Table Of ContentMARITAL INTERACTION
Experimental Investigations
John Mordechai Gottman
Department of Psychology
University of Illinois
Champaign, Illinois
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London 1979
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Gottman, John Mordechai.
Marital interaction.
Bibliography: p.
1. Marriage—Psychological aspects. 2. Social
interaction. I. Title.
HQ728.G63 301.42 78-22527
ISBN 0-12-293150-5
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
79 80 81 82 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my wife Heidi
Preface
The study of marriage has traditionally been the province of sociologists,
who have relied primarily on large-sample questionnaire or interview data
rather than on direct observation. The investigation of marriage as carried out
by psychologists, on the other hand, has been based on relatively small samples
and has employed a variety of coding systems, many of which lack sufficient
descriptive detail. The intended contribution of this book is twofold: to establish
the importance of the role of description in the study of social interaction and to
make methodological advances.
The book begins with a historical review of several research traditions that
have concerned themselves with families and marriages, work from the socio-
logical tradition, the family therapy or systems tradition, the social learning
tradition, and the developmental tradition. It is important that people who do
research in marital and family interaction become familiar with all four tradi-
tions. Research that points to the potential importance of the observation of
consensual decision-making processes is also reviewed.
This book also intends to make methodological contributions. Perhaps the
most important of these is the presentation of methods for the analysis oi pattern
and sequence. The dimension of time and the quantitative assessment of dyadic
patterning have yet to be explored. Data in this book are analyzed by the use of
new sequential techniques that are introduced in Chapter 2, and new methods
of cross-spectral time-series analysis are presented (Chapter 10) for use in the
study of dominance.
Chapter 3 is a review of research that derives four hypotheses and a model
of marital interaction called the Structural Model. This model involves a recon-
xi
XU Preface
ceptualization of three dimensions—negative affect, negative affect reciprocity,
and dominance. Most of the remainder of this book is devoted to research
designed to test and to understand this model.
Chapter 4 presents the Couples Interaction Scoring System (CISS), my
observational system for categorizing marital interaction. The system has sev-
eral features. First, in an analysis of communicative meaning, the content of a
message is coded separately from its mode of nonverbal delivery. This makes it
possible to investigate separately the role of nonverbal behavior. Second, the
nonverbal behavior of the listener as well as that of the speaker is coded. This
led to an operational definition of the context of message reception. Methods for
using sequential analysis for lumping coding subcategories in terms of their
similar interactive consequences are discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 5 discusses modern concepts of the assessment of reliability, par-
ticularly the stringent assessment that is necessary for sequential analysis.
Chapter 6 presents the results of the initial study designed to assess differ-
ences between well-functioning and poorly functioning marriages. In Chapter
7, data from the newlywed phase of Raush, Barry, Hertel, and Swain's (1974)
study, recoded in my laboratory with the CISS, are presented. Dimensions
derived from the Structural Model consistently differentiate couples on a dimen-
sion of marital satisfaction. In Chapter 8, the Structural Model's ability to gener-
alize across marital issues discussed by the couples, and to a non-decision-
making discussion is tested.
Chapter 9 presents a taxonomy for classifying clinic couples' interac-
tional styles in terms of communication skill deficits. The taxonomy is shown to
be internally consistent. Its ability to predict differential change in treatment is
tested in Chapter 14. Chapter 9 also introduces a univariate scaling of the CISS
codes that produces the time-series data necessary for operationalizing the
reconceptualized concept of dominance, introduced in Chapter 3.
Chapter 10 presents a mathematical model necessary for assessing the
dominance dimension of the Structural Model.
Chapter 11 explores the issues of the usefulness, when discussing dyadic
interaction, of the concept of an individual's social competence.
Chapter 12 presents results on couples coding their own interaction using a
device called the "talk table," and demonstrates that the dimensions of the
Structural Model applied to the couples' cognitions about their own behavior
follow the same patterns with these kinds of data as with the CISS data. This
work raises an issue that arises whenever strangers code messages intended for a
particular receiver; namely, what are the differences in the coding of behavior
between strangers and spouses? There may be a private nonverbal signal system
that develops in close relationships that is ignored in neglecting the perception
of interpersonal messages of the couple. This chapter also presents the initial
results of a 2£-year longitudinal study of couples planning to marry (Markman,
1977) that demonstrates that talk-table variables are excellent predictors of
relationship satisfaction 2\ years later.
Preface χιιι
Chapter Ί 3 presents results on the generalizabiIity of the Structural Model
from the laboratory to the home. Chapter 14 presents the results of a series of
intervention studies designed to test the ability of the Structural Model to predict
changes in marital satisfaction, to evaluate the effectiveness of an empirically
derived intervention program, to test the predictive validity of the classification
system proposed in Chapter 9, and to assess the limitations of the intervention
program as a function of the type of couple.
