Transcriber: Amanda Chu

Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

So this has been

what I've dedicated my life to.

There are 900,000 divorces

in the United States

of America every year.

Fewer than 10% of them

ever talked to anybody

about their relationship.

So why would you need a science?

Well, we need a science

to develop effective treatment

and understanding
of how to make love work.

Why?

Why should we care

about having great relationships?

Well, it turns out

that in the past 50 years,

a field called social

epidemiology has emerged,

and it shows that great friendships,

great love relationships

between lovers and parents and children

lead to greater health -

mental health as well as physical health -

greater wealth, greater resilience,

faster recovery from illness,

greater longevity -

if you want to live 10 to 15 years longer,

work on your relationships,

not just your exercise -

and more successful children as well.

So love has a kind of magic;

it's able to do amazing things.
And one of my favorite films
is Sleepless in Seattle,

with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

And I just want to share with you a quote,

where Tom Hanks is on the radio

with the talk show host Marcia,

and she says to him,

"Sam, tell me what was

so special about your wife?"

And Tom Hanks says, Sam says,

"Well, how long is your program?

Oh well, it was a million

tiny little things.

We were supposed to be together

and I knew it.

I knew it the very first time

I touched her.

It was like coming home,

only to no home I'd ever known.

It was just taking her hand

to help her out of the car,

and, you know, it was like magic."

And Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan

say the word "magic" at the same time.

So what about this magic?

Can science really help find

the magic of love?

Well, the first step

is that we needed a lot of data.

We needed to basically understand

relationships better,

and that's not something I did alone.

In fact, 45 years ago,

we built a "love lab,"

and this lab was built,

in part, by a bromance.

My best friend, Bob Levenson,

and I created this lab.

And Bob and I became good friends.

And we realized that

our relationships with women

were not going very well;

it went from one disaster to another.

So basically, two clueless guys

got together to build this laboratory.

And then over 30 years ago,

a romance with my wife,

Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman.

And we decided to work together

to see whether we could make a difference.

So basic research was followed

by applied research.

And we use validated questionnaires,

online questionnaires

that allow us to assess

the strengths of the relationship

in the areas that need improvement.

And we validated these questionnaires

to make sure that we knew

what we were measuring

and we could measure things

reliably and accurately.

So we created this checkup -

and over 40,000 couples

have taken these questionnaires -

and we get a green circle for a strength,

a red box for an area

that needs improvement.

But we get their story

of their relationship.

We ask them about how they met.

We find out the quality

of their friendship and intimacy
from this interview.

And we collect physiological

measures from them

as they're talking to one another:

we're measuring heart rate,

blood velocity,

skin conductance, respiration,

a variety of things like that.

And we score their emotion

second by second

in this kind of split-screen arrangement,

where even though

they're facing each other,

we can really code

facial expressions, voice tone,

nonverbal behavior,
and verbal behavior

very accurately and reliably.

We have them use

a Video-Recall Rating Dial,

which they just turned

from extremely negative

to extremely positive

as they're watching the videotapes,

to get their perception

of the interaction as well.

And then we synchronize all of that:

video, physiology,
coded emotion, and perception.

And on the left,

you see all the physiological

measures we're collecting,

and, you know, a cursor that moves along.

And this particular moment,

you know, the wife has said something

that just makes the husband
dissolve in hilarity.

And shared humor turns out to be

very powerful in a relationship

at reducing physiological arousal.

So, what do we find from this laboratory?

We got over 90% success

in predicting either divorce or stability,

or the happiness of relationships

that were stable.

And the major impact of that finding

was that Julie and I didn't get invited

out to dinner very often.

(Laughter)

But the effects replicated

six different times in six studies

that Bob Levenson and I did

over the whole life course,

and that's probably

the most replicated effect

in the study of relationships now.

And we're no longer alone;

other labs are getting

very similar kinds of results.

We followed these couples

for as long as 20 years -

straight couples, gay and lesbian couples,

newlyweds, middle-aged couples,

older couples into their late 80s and 90s.

So, what do we find -

this over 90% prediction?

What predicts?

