John Gottman's View Of Marriage

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Marriage is one of the most highly valued institutions in today’s society (Waite & Gallagher, 2000), and yet it is as fragile as ever (Fowers, 2000) with divorce rates at around 50%. Possibly the most prominent marital researcher is John Gottman, he has consistently claimed that over half of all first marriages will end in divorce (Gottman, 1999; Gottman & Levenson, 1999; Gottman, 1994) similar studies have comparable results to that of Gottman’s research (Schoen & Canudas-Romo, 2006). The Family Research Laboratory, or ‘love lab’ was some of Gottman’s earliest work (Levenson & Gottman, 1983), he was not only one of the first researchers to study couples in a laboratory setting, but was one of the first to utilize a longitudinal design in several …show more content…
Furthermore research has shown that criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling, are also present in most ‘good’ marriages, although less frequently and with couples reparining issues positively. Criticism is ‘any statement that implies that there is something globally wrong with one’s partner’ (Gottman, 1999, p. 42). Gottman specified how the use of statements such as ‘you always’ or ‘you never’ will effectively turns a complaint into a criticism. Gottman maintains expressing discontent within the relationship is functional and healthy. Although in order to avoid criticisms, couples should focus on making a complaint without blame and focusing on a specific issue using appropriate statements. The result of criticism is often defensiveness. Defensiveness is ‘any attempt to defend oneself from a perceived attack’ (Gottman, p. 44). Defensiveness usually includes counter-attacking with criticism while taking no responsibility for the problem. Gottman found that a common pattern occurs: criticism, defensiveness, counter-complaining or counter-attacking, and stonewalling. This particular pattern has a knock on effect whereby a partner criticizes the other, the one who has been criticized then develops feelings of needing to defend themselves by counter-attacking, and this knock on effect continues until someone blocks the other person out by stonewalling. Stonewalling usually happens when the person who is listening completely withdraws, typically in the form of one partner leaving the situation. Stonewalling can be manifested in body language such as looking down or away, marginal vocalization and a stiff neck. Gottman’s results indicate that 85% of stonewalling is done by men. The most destructive of the four horsemen is contempt. Contempt is ‘any behaviour that puts oneself on a higher plane than one’s partner’ (Gottman, p. 45). This includes facial
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