Blink 1- 39

Summary :

             The book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell reveals the amazing studies done to explain the power of thinking without thinking. In the first chapter the narrator describes a situation of a newly married couple that went to visit the laboratory of a psychologist named John Gottman. Gottman was known for his ability to observe couple's behavior for a short period of time and determining whether the couple was going to be together for a long time or not. Gottman was able to observe and recognize repeated patterns. He had come to a conclusion that if the partner doesn't congratulate or compliment their partner when they do something good, that couple is most likely to get divorced. Gottman figured this out by using a technique called The Morse Code. Gottman and his students will put the couple in a room for about 15 minutes, videotape them and have them talk to each other about anything. Than after the videotaping was done, Gottman and his students would analyze the video. They would look for facial expressions, tone of voice and from the words they use and record the numbers down. In the end they determine whether the couple would stay together or get divorced. In one experiment, the couple was arguing about their dog. What Gottman discovered later was that the argument wasn't about the dog at all. The couple was using all their problems and expressing them in the form of their argument about the dog.

Quote:

            “A central argument in Gottman's work is that all marriages have a distinctive pattern, a kind of marital DNA, that surfaces in any king of meaningful interaction. This is why Gottman asks couples to tell the story of how they met, because he has found that when a husband and wife recount the most important episode in their relationship, that pattern shows up right away.” (Gladwell 26)

Reaction:

           The reason why I chose this quote because I found it really amazing how Gottman can recognize a pattern really fast and even by a small amount of time. It takes years for people to determine whether the person they have chosen is the right one for them and even after getting married they still haven't figured it out yet. But it takes Gottman a few minutes to recognize patterns and a few days to determine whether the couple would stay together or get divorced.