And we kind of sit down in our lab

and talk to a couple

about their strengths

and areas that need improvement

based upon this research.

Well, one thing we do

is we create kind of a "Dow Jones

Industrial Average" of a conversation.

And by doing that,

very much like the Dow Jones,

it's really good

if the cumulative positive

minus negative emotions are going up;

in other words, on the left,

we see a low-risk couple,

where, you know, there really is

much more positive than negative,

in general, right?

They go up and down.

And on the right, the high-risk couple,

where basically, they go down

all along their interaction.

Well, turns out

that one thing we discovered

was that the way the conversation starts

in the first three minutes

of a conflict discussion

will predict, 96% of the time,

whether they are a low-risk couple

or a high-risk couple.

So startup -

the way each person starts

before they start

influencing one another -

is very critical in this prediction.

The other thing we learned

is something we call
the "roach hotel model" of relationships.

Remember the roach hotel?

The roaches check in,

but they don't check out.

That's a really good roach trap.

Well, negative emotions -

anger, sadness, disappointment, fear,

all of these emotions -

the negative emotions for unhappy couples

become like that roach hotel:

once they check in, they don't check out;

it's hard to exit and easy to enter

this negative affect state.

And it turned out the balance

of positive and negative emotions

is our key index of this magic

that Tom Hanks is talking about

in Sleepless in Seattle -

the balance of positive

and negative emotions.

So this ratio of positivity to negativity

during conflict in unhappy couples -

that's why this slide is in red -

was 0.8:1,

just a little bit more

negativity than positivity.

And I was completely wrong;

I thought that would be

a great relationship.

You know, in my relationships,

you know, that had failed,

we were much more negative than positive,

so I thought if it was balanced,

it would be great.

But no,

it turned out

that, actually, the balance of positive

and negative emotions during conflict

in relationships
that were stable and happy

was five to one.

There was five times

as much affection, humor,

interest in one another,

excitement, connection

than there was hostility,

disappointment, anger, negativity.

So there really was a balance

that was way balanced

toward positive emotions

in happy, stable relationships.

So this five-to-one
positive to negative ratio

has become pretty widely known.

I left a Starbucks in Seattle recently,

and a guy drove by in his pickup truck,

and he rolled down the window and he said,

"Hey, five to one, right?"

I said, "Right."

So we both gave us the thumbs-up sign.

So that's our index of the magic.

But then we thought,

"OK, you have an index,

but how do you change that index?

What do you need

to really make a difference?"

And so our hypothesis

was that you needed three things:

physiological calm
and trust and commitment.

So what about those things?

Can we actually measure those

in our laboratory?

And can we actually make a difference?

And this is right.

Well, the first one, physiological calm,

was kind of a balance in physiology.

The couples whose heart rates were lower,

whose blood was flowing less rapidly,

who weren't sweaty as much,

those people actually

seemed kind of boring,

but they had great relationships.

They were gentle with one another,

not hostile,

they reassured one another -

very interesting balance in physiology

created by their behavior.

And by the way, we found

we have to measure these things.

So I have a pulse oximeter right here,

and it allows me, when I press the button,

to really find out what my heart rate is

and what the percentage of oxygen is.

And right now, my heart rate

is 110 beats a minute,

(Laughter)

and my percentage of oxygen is 92%.

So that sucks.

(Laughter)

I'm highly aroused physiologically.

(Laughter)

So you can't tell what's going on

physiologically with somebody

by looking at them;

you have to actually measure it.

And we have to build

physiological calm in a couple.
Now, why?

Why is that so important?

Well, it turns out

that when people are calm,

they can take in information,

they can listen,

they can be empathetic,

they have access to their sense of humor.

That's very important.

But when they're flooded,

when there's a diffuse activation

of various parts
of the autonomic nervous system,

they're much more likely

to be in attack-or-defend mode, right?

So if a therapist doesn't know

what's going on physiologically and says,

"Can you summarize

what your wife just said?

Summarize what your husband just says?

Can you validate and be empathetic?"

They can't do it if they're

physiologically aroused, right?

So the therapist actually has to know that

to help them calm down.

