In The Blink Of An Eye

Someone at work recommended that I read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, after I'd posted on my work blog about my tendency to see solutions to problems simultaneous with the discovery of the problem in the first place. In other words, I often don't seem to require much in the way of processing time before arriving at some sort of solution, whereas - it seems - some people use techniques such as talking to others, sleeping on it, or searching out information (such as on the Internet). Another someone - our very own Man from Mars - was then kind enough to lend me Gladwell's book, along with his earlier Tipping Point work.

I'm only about 40 pages in so far, but I'm definitely into Blink. Author Gladwell presents some amazing evidence about the power of, as he describes it, those first two seconds after you're presented with something. I'm sure I'll be sharing all kinds of interesting stuff from it, but the single most fascinating section so far involved a study of married couples.

A scientist that Gladwell interviewed had been doing research for decades on the success rate of marriages. He had videotaped hundreds (thousands?) of couples, each one having a 15-minute conversation (just the two of them) on some topic that the couple disagreed upon. In one example, the couple had recently gotten a dog, and the wife was happy with how that was going, while the husband was not. The researcher simply instructed the two to talk about that situation, while they were recorded.

Anyone watching the tape afterwards would say that they appeared to be a perfectly normal couple. At no point did either raise his or her voice at the other, nor were there any long silences or other obvious signs of anger. But the researcher had long since come to the realization that there were four things to look for in the interactions between a husband and wife in order to predict - with an accuracy rate of 90%! - whether they would still be married 15 years later or not. Those four things were: defensiveness, stone-walling, criticism and contempt. Some combination of those factors was enough to tell the researcher what the outcome would be. More specifically, though, he discovered that he could focus solely on contempt, and found that in couples where one or both of them displayed contempt toward the other, divorce was almost certain (again, with 90% accuracy). Once he and his students learned to spot the signs of contempt - eye rolling, certain facial expressions, certain phrases - they could then take any short clip from the 15-minute recording, and using only those few seconds, make their prediction and still maintain their 90% accuracy!

I found this amazing, because I've never understood how couples ever stay together where there's an absence of mutual respect, and here was scientific proof that they generally don't! Like so much of what Gladwell writes about in Blink, my mind was giving me information at an unconscious level - "how can these two ever last when he clearly treats her like she's an empty headed bimbo?" - that I was doubting because the evidence in front of me - they were still together - contradicted it. Things like divorce don't happen overnight, though.

When I mentioned this little nugget to Vicki, she immediately responded by telling me how she's never felt contempt from me on any topic, but she often observes it happening between friends of ours, especially when they're out in public. I can't even grasp why anyone would marry a person who they don't have great respect for, but I guess there's plenty of evidence that it happens... a lot!