3 Lessons from John Gottman and the 5:1 Rule

February 13, 2018

Categories: Relationships

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I want to talk to you about a simple rule that can help you have a better marriage or dating relationship. But before I tell you the rule, I want to share a bit about how it came about.

John Gottman and the Love Lab

A professor named John Gottman set up a research laboratory at the University of Washington to study marriage. Couples would come into the lab and fill out a bunch of questionnaires. Couples would also stay overnight in what looked like a small apartment. The only difference was the apartment was hooked up with a bunch of cameras. Gottman collected data on everything! After couples participated in the research study, Gottman followed the couples for several years to see which ones (a) stayed together and were happy, (b) stayed together and were unhappy, or (c) divorced. Gottman then tried to figure out whether there was anything he could tell about the couples when he first met them that predicted whether they would end up having successful marriages.

The 5:1 Rule

One of Gottman’s big findings was the 5:1 rule.

Basically, the rule says for a married couple to stay together and be happy, the ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions has to be greater than 5:1. If ratios started to dip below the 5:1 range, the marriage showed signs of trouble. If the ratio became much worse, the couple was not likely to make it.

3 Lessons from the 5:1 rule

What can we learn from the 5:1 rule?

  1. Keep track of positive and negative interactions in your relationship. You don’t know what you don’t know. When couples come in for counseling, the first thing I recommend is an assessment. What is the problem? How bad is it? What are the couple’s strengths and weaknesses? It might be helpful to sit down with your partner and keep track of positive and negative interactions for a week to assess where you are.
  2. The bad is stronger than the good. Suppose you criticize your wife in front of her family. You might think you can make up for the one bad interaction by doing one good thing, like taking her out to dinner. Wrong! The bad is stronger than the good. One negative interaction does more harm in your marriage than one positive interaction helps your marriage. I think there are three takeaways from this: First, try really hard to avoid hurting your partner. Second, when you do hurt your partner, don’t expect the hurt feelings to go away quickly or easily. It may take a bit of time and effort to get back into the other person’s good graces. Third, when you hurt your partner, it might be helpful to make amends and seek forgiveness to lessen the negative impact of your hurtful action.
  3. Having enough positives takes purposeful, scheduled effort. It can be challenging to maintain the 5:1 ratio. Often relationships drift into a place where partners just go through the motions, rather than make a consistent effort to value their partner and do things that make the partner feel loved. One idea to combat this drift into complacency is to schedule positive things to do for your partner. Write it in your planner, just like you would schedule in a meeting or go to the gym. Then do it and see what happens!

Discussion: What do you think of the 5:1 ratio? In your experience, is the bad more powerful than the good? Do an assessment with your partner. Where do you stand in regard to your ratio of positive and negative interactions?

Categories

Related Thoughts

14 Comments

  1. Dave October 20, 2014 at 9:28 pm - Reply

    Josh,

    This resonates. Negative interactions can cut down an interaction with my wife so quickly. While 5:1 can seem overwhelming, it’s also a fun challenge to pursue for the rest of our lives.

    Saw an interesting article on taking marriage principles and applying them to a business context: http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/for-better-or-for-work?utm_source=alumni&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailer102014

  2. Joshua Hook October 21, 2014 at 6:36 pm - Reply

    That’s an interesting article, thanks for sharing Dave. I do think some of the things we have learned from research on marriage relationships have implications for other types of relationships as well. For example, we recently applied some of our research findings on humility to a business context. There were quite a few benefits associated with being a humble supervisor who also had high standards for employees.

    Keep pursuing that ratio! 🙂

  3. […] I wrote a blog post about John Gottman and the 5:1 rule. The take-home message was this: successful marriage or dating relationships had a ratio of […]

  4. Why So Negative? - Joshua Hook October 26, 2015 at 11:09 am - Reply

    […] did a bunch of research on marriages, and he found that happy marriages had a ratio of at least 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction. Because we are more sensitive to bad events, it’s a good idea to structure our lives and […]

  5. […] Photo from Joshua Hook. […]

  6. Timothy Brock February 14, 2018 at 8:26 am - Reply

    Josh–

    This is Timothy Brock (John McConnell’s co-investigator) this 5:1 ratio is golden, I’ll be springboarding off of this the next time I teach a series on marriage. Thank you for your blogs — I’m gleaning much good from them!

  7. Joshua Hook February 14, 2018 at 11:15 am - Reply

    Thanks for the encouragement Timothy!

  8. Humility and Growth - Joshua Hook February 25, 2018 at 11:00 pm - Reply

    […] of us want to change something in our lives. Maybe we want to improve our relationship with our spouse, or our kids. Perhaps we want to lose weight, or make use of that gym membership we […]

  9. […] things we struggle with the most are impossible to compensate for. For example, let’s say you are struggling in your relationship with your spouse or kids. You might try to compensate for your relationship issues by taking the […]

  10. Esther Andrew January 19, 2019 at 5:20 pm - Reply

    Greeting to everyone that is reading my comment, All Thanks goes Dr Amigo, for helping me to restore my happiness back again, i was married to my husband, and we were living fine and happy. it come to an extend that my husband that use to love and care for me, dose not even have my time again, until i found out that he was having an affair with another woman in his working place, i tried to stop him, all my effort was in-vain suddenly he divorce me and went for the woman. he live me with three of our kids, i cry all day i was in pains and sorrow, and i was looking for help. i read a comment on how this grate spell caster called Dr Amigo helped a lady to bring her husband back home after 7yrs of break up , and i also saw so many comment how Amigo help people with his love reuniting spells. so i decided to contact him and explain my problem to him, he did a love spell that make my husband to come back to me and our kids and never think about the woman in his working place. Google his name as Dr Amigo online love spell caster to review his article.

  11. […] positive changes and transform their lives, whether it’s their health/fitness, emotional health, relationships, job, finances, or spiritual life. But a lot of people get stuck. This can be incredibly […]

  12. […] what a dog looks like, or how to ride a bike. We also have schemas for more complex things, like romantic relationships, or what God is […]

  13. […] John Gottman, a marriage researcher has determined that each little interaction that you have with your partner counts towards your “happiness ratio”. This ratio is 5:1, meaning that a happy couple will have 5 positive/happy interactions for every 1 negative. […]

Leave A Comment

Subscribe To My Newsletter

Join my mailing list to receive the latest blog posts.

Receive my e-book “The Mental Health Toolkit” for free when you subscribe.