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4. Contempt: Showing scorn, anger, and rejection

through verbal and nonverbal means (e.g., rolling of eyes) and generally condemning the actions, motives, or personality of the other. All marriages involve some amount of mutual criticism and hurtful things said in the heat of argument. Gottman’s research found that it was not simply the presence of negative behaviors that distinguished happy/stable couples from those headed for divorce. Instead, what mattered was the ratio of positive to negative behaviors and the degree of reciprocation of negative behaviors (“negative affect reciprocity”). Somewhat amazingly, in counting up the positives and negatives in “love lab” observations, a ratio of 5 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction was found to be the dividing line between successful and unsuccessful relationships. That is, in healthy relationships, likely to last, there were five times more positive than negative interactions. Troubled relationships had very low ratios, meaning that negatives and positives were about equal, or that negatives out numbered positives. The 5-to-1 ratio supports the general principle that “bad is stronger than good.” Evidently, the harm done by one bad thing needs to be offset by five good things for marriages to be satisfying. The 5-to- 1 ratio suggests a fairly obvious approach to improving the quality of a relationship—namely, find ways to reward your partner! Gottman and Levenson (1992) argue that frequent and simple acts of kindness, concern, care, and affection can shift the ratio into the positive range. This makes conflict less likely and easier to resolve when it occurs. Negative affect reciprocity may be one reason unhappy couples have a low positive-to-negative ratio. This term describes a tit-for-tat exchange of negative expressions, both verbal and nonverbal, that Gottman and his colleagues found contributes to the downward spiral of a relationship. If you think about your own relationships, you know that it’s hard not to retaliate against a critical or hurtful comment made by an intimate partner. One partner’s negative critical comment invites reciprocation from the other, which invites further retaliation, which may then escalate into a heated argument. As Gottman notes, anger, conflict, and disagreements can all be opportunities for deepening mutual understanding and increasing future satisfaction. Successful couples find ways to turn disagreements into growth in their relationship, and ways to repair the damage of conflict. However, distressed couples seem stuck in this negative affect reciprocity pattern and are unable or unwilling to respond in more constructive ways. Demand/withdraw can be added to the list of negative interaction patterns described by Gottman’s research. This pattern reflects what seems to be a fairly typical gender difference in response to conflict (Grossman & Wood, 1993). Women, who are often more attuned to and concerned about the ongoing quality of close relationships, make more demands to resolve problems and to improve a marriage than men (Christensen & Heavey, 1993). Relationship problems raised by one partner are sensitive issues because they directly or indirectly imply criticism of the other partner. In raising these issues, women are generally more emotionally expressive and report more intense emotions than men (Grossman & Wood, 1993). Men seem generally less sensitive to relationship problems and less comfortable talking about them. These differences may produce a pattern of interactions in which the woman makes demands to talk about a concern and the man withdraws or becomes defensive and refuses to confront the issue (Eldridge & Christensen, 2002). This frustrates the wife, who then makes more demands, which may lead to more strident withdrawal on her husband’s part, like stomping off and slamming the door on the way out. This interaction pattern would likely frustrate both husband and wife and decrease the odds that problems will be resolved. Attributions In addition to negative communication patterns, people’s characteristic style of explaining their partner’s transgressions and faults also has much to do

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being 263 with relationship satisfaction (Bradbury & Fincham,