So physiological calm is good.

That's what we learned.

So, part of that trio of variables,

we know we have validation

that that's important.

But the magic also comes,

we hypothesize, from building trust.

So what's trust?

It's something that people talk about,

but can you measure it?
And it turns out we can measure it
reliably and validly.

And a trusting relationship,

a mutually trusting relationship,

really leads to intimacy and great sex;

a distrusting relationship
leads to loneliness.

And guess what?

The major reason people have affairs

is not because of sex or desire;

it's because they're lonely.

And they have found somebody

who finds them interesting

and wants to talk to them

in the context of a relationship

that really isn't working very well.

So what is trust?

How do we define it?

How do we measure it?

And here we use mathematics -

the mathematics of game theory.

And we can actually measure this idea

that mutual trust

comes from when both partners are

maximizing the benefits of both people,

not just one person's benefit

against the other person.

So I'm always thinking

about "how does my wife see things?"

I can walk into a kitchen now,

after 30 years of marriage,

and view that kitchen

the way my wife would do it.

So I can say, "Ah,

Julie would be upset by that,"

so I'll clean it up,

and, well, now I know when she comes in,

she's not going to notice

anything that's really disgusting.

You know,
(Laughter)

I'm more of a slob.

So, you know, for me,

it was fine, you know.

But, you know, people

who develop mutual trust,

they really always have

their partners in their heads,

not just themselves,

and they're thinking about both of them.

But the magic also comes

from building commitment.

So what does this mean?

Well, we've learned a lot about commitment

from the systematic research

of a woman named Carol Rusboldt

and another woman named Shirley Glass.

And what we've learned

is that in relationships,
there is a turning point,

a key turning point.

When things aren't going well,

when your partner is hostile

or irritable or emotionally distant,

if you really, in your own head,

are cherishing your partner

and nurturing gratitude for what you have

and saying, "This is my journey.

Julie is the love of my life.

And I'm damn lucky

to have this person in my life,"
that turning point leads to loyalty.

On the other hand,

betrayal comes from, really, at that point

when things aren't going well,

making negative comparisons

between your partner

and real or imagined alternatives.

Betrayal leads
to dissolution very reliably,

whereas commitment leads to loyalty.

And then, when you have that sense

of commitment in a relationship -

both of you have that -

you really have a safe place,

you have that magic.

And with over 90% prediction,

with these basic variables,

the mechanism by which

relationships work -

trust, physiological calm,

and commitment -

can we actually create

the mathematics of love?

Now, why would you want

to create mathematics in love?

Why do you want

to put math and love together?

Some people think

that's really disgusting.

(Laughter)

Well, if you can create a mathematics,

you really will understand

not just the static nature of commitment,

trust, and physiological calm

affecting a relationship
and creating the magic,

you actually will understand

the dynamics of the interaction
as it unfolds over time.

And that's what therapists

are working with, right?

In their offices,

they are looking at how people interact,

and they want to influence the dynamic.

So we need a dynamic analysis

of data over time.

What pushes the interaction

in one direction versus another?

So, because we get data over time,

we get behavior, perception,

and physiology all integrated over time,

very much like that Dow Jones

Industrial Average,

we can create the

"Gottman-Murray love equations."

And so, James Murray,

who is the father of mathematical biology,

and I worked together.

And because we're not very intelligent,

it took us 15 years
to get these equations.

(Laughter)

But when you look at them,

you'll see they're obvious.

So what we're trying to do

is predict what happens at time "t+1"

in this graph of the husband's interaction

and the wife's interaction.

And by the way, this holds

for same-sex couples as well;

we say wife and husband

only because it's a little bit

more convenient to talk about it.

But can we go for what's happening

in this graph of behavior or physiology
or perception at one time

and predict at a later time?

And in fact, we can develop

these equations.

So on the left of the equal sign,

we see the wife at time "t+1"

in the equation above,

and on the bottom, the husband's.

So how do we predict
what's going to happen next?

That's what we want to know.

That's what the therapist wants to know.

Well, we have one parameter,

and it's denoted A and B,

and that's the old startup, right?