To summarize, there were two objectives in writing this book. One objec-
tive was to report results obtained in the pursuit of adequate description and
model building, a phase of investigation that must precede theorizing. The
second objective was methodological, that is, to draw together the diverse
research traditions in this field—work on observational methodology, on non-
verbal behavior, on behavior exchange theory, on reliability as conceptualized
by the General izabi I ity Theory, and on the sequential analysis of observational
data in dyads—and to make some of the methods of these traditions available to
the researcher in this area. These objectives were accomplished by a review of
literature from diverse areas—sociology, systems theory, developmental psy-
chology, nonverbal behavior theory, behavior exchange theory, nonbehavioral
and behavioral approaches to family and marital therapy, and the methodology
of observation. From this review, a Structural Model of marital interaction was
proposed, and research was presented to test this model.
With this book, I hope to increase the interest of psychologists in research
on marriage, the interest of sociologists in the quantitative study of social in-
teraction, and the interest of clinical researchers in both.
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful for the support I have received from the National
Institute of Mental Health's Applied Research Branch, Grant Numbers PHS R01
MH 24594 and PHS R01 MH 29910. Without this support, the work described
in this book would not have been possible, because the time-consuming and
tedious task of coding requires considerable resources.
This research has been supported throughout by active laboratories, both
at Indiana University from 1973 to 1976 and at the University of Illinois since
1976. Cliff Notarius, Howard Markman, and I began working together when
they were beginning graduate students and I was a beginning faculty member.
We learned together, and I am grateful for their support and friendship.
Most coding systems I have designed have begun with an unteachable first
draft and then have progressed to an unreliable second draft before evolving
into a sound presentation; the Couples Interaction Scoring System (CISS) was no
exception. The coding system was the collective work of the three of us, and it
reached the enviable point where no one recalled which contributions were
whose. From 1972 to 1976 the three of us were a team, and this alliance
provided much of the energy for our work.
An important event in our early collaboration was Mary Ellen Rubin's
decision to do her dissertation in our laboratory. Her study proved to be of
monumental proportions: The data took 6 months to collect; it took 10 coders
18 months to code the tapes; and it took several months to analyze the data.
Mary Ellen's dedication to the research problem was far beyond that of most
graduate students. The same is true for Howard Markman. He decided to
undertake a 2i-year longitudinal study on couples planning to marry, a study
that should prove to be one of the most important in the field.
XV
XVI Acknowledgments
In short, I have been blessed with three excellent students, and all of us
were equally fortunate in the quality of our laboratory staff. Nita Amove, Carla
Comarella, Audrey Heller, and Colleen Turner formed the core of our initial staff
of coders, and they later became our core of paraprofessional therapists. In 1976
Susan Toler and Colleen Turner undertook the management of an extensive
research project designed to test the classification system of clinic couples (see
Chapter 9). It was an ambitious and well-managed research project.
I am grateful to Harold Raush for his support and for his generosity in
sharing his data with us for recoding with the CISS and for reanalysis with a
non-first-order Markov program. Such collaboration is highly unusual, and his
support was a morale boost for all of us when we were just beginning this work.
I am also grateful to Roger Bakeman and Jim Sackett for the invaluable
assistance they provided in thinking through methods and issues in sequential
analysis. I am also grateful to Roger for sharing his sequential analysis program,
JOINT. Jim Sackett's conference in the summer of 1976 at Lake Wilderness was
an extremely important learning experience. He brought together educators, psy-
cholinguists, linguists, anthropologists, clinicians, cognitive psychologists, eco-
logical psychologists, developmentalists, primatologists, and ethologists to work
on the problems of observational methodology. Sackett has been extremely
influential both in articulating problems and issues in this area and in making
important creative advances. His work has an unusual and valuable clarity.
Several computer programmers have been helpful to the project. George
Cohen wrote our original first-order Markov program before we began using
Roger Bakeman's program JOINT. Esther Williams, Ruth Ann Berck, John Bargh,
Howard Miller, and Duane Steidinger have been extremely helpful. Duane
provided needed expertise in the computations of spectral time-series analysis.
I want to acknowledge the assistance of the Psychology Departments of
Indiana University and of the University of Illinois, of the Indiana University
Foundation, and of the University of Illinois Research Board. I also want to
acknowledge the assistance of the Psychology Department at the University of
Wisconsin, particularly that of Richard McFall of that department, and of Robert
Clasen of the University of Wisconsin Extension, for making it possible for me to
work on the first draft of the book in the summer of 1977. I would also like to
thank Gerry Patterson and Roberta Ray for talking to me about the history of the
Oregon Social Learning Project.