1990). If your partner forgets to do a favor you

requested, or misses an important occasion like your birthday or anniversary, how do you explain it? Does it mean they really don’t care about you, or do you give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there must have been a good reason? As you probably guessed, satisfied couples assume the best and unhappy couples assume the worst. Relationshipenhancing attributions are explanations for a partner’s faults and transgressions that “excuse” the behavior because it is seen as determined by situations, rather than as a reflection of an enduring trait or lack of concern for the other partner. “Having a bad day” or “just being forgetful because of preoccupation with other things,” puts a positive spin on otherwise negative and potentially hurtful actions. Enhancing attributions also work on the positive side. Positive behaviors are seen as stemming from a partner’s desirable qualities and from their care and concern for the relationship. When good things happen, they are attributed to the person—not the situation. “He or she is so thoughtful and loving, look what I got for our anniversary.” In contrast, unhappy couples show a distress-maintaining pattern of attributions. Negative behaviors, hurtful comments, and forgetting special occasions are attributed to permanent characteristics of the individual. “This just shows that you don’t really care, and nothing is going to change because that’s just the way you are!” It is little wonder that longitudinal studies have linked distress-maintaining attributions to low marital satisfaction throughout the course of a marriage (Fincham, Harold, & Gano-Phillips, 2000; Karney & Bradbury, 2000). Implicit Theories and Expectations People come into relationships with different implicit or informal theories about how relationships are supposed to work. These general ideas may shape the more specific ways people respond to, and evaluate, intimate relations. Knee and his colleagues have identified two distinct implicit theories, defined either by a belief in romantic destiny or by a belief in relationship growth (Knee, 1998). The basic premise of the romantic destiny theory is that two people are either compatible or they are not. If a marriage runs into difficulty, this signals a lack of compatibility—namely, an assumption that “we aren’t right for each other.” The growth theory, on the other hand, assumes relationships are challenging and will grow and develop over time. As Knee and his colleagues described it, people following the growth theory “. . . are primarily interested in developing the relationship, and believe that relationships grow, not despite obstacles, but rather because of them” (Knee, Patrick, & Lonsbary, 2003, p. 41). Sample items from their Implicit Theory of Relationship Scale make the distinction between the two theories very clear. People who hold to the romantic destiny theory endorse items such as, “A successful relationship is mostly a matter of finding a compatible partner right from the start,” and “Early troubles in a relationship signify a poor match between partners.” Growth theory advocates would agree with items like the following: “Challenges and obstacles in a relationship can make love even stronger,” and “It takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate a good relationship” (Knee et al., 2003, p. 41). Research by Knee and his colleagues suggests that these general beliefs influence many aspects of a relationship—perhaps most importantly, the decision to stay or leave (Knee, Nanayakkar, Vietor, & Neighbors, 2002; Knee, Patrick, Vietor, Nanayakkar, & Neighbors, 2002; Knee, Patrick, Vietor, & Neighbors,

2004). A strong belief in romantic destiny leads to an

interpretation of conflict as a sign of incompatibility over which couples can exert little control (i.e., “We’re either right for each other or we’re not”). Attributions for problems are likely to focus on individual traits (such as personality incompatibility) rather than circumstances. This makes relationship problems seem more stable and enduring and thus, unfixable. As marriages progress, a romantic destiny view may cause that typical drop in marital satisfaction (described earlier) to be seen as a sure sign of a bad choice. In fact, research shows that people with strong destiny beliefs are more likely to end a relationship if they are not satisfied with how it goes at the beginning (Knee, 1998). The work-it-out perspective of the relationship growth theory is clearly a more hopeful and, many would say, more realistic approach to marriage, unless of course there really is one “right” person for each of us, and our job is to find that person for a marriage made in heaven. A belief in relationship growth provides a more positive and accepting perspective on the inevitable conflicts and disappointments married couples confront. From a growth perspective, conflict is a natural part of all relationships and does not mean that someone has

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. 264 Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being to be at fault or that partners are incompatible. Instead, problems are seen as temporary and situational and, thus, solvable and likely to pass. Therefore, effort and commitment can make the difference between failure and success.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: THE CONTOURS

OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE

Two lessons of positive psychology that you have hopefully learned by now are: (1) The absence of the “bad” does not mean the presence of the “good.” (2) Positive and negative emotional experiences are independent of one another. Applied to marriage, this means that, while the negative relationship behaviors we just reviewed make a marriage bad, their absence does not necessarily make a marriage good. It also means that good relationship behaviors are not simply the opposite of destructive behaviors. As Reis and Gable put it, “Relating well is not the same thing as not relating badly” (2003, p. 152). What takes a marriage above zero? Beyond just the absence of the bad to some level of enjoyment, contentment, and happiness? Studies of long-term and happily married couples provide some clues. What Can Happy Couples Tell Us? In a seminal study by Lauer and Lauer, 351 couples (married 15 years or more) were asked to select from a list of 39 statements those that best explained why their marriages had lasted (Lauer & Lauer, 1985; Lauer et al., 1990). Husbands and wives responded separately. The overwhelming majority of couples (300) described their marriages as happy ones. And men and women showed an amazing degree of agreement as to why their marriages were happy and successful. The most frequently endorsed reasons for a happy and enduring marriage can be grouped into two general categories: friendship and commitment. FRIENDSHIP Deep and abiding friendship was the top reason couples gave for their lasting marriages. Both husbands and wives agreed, “My spouse is my best friend.” Other statements clarified what they meant. “I like my spouse as a person.” “My spouse has grown more interesting.” “I confide in my spouse.” In response to the more open-ended

