John Gottman

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John Gottman with his wife Julie Gottman (2011)

John Mordechai Gottman (* 1942 ) is an American psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington . He was best known for his work on marriage stability and relationship analysis through direct observation.

Gottman claims to have developed a method with a 90% probability of predicting which newly married couples will remain married and which will divorce after 4 to 6 years. The method is also said to be able to predict with 81% accuracy which marriages will last 7 to 9 years. His method of prediction is based on Paul Ekman's method of analyzing microexpression . She was featured in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink and on the BBC series The Human Face .

The four apocalyptic horsemen of the couple relationship

According to Gottman , the four apocalyptic riders also stand for the sins of communication that permanently ruin a marriage or an intimate relationship and show themselves in various forms as process-based events and lead to the couple's separation:

  1. Criticism : Assignments of blame and accusations that culminate in a general condemnation of the partner
  2. Defense / defense of justification (and denial of own shares) that the conflict maintained
  3. Contempt and disdain of the partner
  4. "Walls", withdrawal from communication, etc. a. through silence.

According to Gottman, this also shows gender differences in behavior. According to this, women should be more inclined to criticize their partner, while men should be more resistant than women.

The demonstration of one's own power (especially as a defense against feelings of powerlessness ) is probably used at all stages of this isolation and separation process. She is sometimes referred to by Bas Kast as the “fifth rider”.

Gottman's constant (5: 1)

Gottman observed a clear predominance of negative interactions in unhappy, unstable partnerships. The so-called Gottman constant says that in stable-content relationships the ratio of positive to negative behavior must be at least 5: 1; a negative interaction can be compensated for by five positive ones.

The seven secrets of a happy marriage

Based on his observations and research, Gottman gives seven basic rules that can make a marriage happy; The basis, however, is friendship, which is the heart of every marriage. He illustrates his seven concrete suggestions with examples, dialogues and suggests suitable exercises for married couples:

  1. Bring your partner map up to date
  2. Cultivate affection and admiration for one another
  3. Face each other, not each other
  4. Let your partner influence you
  5. Solve your solvable problems
  6. Overcome stalemates
  7. Create a common purpose

Fonts (excerpt)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ taz online interview with divorce researcher Schmidt-Denter [1] from July 12, 2014, accessed on August 11, 2014
  2. ↑ Jochen Peichl: Destructive couple relationships. The trauma of intimate violence Edition = . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-608-89074-7 , pp. 117 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ John M. Gottman: The 7 secrets of happy marriage , Ullstein-Verlag, Berlin; TB 5th edition 2017, ISBN 978-3-548-37545-8 , pp. 64–304
personal data
SURNAME Gottman, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gottman, John Mordechai
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1942