In the Blink of an eye - trust your intuition May 24, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything, Links , trackback
A commenter on my recent post Address the Emotions, not the Logic said this:
You can’t just watch a couple interact for a couple of minutes and then make these big judgements about them. You have no idea what they’re usually like, or how significant these different events are to them.
But John Gottman, a world renowned social psychologist, would beg to differ.
There is the story of the psychologist John Gottman, who since the 1980’s has worked with more than 3,000 married couples in a small room, his ”love lab,” near the University of Washington. He videotapes them having a conversation. Reviewing just an hour’s worth of each tape, Gottman has been able to predict with 95 percent accuracy whether that couple will be married 15 years later. If he watches only 15 minutes of tape, his success rate is about 90 percent. Scientists in his lab have determined they can usually predict whether a marriage will work after watching just three minutes of newlywed conversation.
(From the New York Times review of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink
Comments»
The difference is, he’s a trained social psychologist with years of experience.
well, it would be easier to a social psychologist, but the point here is that your intuition sometimes could tell you a lot more than you think it could. i think that life is really these small moments …
Isn’t the big difference that you watched one interaction but Gottman’s studies were either 15 or 60 mins worth?
I stand by what I said. As the other readers have already pointed out, Gottman is a psychologist, with years of training and experience, who knows exactly what to look for to assess the strength of a relationship. What you had was a hunch.
But another important point is that he watched the couples in his “love lab”. So they knew that they would be coming in for observation, and would therefore behave differently. They would certainly act differently since they knew someone was watching them, even if they were told to act naturally. Maybe the girl in the casino was in a bad mood, maybe the guy was tired….you can’t look at them at that exact moment in time and make these big judgments.
And also, you’re assuming that a lasting marriage reflects a healthy and happy relationship, but there are also lots of cultural factors that must be considered. Maybe Gottman knew a bit about their background and took that into consideration. If he saw a couple who fought a lot but who came from families where divorce really wasn’t an option, then of course he could say that it’s unlikely that they would split. You didn’t have any of that information.
Umm jess I hope you do realize nowadays and in reality, marriage is about two people.. just them.. it shouldn’t have anything to do with business or “family” and assuming these couple analysis are based on every-day couples I hardly doubt any of the latter exceptions are possible. So quite frankly, I think assuming a lasting marriage reflects on healthy and happy relationship isn’t off the mark,. No one said it has to be fight free, but it’s the degree of the fight and whether or not it’s continual every day and how the couple interact with each other AFTER marriage.
Trev - actually the big difference is that Gottman’s work is with a random sample, whereas I have the privilege of dealing with an extremely biased sample. I found a couple whose relationship situation was obvious to me after only a minute or two. They probably would have been an outlier in Gottman’s studies.
Really, “….”? I don’t know if I agree with you. I think that there are still plenty of people who don’t divorce for family/cultural/religious reasons. Obviously it isn’t as much an issue nowadays, as can be seen by the rising divorce rates, but I think that it’s still an important factor. I imagine that any study on marriage/relationships would try to control for it, or at the very least keep it in mind.
And Niels, your experience was still random. You didn’t go to a marriage counselling meeting and find the couple there, because that would show that they did have more serious problems. You just happened to see them for a couple minutes in a casino. Gottman obviously had a bigger sample size but it’s not like your “study” was any more biased. And why would they be an outlier? I would think that would be for something more extreme, like if they got into a screaming match or if they started hitting each other. I don’t think that this was such an unusual situation.
And again, you’re assuming that you’re right, that it was a bad relationship…while I still don’t understand how you know that, when you’ve never met or talked to them before, and just saw one brief interaction.
Niels, I agree with your assessment.
Everyone else: Niels interacts with more and hotter women than most guys have ever seen. On multiple continents. If he says some guy is supplicating to a chick, I’d put my money on it.
Reading people isn’t all that hard, folks.
I wouldn’t use as supporting evidence anything that also explains the Amadou Diallo incident.
^^ Not clear how dd makes the jump that the guy is supplicating to a chick. (Chick. Nice manners. Anyway)
And if I was feelnig threatened by a tableful of men, having my boyfriend hug me and call me silly in front of everyone would only make matters worse.
I think your right Niels. Take care big man.