questions on the survey, one woman commented

that she would want her husband as a friend even if they weren’t married—that’s how much she liked him. A man married over 30 years said it had almost been like being married to “a series of different women” because he had watched his wife grow and change over time (Lauer & Lauer, 1985, p. 24). He found his wife more interesting now than when they first married. Others shared that they thought liking was as important as loving in a marriage. These positive views of marriage partners were reflected in the enjoyment of shared activities. “We laugh together.” Men endorsed, “We share outside hobbies and interests” and women, “We have a stimulating exchange of ideas.” Shared activities that are fun, exciting, and arousing may be very important in offsetting the boredom that can set in, in long-term marriages. This possibility received experimental support from a study that found an increase in global marital satisfaction after couples completed a novel and physiologically arousing activity (Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman, 2000). In this study, married couples traversed an obstacle course while holding a cylindrical pillow between their bodies or heads. No hands, legs, or teeth were allowed to keep the pillow from falling to the ground. Couples found this activity, reminiscent of sack races at summer camp, to be fun and exciting. Evidently, the positive emotion they experienced generalized to their relationship, resulting in a more favorable evaluation. One ingredient in a successful marriage seems to be the ability to find exciting and fun things to do together. Husbands and wives in happy marriages also share similar views on many of the potentially contentious issues within a marriage. “We agree on aims and goals.” “We agree on a philosophy of life.” “We agree on how and how often to show affection.” “We agree about our sex life.” Interestingly, fewer than 10% of these couples believed that enjoyable sex kept their marriages together. Most couples were happy with their sex lives, but others, even if they weren’t, or had stopped having sex altogether, were still happy with their marriages (Lauer, et al., 1990). Evidently, if you have an enjoyable intimate friend as a spouse, sex is not critical to the success of your marriage, at least after you have been married for 15 years or more. COMMITMENT Happy couples recognized the importance of strong commitment to making their

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being 265 marriages work and agreed with the statement, “Marriage is a long-term commitment.” The basis of their commitment was also suggested by other responses (e.g., “Marriage is sacred.” “An enduring marriage is important to social stability.” “I want the relationship to succeed.”). Consistent with Knee’s work on the growth theory of relationships, successful couples believed that all marriages run into troubles and that you just have to “take it” until you can find ways to work it out. Agreement that “We discuss things calmly” suggests that happy couples take a positive approach to resolving conflicts. These results affirm our earlier discussion of the differences between friendship and passionate romance. The deep friendship, intense liking, respect, comfort, and enjoyment expressed by the happy couples in the Lauer’s study stand in contrast to marriages based on the more tenuous and fickle nature of passionate romance. The stable solidarity of friendship makes passion look like a shaky basis for a stable marriage. Many relationship researchers would agree that companionate love built on friendship is more enduring than romantic love built on passion. Contemplating the future of marriage, Hendrick and Hendrick (2002) see hopeful signs that companionate love and passionate love are being brought into better balance in young people’s thinking about intimate relationships. They point to studies showing that college students frequently name their romantic partners as their closest friends. Hendrick and Hendrick conclude that “If one could also be good friends, perhaps even best friends with one’s passionate lover, then perhaps the relationship could survive the turbulent comings and goings of passion” (2002, p. 473). Couples in the Lauer and Lauer study provided strong affirmation of this possibility. Humor and Compatibility One final morsel of food-for-thought: Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the importance of teasing, humor, and laughter to all our close relationships. Social support, intimacy, and concern are all significant, but for sheer pleasure and enjoyment you can’t beat having fun with people you care about. It’s no accident, then, that happy couples say they laugh together and that a sense of humor is high on the list of desirable qualities people seek in a potential mate. We know that frequency of sex declines even in good marriages, although Hendrick and Hendrick (2002) argue that “sexual expression” might show up as declining far less if researchers included hugs, kisses, and other physical displays of affection as part of sexual behavior. Humor, however, apparently does not decline. Why else would 50-years-married couples say laughing together is what made their marriages last (Lauer et al., 1990)? Humor is undoubtedly one major reason happy couples enjoy each other’s company. Given the benefits of positive emotions described throughout this book, it’s no wonder successful couples enjoy enhanced health and happiness. In addition, as we mentioned earlier in this chapter, humor can detoxify conflict and relieve stress in a relationship. The value of humor may go beyond its role in making a couple’s life together more enjoyable. Husbands and wives who share a similar sense of humor may also share something deeper—namely a match of personalities and emotional orientations. The idea that what a person honestly finds funny might be a window into his or her personality is widely shared among humor theorists and researchers (see Martin, 2007). The logic of the argument is that laughter is an emotional reaction that most people cannot fake (accomplished actors may be an exception). An obligatory and forced laugh is easily distinguished from the real thing. Because it is less subject to conscious control, a genuine laugh is thought to an honest expression of how a person really feels. This, in turn, is assumed to reflect significant and genuinely expressed aspects of personality. Both research and everyday interactions affirm this possibility. Studies show that humor and personality are connected and tend to reflect traits that are prominent in our personalities (see Martin, 2007, Chapter 7, for review). For example, aggressive people prefer harsh and aggressive jokes; conservatives prefer “safe” jokes such as puns; and people who are intelligent risk-takers with a high tolerance for ambiguity and openness to new experiences enjoy more bizarre and highly imaginative humor. In our own experience, most of us have been in the company of people who laugh heartily at a joke that we find personally offensive. This can be an immediate source of alienation. We may think, “If you find that funny, you’re not my kind of person.”