How they start the conversation

before they start influencing one another

is really critical.

And so that's the theory

that the way they start up,

the way the wife starts up,

that one constant is very, very important

in predicting what's going to happen next.

But then there's another parameter,

which is R1 and R2,

and that predicts how much

emotional inertia a person has.

So some people, when they get angry,

boy, they stay angry a long time.

It's hard to move them.

They're kind of like

a Mack truck going downhill.

And in physics,
that's called inertia, right?

It takes a lot of energy

to move them off course.
Other people are
more like a feather in the wind;

they have low inertia, right?

Well, they have no stability either.

So what's the right inertia?

Well, we don't know,

but that's another parameter -

their emotional inertia.

That affects how much influence

the partner can have,

which is our third parameter:

the influence function.

So in the wife's equation,

there's a husband,

and in the husband's equation,

there's a wife.

Well, we can actually

specify with a theory

what that influence function

might look like.

So here's a husband
along the horizontal axis,

and the vertical axis

is his influence on the wife.

So, there are some points,

but we need a theory

that helps us find the best fit

to the data, right?

So, our theory really said,

well, maybe it looks like this:

There's one part of it

when he's being positive,

he's being nice to her,

what's the impact of that?

The steepness of the slope tells us

what the impact of positive emotions are,
like affection, humor.

And then the other one

is how influential is he

with negativity, with anger,

disappointment,

with hurt feelings, with sadness.

And that slope gives us

our idea of the influence

that positive and negative emotions have.

But then we thought, well,

maybe when they get

to a certain threshold -

that we have denoted by K sub R -

maybe what happens is they can repair.

And so, that other part

of the curve tells us

when does repair cut in

and how effective it is.

And what we discover

is that if you repair early

in the conversation,

you're much more effective

than if you wait.

OK, that was kind of a surprising finding.

And on the other hand,

what about positive affect?

Maybe you could amplify

or diminish positive affect.

And it turns out, yes, you can.

By turning toward your partner

when your partner needs

your attention or interest,

the positive affect can be either,

you know, by turning away, diminished,

or by turning toward, amplified.

So these are the parameters in our theory.

But now we do a very cool thing.

We actually can create

a portrait of the couple's interaction,

a dynamic portrait
of how it unfolds over time.

And what we do

is we put the husband's positive

and negative behavior

on the horizontal axis

and the wife's on the vertical axis.

Going up is positive;
going down is negative.

That gives us quadrants

one, two, three, and four.

And we can describe it

by two bunnies on the beach

in quadrant labeled one

and two bunnies in the storm

in quadrant three.

So we really want our couples

to be two bunnies on the beach

rather than two bunnies in the storm.

So this gives us a new goal

of couples therapy, right?

All right,

so this phase space portrait

becomes very clear.

This quadrant one

is when they're both positive,

and we have another quadrant

where they're both negative.

So we'd like them to really

not spend much time in that quadrant,

or these quadrants where one of them

is positive and the other is negative.

Although it might be good to be there

because maybe one
counterbalances the other,

so we don't know yet.

So we have those quadrants

to look at as well.

OK.

There's our relationship phase space.

Now, let's look at an actual conversation

and see how it unfolds.

And there's a dot moving

as the couple talks to one another;

this is a real conflict conversation

a couple is having.

And look at that dot moving

all over those quadrants in phase space.

So now we see there's a dynamic unfolding,

but it's kind of hard to see

that thing jumping all over the place

and know what's good and what's bad.

We need equations,

and we need to know

what's making that dot move.

What's actually compelling

that dot to move?

Is there some attractive force,

kind of like gravitation?

Is there an attractive force

that has, maybe, the power of Jupiter

to pull them toward

the negative attractor?

In which case, the relationship

will be in a lot of trouble.

Or is there a positive attractor

that puts them in quadrant one

that is powerful?

Or is it weak,
and the therapists really needs to help
make that much more powerful?

So, here's our old friend, the startup.

Now, this couple is starting

in a positive place, right?

They're in quadrant number one,

the positive-positive quadrant.

