Thursday, April 23, 2009

Think 5 to 1

This week I have been doing a lot of thinking about marriages and relationships. Partially because of the message I am working on, some counseling I am doing and a couples date night. I am constantly amazed and reminded at the power of words in our lives.

There are two interesting verses from Ephesians that deal with how we use our tongues and the power of our words.

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. (Ephesians 4:25)


Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)


We are to be people who are willing to speak the truth to each other. But, we must do it in a manner that is best for the person we are talking to. Many of us grew up in an environment where we heard many more negative words than positive ones. We must learn how to balance this in our lives.

In the book, How Full is Your Bucket, the authors reference a study by psychologist John Gottman who suggests the
5 to 1 ratio. Gottman found that marriages are significantly more likely to succeed when the couples interaction are close to 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative comments and emotions. (page 55).

In fact, Gottman teamed with two mathematicians to test this. They recruited 700 couples who were just married and video-taped a 15 minute conversation between the husband and wife. They counted the number of positive to negative interactions between the couple during that time and then predicted whether or not each couple would stay together or get divorced.

Ten years later they followed up with each couple. The results were stunning: 94% of those they had predicted would be divorced were. All of this based upon a 15 minute interaction.

As you think of relationships: your marriage, your children and family, your workplace and church: think
5 to 1. We must be people who are looking for ways to encourage each other as well as challenge. It appears that people thrive and change when there is an environment that gives 5 positive comments to every negative one. What would happen if we all thought 5 to 1?

Tell me what you think...

2 comments:

  1. I might not recognize a world where 5 to 1 was in play. I think we're use to hearing the negatives and are surprised by the positives. Somehow it's easier (and perhaps more accepted) to tear down, rather than to build up.

    On the flip side, I wonder if we heard positives all the time if we'd become numb to them? Hmmm, now that would be a good problem to have!

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  2. Here's an interesting self-observation... I tend to be a person who operates at something probably closer to a 10 to 1 ratio in most aspects of life... the general exceptions are willful ignorance, intolerance, and amazingly enough... my marriage.

    For some reason I tend to be awful at delivering information in a way that is best geared for my wife. Perhaps it's expectation related, maybe my level of comfort in how I relate to her, or it could even be as simple as we feel so bad about the negatives, we remember them much more than the positives. I will do a small test to see if I can consciously pay attention to the ratio in an active manner rather than retrospective.

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