Shared humor can create an opposite feeling:

“That’s my favorite kind of joke, so you’re my kind of person.”

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. The idea that humor is a window to thoughts and feelings that lie beneath the surface of conscious awareness is exemplified in an engaging book by Leon Rappoport titled, Punchlines: The Case for Racial, Ethnic and Gender Humor (2005). Rappoport argues that racial, ethnic, and genderbased forms of humor are typically viewed as insulting and prejudicial, which they certainly can be. However, at a deeper level such humor serves the important function of expressing those forbidden thoughts and feelings that are buried deep beneath the veneer of polite society and, more recently, the culture of political correctness. Comedians who make fun of their own race, ethnicity, or gender open the door to honest consideration of stereotypes and hostilities by reducing the anxieties, tensions, and guilt experienced by people who hold them. Laughing releases the tension created by consciously denied, but honestly felt emotions and beliefs, and brings them out in the open. Because humor detoxifies stereotypes and prejudices by holding them up for public ridicule, Rappoport argues that the net effect is to reduce—not increase—their potency. Rappoport believes that humor may serve a similar function in marriage (L. Rappoport, personal communication, April 20, 2007). Because people differ in what they find funny, humor reflects something important about a person’s personality. Most intriguing is the idea that humor represents accurate information about a person because genuine laughter is spontaneous and cannot be produced on demand. Much of what people reveal to others is disingenuous, not necessarily because of manipulative intentions, but because people are being polite, want to make a good impression, or are following their expectations about how to act in a particular kind of relationship. Compared to the similarities revealed in people’s consciously controlled actions, responses to humor may represent honest and deeper similarities between two people. Studies support the value of similarity as an essential foundation for successful close relationships (Noller & Feeney, 2006). Opposites may be interesting, but they don’t seem to attract, as conventional wisdom suggests. Significant differences, not similarities, cause spouses the most trouble. However, knowing if you are similar to someone at a deeper level is difficult to determine. How many couples wonder after a year of marriage why their spouse seems so different from when they were dating or first married? A shared sense of humor may increase the odds that when the distorting effects of self-conscious impression management fade, some basic compatibility will remain. While there is not a large literature examining the relationship value of a shared sense humor, what there is provides some support (see Martin, 2007, Chapter 5). Similarity in humor is affirmed as a basis for initial attraction. We like people who share our sense of what’s funny, in part because we assume we also share other beliefs and qualities. Married couples do tend to share a similar sense of humor. However, higher ratings of humor similarity do not reliably predict marital satisfaction. Part of the problem here may have to do with the limitations of self-report assessments of shared humor. Because humor in real life is spontaneous, self-report questionnaires may not be the best way to measure it, because they are farremoved from the moments of actual humor that occur in the context of everyday life. To this point, Gottman’s “love lab” observational studies do show that happy couples’ interactions are characterized by a good deal of humor and reciprocated laughter. Humor, marital harmony, and effective relational problem-solving were found to go together. Perhaps we need a “humor lab” to specifically assess couples’ shared and non-shared humorous reactions to situations, issues, and problems that typically occur in a marriage. Though the empirical jury is still out, a shared sense of humor is an intriguing way to think about an index of basic compatibility between intimate partners. Similarity in humor may be important in knowing whether someone is “right” for you, and in sustaining a mutually enjoyable and enduring future relationship. Our guess would be that successful couples have humor in common, whether or not they realized this at the beginning of their relationships. As research shows, we are attracted to people who laugh at the same things we do. So there you have it. Friendship, humor, and commitment. Three essential ingredients in the complex recipe for a successful marriage. Looking for a romantic partner? Find yourself a best buddy/best friend who laughs at all the same things you do and you should find it easier to make and sustain a longterm commitment! 266 Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter Summary Questions Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being 267