I am grateful for the assistance of my tireless crew of intelligent coders at
the University of Illinois, Linda Bruene, Gayle Fitzgerald, Mike Glickman, Ted
Groves, Ann Johnston, and Jean Walter, and for the superb assistance of my
student, capable research assistant, coder coordinator, and reliability checker,
Gwendolyn Mettetal. I would like to thank my students Dorothy Ginsberg,
Gwendolyn Mettetal, and Martha Putallaz for their helpful comments on the
manuscript. I would also like to thank my loyal, hardworking, and capable
secretary, De Bryant, for all her help in transcribing tapes and in keeping my
professional life running smoothly.
1
CHAPTER
Historical Traditions
It is difficult to write a history of research in this area. The task is difficult
because of the way knowledge is transmitted in the behavioral sciences: Con-
cepts are rapidly disseminated regardless of how well-established they are in
fact. This is not the case in the physical sciences; despite repeated attempts at
popularizing the idea of a finite, expanding universe bounded by the curving
motion of light bending in gravitational fields or the concept of the nondeter-
ministic nature of physical events on a microscopic scale, the general intel-
lectual community has easily been able to avoid discussing these ideas over
cocktails. Likewise most of us are quite content to be done with our math-
ematics requirements; we do not spend much leisure time exploring the impli-
cations of Gödel's proof, even though he proved the remarkable fact that in any
axiom system there are unprovable statements that are true in every case.
Perhaps we ought to care about Gödel's proof, but most of us do not.
This is not the state of affairs in the behavioral sciences. Psychological,
sociological, and anthropological ideas are accepted and become a part of our
language long before they have been demonstrated empirically; and, in fact,
psychological concepts do not die even when they have been found to receive
no empirical support whatsoever.
Behavior is the laboratory of all humans, and, because the culture is hungry
for knowledge of itself, it absorbs psychological concepts rapidly; jargon soon
becomes part of the language we all learn. For example, phrases from
psychoanalysis, such as unconscious defenses, Oedipal complex, and inferior-
ity complex, as well as concepts, such as the importance of dreams, began to
l
2 1. Historical Traditions
become part of our linguistic and cognitive heritage as soon as psychoanalysis
was widely disseminated. Psychoanalytic terms and concepts are now part of
the language we grow up learning. The same kind of cultural osmosis makes us
give credence to any kind of psychological concept that can be explained and
that makes some kind of sense. The discussion here is not a polemic; it is merely
a statement of why it is so difficult to construct a decent history in this area.
Despite the rapid diffusion of concepts, research in marital and family
interaction has been characterized by several distinct traditions, distinct be-
cause researchers in each tradition have not read widely, and, therefore, schol-
ars have tended to cite only their colleagues working in the same tradition.
Somehow, amazingly, everyone has been influenced to some extent by
everyone else. This is an advantage, but it is also a drawback because we
maintain, without knowing their origin, implicit assumptions about what is true
of marriage.
In order to describe the historical context for the work outlined in this book,
this chapter will review research from four research traditions—the sociological
tradition, the family therapy tradition, the social learning tradition, and the
developmental tradition.
THE SOCIOLOGICAL TRADITION
Early Investigations
By far the oldest research tradition in the study of marriage and of the
family is sociological. The earliest work in this area began in August, 1924, a
decade before Kinsey initiated his research on the sexual behavior of the male,
when a psychiatrist, G. V. Hamilton, began secretly investigating the sexual
behavior of couples. Hamilton interviewed 100 couples in New York City who
were mostly under 40 years old and were "classifiable as having attained a
relatively high level of culture [p. 1]." Hamilton asked 372 questions of women
who had been pregnant, 357 questions of women who had not, and 334
questions of all men. He found "evidence for a greater degree of [marital]
satisfaction of the men [p. 79; material in brackets added]" than of the women.
"The women," he wrote, "taken as a group, had been more seriously disap-
pointed in their marriages than had the men [p. 80]." He also found that
"marital satisfaction of the men of my study is much less dependent on size of
income than is that of women [p. 98]" and that "wage earning by wives
unfavorably affects the contentment of both spouses [p. 99]." His book also
contained an analysis of 1358 love affairs, and he reported that extramarital
affairs were related to marital dissatisfaction.
While Hamilton was conducting his research in secret, Terman, Butten-
weiser, Ferguson, Johnson, and Wilson published their work in 1938. Thus,
theirs was the first published study of marital happiness, and at the time it set a
high water mark for methodological sophistication. Terman et al. (1938) re-
