- John Gottman
John Gottman, (* 1942) Ph.D. is known for his work on marital stability and relationship analysis through scientific direct observations. The lessons learned from this work represent a partial basis for the
relationship counseling movement which is based on specific training and education of behaviors which aim to improve relationship functioning and the avoidance of those behaviors, shown by Gottman and researchers, to deteriorate human relationships.Fact|date=March 2008Dr. Gottman claims to have developed a method that predicts with 90% percent accuracy which newlywed couples will remain married and which will divorce four to six years later. It is also 81% percent accurate in predicting which marriages will survive after seven to nine years.Who|date=March 2008 Dr. Gottman's prediction method is described in the book "Blink" and the television series "
The Human Face ". Dr. Gottman's method relies onPaul Ekman 's method of analyzing human emotion andmicroexpression s.Dr. Gottman became a professor of
psychology at theUniversity of Washington .Many of his books have been widely sold in the popular press. Examples include:
* "The Relationship Cure",
* "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work",
* "Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage",
* "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: And How You Can Make Yours Last"
* "The Marriage Clinic".Contempt and marriage
In the book "" author
Malcolm Gladwell discussesJohn Gottman 's theories of how to predict which couples will stay married. Part of Gottman's theory states that there are four major emotional reactions that are destructive to a marriage:defensiveness ,stonewall ing,criticism , andcontempt . Among these four, Gottman considers contempt the most important of them all. [ cite book
last = Gladwell
first = Malcolm
authorlink =
coauthors =
title =Blink
publisher =Back Bay Books imprint (Little, Brown and Company)
date =copyright 2005
location =
pages =pp. 32-33
url = http://www.gladwell.com/blink/
doi =
id =
isbn = 0-316-01066-9]References
External links
* [http://www.gottman.com The Gottman Institute]
* [http://www.talaris.org/spotlight_gottman_bio.htm Biography] (Talaris)
* [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gottman05/gottman05_index.html The Mathematics of Love - An interview] (Edge)
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