily. Your hands have never smelled oily (I'm pretty sure oil isn't the reason dogs smell)
Bill: Yes, sir.
Susan: I have never let my dog get oily.
Bill: Yes sir, she's a dog.
Susan: My dog has never gotten oily, you better be careful.
Bill: No, you'd better be careful.
Susan: No, you'd better be careful...don't call my dog oily boy.
-So can we tell if their relationship is healthy or not by watch a videotape/hearing a 15 minute dialogue on a topic they disagree about? Most of us would probably say this interaction is too short to tell, and that marriages are buffeted by more important things (like money, sex, jobs, children, in-laws, etc).
-Gottman's research has shown otherwise. Since the 1980s Gottman has brought over 3,000 couples into his "Love Lab" and videotaped and analyzed each one of them. So what is he looking for exactly? Specific Affect, or what he dubbed SPAFF: a coding system that has 20 different categories corresponding to ever conceivable emotion that married couples might express during a conversation (disgust is 1, contempt is 2, anger is 7, defensiveness is 10, whining is 11, sadness is 12, stonewalling is 13, neutral is 14, and so on). Gottman has trained his staff how to read every emotional nuance in people's facial expressions and how to interpret seemingly ambiguous bits of dialogue. When they watch a marriage videotape, they assign a SPAFF code to every second of the couple's interaction, so that a 15 minute conflict discussion ends up being translated into a row of 1,800 numbers-- 900 for the husband and 900 for the wife. The data for the sensors and electrodes is factored in, so that the coders know, for example, when the husband's or the wife's heart was pounding or when his or her temperature was rising, or when either of them was jiggling (ugh) in his or her seat, and all of that information is fed into a complex equation (yay science!)
-On the basis of those calculations, Gottman has proven (error on Gladwell's part, in the science world we never say anything is "proven") something remarkable. If he watches a couple for 15 minutes he can predict with 90% accuracy if the couple will get a divorce or not. {Pause for a moment to give you another definition of "thin-slicing"} "Thin-slicing" refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience (i.e., Gottman's work).
- So what about Bill and Susan? At a closer look it appears that Bill was being defensive (in SPAFF language he was cross-complaining, and engaging in "yes-but" tactics). As for Susan, while Bill was talking, on more than one occasion she rolled her eyes very quickly, which is a classic sign of contempt. Bill then began to talk about his objection to the pen where the dog lives. Susan replied by closing her eyes and then assuming a patronizing lecture voice. Bill went on to say that he didn't want a fence in the living room. Sue said, "I don't want to argue about that," and rolled her eyes--another indication of contempt.
At no time during the conversation did either of them show any overt signs of hostility. Some couples when they fight, they fight. But these two were less obvious.
Bill went on to complain that the dog is cutting into their social life because they have to come home early and make sure the dog hasn't chewed anything up. Susan responded that that wasn't true arguing that if the dog was going to chew anything up she would do it in the first 15 minutes. Bill seemed to agree with that. He nodded lightly and said, "Yeah, I know," and then added, "I'm not saying it's rational. I just don't want to have a dog." (this started out as a validation, but then turned into a yes-but)
Bill went on: "I'm getting way better. You've got to admit it. I'm better this week than last week, and the week before and the week before." (The researcher jumps into say that in one study they were doing it turned out that the couples who ended in divorce were the couples who wouldn't give their partner credit when the other partner asked for it; with the happier couples the partner would hear it and say "you're right.") And Susan never does it, not once in the entire session, which no one realized until they did the coding (yikes, not looking good for Susan and Bill).
- After the 15 minute recording the couple is asked to sit and watch their discussion, and Bill and Susan thought the whole thing was hilarious. Gladwell points out that they seem fine in way, but maybe its because they are still in the "honeymoon" phase of their marriage. But the fact is that she's completely inflexible (his words, not mine). They are arguing about dogs, but its really about how whenever they have a disagreement, she's completely inflexible.
- On a technical level the purpose of the coding is to measure the amount of positive and negative emotions, because one of Gottman's findings is that for a marriage to survive, the ratio of positive to negative emotions in a given encounter has to be at least five to one. On a simpler level, though, what the researcher was looking for was a pattern in Bill and Susan's marriage, because a central argument of in Gottman's work is that all marriages have a distinctive pattern, a kind of marital DNA, that surfaces in any kind of meaningful interaction.
- What Gottman is implying is that a relationship between two people has a distinctive signature that arises naturally and automatically; that is why a marriage can be read and decoded so easily, because any key part of human activity has an identifiable and stable pattern. Predicting divorce is pattern recognition. "People are in one of two states in a relationship," Gottman says. "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 a 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. "
- Pretty interesting huh?! Well there is something else interesting about Gottman's system and that is how he simplifies the task of prediction. Looking at a clip of a couple's interaction and trying to decode every nuance of emotion can be nothing short of overwhelming, and not to mention that what seems positive to one person could seem negative to another. But Gottman has gotten so good at "thin-slicing" marriages that he says he can sit at a restaurant and eavesdrop on the couple one table over and get a pretty good sense of whether they need to start thinking about hiring lawyers and dividing up custody of the children (wow). He has figured out that he doesn't need to pay attention to everything that happens, he is far more selective. He has found that he can find out much of what he needs to know just by focusing on what he calls the Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Even within the Four Horsemen there is one emotion that he considers the most important of all: contempt. If Gottman observes one or both partners in a marriage showing contempt toward the other, he considers it the single most important sign that the marriage is in trouble. (bad news bears for Susan and Bill)
- One would think criticism would be worse..I mean, right?!? But Gottman says, "because criticism is a global condemnation of a person's character you think it would be worse, but contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife, 'You never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive.' Well, she's going to respond defensively to that. That's not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that's far more damaging, and contempt, is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of the time it's an insult: 'You're scum.' It's trying to put that person on a lower plane than you. It's hierarchical (I can never pronounce this word)."
- Contempt (Gottman says) is closely related to disgust, and what disgust and contempt are about is completely rejecting and excluding someone from the community. The big gender difference with negative emotions is that women are more critical (true), and men are more likely to stonewall (so true). But, there isn't a gender difference when it comes to contempt (interesting).
So that concludes the section on Gottman and his "Love Lab." The book never says (or at least if it does I haven't gotten to it yet) whether Bill and Susan are still together or not, but I am thinking that one would assume there is a better chance that they have split up than stayed together due to all of that contempt Susan was throwing out there (shame on you Susan).
I really enjoyed reading this part of chapter 1 for the two reasons: (1) I love reading about research (especially when it's something as interesting as relationship stability and divorce prediction), like I am fascinated by the reasoning for it, the method, and of course the findings; (2) I think everyone could benefit from a little introspection every now and then and reading this chapter allowed me to really stop and evaluate the way I interact with others (especially Ben).
Don't get me wrong Ben and I have a great relationship, but I know that sometimes I can be a little critical and unreasonable (and I really hate that because I am his number 1 fan and I am not really showing him that when I make critical statements toward him--even though they are meant with love:)
So in conclusion, reading this little tidbit was just another reminder that when I interact with others I need to be an active listener (yay consultation terms), and to make sure my positive to negative emotions/words are always at least five-to-one.
Ok that is all for now, back to school work.
over and out,
kristen
