THE LOVE LAB

“The Love Lab”

“The Love Lab”

Introduction

A University of Washington psychology professor and a renowned marriage counselor Mr. John M. Gottman, is the co-director of Seattle Marital & Family Institute. He has done an in depth study of marriage by applying precise scientific processes to discover the like, dislikes and attributes of couples over many years in unparalleled detail. Gottman has culminated his life's work on marriage counseling by extracting out his research the seven principles that guide couples on the road to sustainable and harmonious relations.

Gottman's Assessment of Sustaining a Relationship

Marriage, it seems, triggers a shift in how people want to be evaluated by their partners. The size of the shift depends on how people feel about themselves.  According to research conducted by the Gottman, married people live longer and enjoy better health than single people do. Gottman's assessment of sustaining a relationship survey asked married coupled to rate their partners on the same qualities. The survey asked about the couple's relationship: their satisfaction with it, the amount of time they spent together and what they talked about (Gottman, 2011).

For married couples, the Gottman found that all people felt closer to partners who rated them favorably. Married people reported more intimacy with partners who confirmed their own feelings about themselves, whether negative or positive (Gottman, 2011). In other words, after marriage, people who didn't like themselves felt closer to partners who rated them as less intelligent, less attractive, etc. People who rated themselves highly felt closer to married companions who also rated them highly (Gottman, 2007). Married people with positive self-images didn't feel as close to their partners when they believed their partners praised them more than they deserved to be.

According to Gottman, couples content with their marriage may not be wiser, ampler or more mentally stronger than other couples who are not. It is that their everyday lives have become active that inhibit their negative thoughts and feelings about the other. This is what he calls an emotionally intelligent marriage.

Feeling towards Love lab Video

The Love Lab video presents an implication of what effect a happy marriage has on the brain when an individual is under stress. In order to ensure that their participants were happily married, the researchers assessed them using the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), a test widely used to measure relationship quality. The Love Lab video shows that the woman's response to her husband's touch depended on the ...