And there's a choice here.

They either move in that direction,

toward that star,

that blue star,

which is the attractor in the phase space

that pulls their interaction

toward a positive place,

especially if it's strong,

or they might move the other way.

They might actually cycle

around another attractor that's there

that moves them in the

negative-negative quadrant.

And that's our bunnies in the storm.

Now, we don't want them there,

or we don't want them to spend

very much occupation time in that place.

And the attractors are the forces

that make the dot move.

So we're looking at
not just a graph and face space,

but we're looking at a flow diagram,

almost like a fluid flowing.

And you've seen this kind

of phase space diagram with hurricanes.

Hurricane Irma,

this comes from that hurricane,

where the dot is moving, right?
And there's a force moving it
toward an attractor up there.

And we can actually do the same thing

with a couple's interaction.

So, OK, that's a theory

for getting a dynamical picture.

Does it work?

Well, this is what a stable,

unhappy marriage looks like.

Look at all the flows, look at the arrows,

and what are they flowing toward?

A negative attractor,
for our bunnies in the storm, right?

We don't like that, you know.

And well, what about divorced couples?

Well, it turns out, with divorced couples,

you get this picture.

There are three attractors

in that negative-negative quadrant,

and one is unstable -

the one between the two stars

and the two stars are unstable -

so what we get there is turbulence.

Not only is their flow

toward the negative-negative quadrant,

but a lot of energy is expended

as they move from

one attractor to the other.

A turbulence is probably what predicts

divorce versus being

in a stable, unhappy marriage.

Now, I don't know which is worse,

but they are different.

But the real test is,

What about good relationships -

happy, stable relationships?

How do they look?

And it turns out when you put this
together with real data,

you get this picture.

So yes, it's true.

Happy, stable relationships

have a positive attractor -

very, very simple phase space diagram.

And no matter where they start

the conversation,

where that startup is,

they'll go toward a positive place,

which is kind of amazing.

That's the dynamics

of a good relationship.

So we did it.

We actually were able to describe,

mathematically, the dynamics.

Now, here's another thing

you can do with the math.

With the math, we can simulate

any couple under imagined conditions;

in other words, we can do

thought experiments.

We can do experiments
by changing the parameters,

and mathematically,

we can select the best intervention

to help a couple just using math.

So for example, here's a couple.

And what you see on the left

are these sliders

where we can change every parameter

in the math equation, right?

We can change their startup,

we can change their emotional inertia,

we can change their repair threshold -

how much they repair, when they repair.

And here we see, you know, the green lines

that show us the influence functions

and the arrows that show us

the phase space portrait, the flow.

So let's take a look at an actual couple.

And here we see this couple

are two bunnies in the storm;

they have that negative attractor.

And we can actually move

the sliders to say,

"What would they look like

if their startup was just more positive?"

So we move -

and this is a thought experiment -

we move the couple

to a more positive place

by changing those parameters at start up,

and then we take a look

at what the result is of the math?

And look, there are

two bunnies on the beach.

They're in that
positive-positive quadrant.

And then all we need is a technology

for changing startup, which we have.

So we've created the technology

for changing these parameters,

and now the therapist

can change their startups.

And then they get the magic.

Research findings are that the magic

does require this powerful trio

of physiological calm,
trust, and commitment,

and we know how to build it.

So, science did it.

When the magic is there,

we find that we get

that five-to-one ratio.

Now we can understand the magic

because with a positive attractor,

no matter where the conversation begins,

it would be drawn to the positive,

positive quadrant.

We'll get the five-to-one ratio -

yahoo! there's the magic, OK?

So, just to summarize,

what we've really said

is love relationships are important.

We can assess their strengths

and challenges scientifically.

There is magic in love

that lasts forever -

we know that.

And the five-to-one ratio indexes it;

we have strong prediction.

But we can mathematically model the magic.

The magic requires calm,

trust, and commitment.

And maybe we can help avoid disaster

and help couples find their magic,

which is turning out to be true

in randomized clinical trials.

So perhaps now, the magic of great love

is a bit less of a mystery.

Thank you.

(Applause)