John Gottman - Relations and Effects

Relations and Effects

In multiple analyses Gottman has shown a plethora of relations and effects in marriage and divorce, some in peer-review publications, while many others in Gottman own books. Among those are:

• The physical elements in marital conflict (i.e. physical effects are central to the inability to think etc. in conflict situations) for which he advises 20 minutes cooling period or physical relaxation.
• The effects of "bids for connection". that is the smallest bids people do to connect and how the other reacts. for example happy couples do have many more "bids for conneciton when together, and much more "turn towards" response, and much much less "turn away" - the most negative reaction. A book is dedicated to this element "The relationship Cure"
• The concept of "trust" which Gottman defines as the tendency to cooperate to form "win-win" situation, and the ability to get unstuck from loss-loss state loop (like mutual defecting in Prisoner's dilemma). A central feature of unhappy relationships, notes Gottman, is that couples are stuck in loss-loss loops.
• The neutral affect provides a way out of negative interactions as most interactions do not transition directly from negative to positive. The degree of neutral affect is often overlooked as a predictor of relationship success due to the very fact that the neutral affect is simply neutral.
• The dynamic to cause divorce in the short term is different from that causing divorce later. Early divorce is characterized by the "Four Horsemen" of bad fighting, whereas later divorce is characterized by lower positive affect in earlier stages of the relationship.
• Anger is not at all bad for relationships. Happy couples are as frequently angry as unhappy couples. It seems that how people react to anger and how destructive they get is the crucial factor rather than the frequency of anger or fights. Gottman even says that anger is functional in marriage.
• 69% of happy couples still have *the very same* unresolved conflicts after ten year, yet remain happy because they do not get gridlocked in the conflict and manage to get around it.