John Gottman

Predictions of divorce

Gottman developed multiple models, scales and formulas to predict marital stability and divorce in couples, and has completed seven studies in this field. These studies regarding newlywed couples are most well known.

This work concludes that the four negative behaviors that most predict divorce are criticism of partners’ personality, contempt (from a position of superiority), defensiveness, and stonewalling, or emotional withdrawal from interaction usually due to feeling overwhelmed by criticism. On the other hand, stable couples handle conflicts in gentle, positive ways, and are supportive of each other.

He developed the Gottman Method Couple’s Therapy based on his research findings. The therapy aims to increase respect, affection, and closeness, break through and resolve conflict, generate greater understandings, and to keep conflict discussions calm. The Gottman Method seeks to help couples build happy and stable marriages.

Studies

Gottman’s predictions are based on perceived marital bond. In his 2000 study, Gottman conducted oral interviews with 95 newlywed couples. Couples were asked about their relationship, mutual history, and philosophy towards marriage. The interview measured the couple's perceptions of their history and marriage by focusing on the positive or negative qualities of the relationship expressed in the telling of the story. Rather than scoring the content of their answers, interviewers used the Oral History Interview coding system, developed by Buehlman and Gottman in 1996, to measure spouses' perceptions about the marriage and about each other. Therefore, the couples’ perception was used to predict marital stability or divorce. The more positive their perceptions and attitudes were about their marriage and each other, the more stable the marriage.

His models partly rely on Paul Ekman's method of analyzing human emotion and microexpressions.

1992

The original study was conducted by Gottman and Buehlman in 1992, in which they interviewed couples with children. An a posteriori modeling yielded a discriminant function that discriminate who has divorced with 94% accuracy. Gottman believed that since early married life is a period of change and adjustment, and perceptions are being formed, he sought to predict marital stability and divorce through couples’ perceptions during the first year of marriage.

1998

In a 1998 study, Gottman developed a model to predict which newlywed couples would remain married and which would divorce four to six years later. The model fits the data with 90% accuracy. Another model fits with 81% percent accuracy for which marriages survived after seven to nine years.

2000

Gottman’s follow-up study with newlywed couples, published in 2000, used the Oral History Interview to predict marital stability and divorce. Gottman's model fit with 87.4% accuracy for classifying couples who divorce (or not) within the couples’ first five years of marriage. He used couples’ perceptions about their marriages and each other to model marital stability or divorce.

Critiques

Gottman has been criticized for describing this work as accurately predicting divorce, when generally this work involves simply fitting statistical models to a data set, not making predictions about events in the future.

A paper by Richard E. Heyman, "The hazard of predicting divorce without cross validation" analyzes 15 divorce prediction models and questions their validity.

1. When analyzing a given dataset, it is possible to overfit the model to the data, which will work extremely nice for this dataset, but will not work when tested on fresh data.
2. Ninety percent prediction may actually mean much less when considering false positives and the low base rates of divorce.

"Overfitting can cause extreme overinflation of predictive powers, especially when oversampled extreme groups and small samples are used, as was the case with Gottman et al. (1998; n = 60 couples for the prediction analyses) and nearly all of the other divorce prediction studies ... published studies that find extraordinary initial predictive results may aid us in improving models of risk by identifying important risk factors. Nonetheless, dissemination of 'predictive power' results in the popular media must await supportive data on sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value when the predictive equation is applied to independent samples. By recognizing both the value and limitations of predictive studies, professionals and the public alike will be served best."

The author shows his points by creating a divorce prediction model with a data set, and showing its low validity when the above considerations are tested.

Gottman never published a reply to this critique.

Journalist Laurie Abraham also disputed the prediction power of Gottman's method. 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." The Gottman Relationship Institute claims that six of seven of Gottman's studies have been properly predictive, by a non-standard definition of prediction in which all that is required is that predictive variables, but not their specific relationship to the outcome, were selected in advance. 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.

Building Strong Families Program

Independent research on the impact of Gottman's marriage strengthening programs for the general public has further questioned Gottman couple education programs.

The largest independent evaluation of a marriage education curriculum developed by Gottman, known as "Loving Couples, Loving Children," was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research at nine sites in five states through the federally funded, multi-year Building Strong Families Program study contracted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. The study group included low-income, unwed couples.

An impact report released by the Office of Planning Research and Evaluation showed that the intervention had no positive impact and, in one case, "had negative effects on couples’ relationships."

Supporting Healthy Marriage Project

An ongoing study by Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC), known as the Supporting Healthy Marriage Project (SHM), is evaluating Gottman's "Loving Couples, Loving Children" program among low-income, married couples. The multi-year, random assignment study is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. In an early impact study on the effectiveness of "skills-based relationship education programs designed to help low-income married couples strengthen their relationships and, in turn, to support more stable and more nurturing home environments and more positive outcomes for parents and their children," MDRC reported "Overall, the program has shown some small positive effects, without clear indications (yet no clear negative proof) for improving the odds to stay together after 12 months."

The program is still ongoing.

Matthews, Wickrama and Conger

A study published by Matthews, Wickrama and Conger in 1996 based on couples’ perceptions showed that spousal hostility, net of warmth, predicted with 80% accuracy which couples would divorce or not divorce within a year.

Relations and effects

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

Contempt and marriage

Gottman's theory states that there are four major emotional reactions that are destructive and thus are the four predictors to a divorce: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt. Among these four, Gottman considers contempt the most important of them all.

Seven Principles

In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, (his most popular book) 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.

Practical solutions

Here is a partial list of methods and practices developed by Gottman for marriage and child rearing:

Therapist education

The Gottman Relationship Institute certifies new therapists regularly. Three levels of professional training are generally delivered through intensive two-day seminars led by John Gottman and his wife, Julie, to help therapists:

Pre-birth workshop

Bringing Baby Home is a two-day seminar to help prepare would-be parents to a new baby, using 18 exercises and other tricks. In a peer-reviewed paper, Gottman shows that for a randomly controlled (but not blinded) experiment, couples attending the workshop were tremendously better off later, as follows: Without the workshop, 70% of couples had lower marital satisfaction relative to before birth (a common finding); 58% of mothers had some symptoms of depression after giving birth. Participation in the workshop resulted in no reduction in marital satisfaction,but only 22% of mothers had depressive symptoms.

Self-help books

Gottman has authored and co-authored multiple books for a general audience on marriage improvement, etc., raising emotionally intelligent children, and on how to bring a new baby home without damaging the relationship.

Research methods

Gottman is renowned for thorough and creative research methods:

1) Extensive data collection and coding. In Gottman's research, subjects were recorded for the following aspects (many of them for the same episode):

2) Nonlinear mathematical modeling

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 he observes kosher and the Sabbath.

Over three decades ago, he married Julie Gottman née Schwartz, a psychotherapist. His two previous marriages had ended in divorce.

The couple currently live in Washington state. Their daughter, Moriah Gottman, studies medicine in Arizona.

Awards and honors

Gottman has been the recipient of four National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Awards, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Distinguished Research Scientist Award, the American Family Therapy Academy Award for Most Distinguished Contributor to Family Systems Research, the American Psychological Association Division of Family Psychology, Presidential Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Research Contribution and the National Council of Family Relations, 1994 Burgess Award for Outstanding Career in Theory and Research.

Media appearances

Gottman has been seen on, among other television programs, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the CBS Morning News and Oprah. He has been profiled in the New York Times, the Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Glamour, Woman's Day, People, Self, the Reader's Digest, Psychology Today, the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Works

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