In an article in last Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, there appeared an article from Jeffrey Zaslow entitled, “The Most-Praised Generation Goes to Work.” (You’ll have to take my word for it, as the WSJ is one of the old-media companies that still believes there’s little value to making its articles available to others online.) It observes the interesting phenomenon of “praise inflation,” where young adults are entering the workplace expecting kudos for doing not much more than showing up to work or doing their everyday job. The article quoted Jean Twenge’s research that showed the average college student in 2006 was 30% more narcissistic than the average student in 1982 (which made headlines a few months ago; there are some issues with this research, but I won’t go into them here).
More amusingly, from my married perspective, is the following line from the article –
The Gottman Institute, a relationship-research and training firm in Seattle, tells clients that a key to marital happiness is if couples make at least five times as many positive statements to and about each other as negative ones.
Ouch. Five times more? My marriage is doomed if we’re both expected to make 5x the positive statements we make over the negative ones.
(8 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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6 Responses to “Praise Your Spouse 5x More or Else” (Pingbacks/trackbacks not shown below)
Greg Popcak at 11:50 am on
April 26th, 2007
It’s actually worse that that 
According to subsequent research, couples in outstanding marriages maintain a 20:1 ratio of postivity to negativity across all their interactions and a 5:1 ratio when managing conflicts.
That doesn’t mean these couples are always syrupy sweet, just that they work hard to be attentive to the relationship and each other’s emotional well-being even in the presence of problems or difficulties.
Dr. Martin Winkler at 2:27 pm on
April 26th, 2007
Doctors may have some difficulties to praie their spouse since they are to often on duty… But I will do my very best to learn my lesson…
Mark at 9:48 am on
April 27th, 2007
30% more narcissistic? How can a there be an increase of 30% in a philosophical term that isn’t even quantifiable?
Michelle Fox, MA at 11:45 am on
April 27th, 2007
Actually, this is somewhat misleading. “Positive statements” does not necessarily equate to “praise” and it’s better than negative statements which aren’t helpful. And positive statements about someone’s behavior, which has be shown to be highly effective in motivating people in what they do, is far better than praise about the person or negative comments, which most people don’t take seriously or only make a person resentful. Gottman’s research is fairly well proven and what he also means is that certain negative statements or worse than others (as in about their behavior as opposed to them as a person) and also positive statements are the cushion and glue in bad times for a couple that keeps them together and keeps the relationship a “safe” haven against the world.
Also there is good narcissism as opposed to “bad” narcissism. Maybe young adults today have learned not to put up with crap that many older workers have just felt they had to put up with.
I’m surprised this was written by a Psy.D. You should know better.
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It’s actually worse that that
According to subsequent research, couples in outstanding marriages maintain a 20:1 ratio of postivity to negativity across all their interactions and a 5:1 ratio when managing conflicts.
That doesn’t mean these couples are always syrupy sweet, just that they work hard to be attentive to the relationship and each other’s emotional well-being even in the presence of problems or difficulties.
Doctors may have some difficulties to praie their spouse since they are to often on duty… But I will do my very best to learn my lesson…
30% more narcissistic? How can a there be an increase of 30% in a philosophical term that isn’t even quantifiable?
Actually, this is somewhat misleading. “Positive statements” does not necessarily equate to “praise” and it’s better than negative statements which aren’t helpful. And positive statements about someone’s behavior, which has be shown to be highly effective in motivating people in what they do, is far better than praise about the person or negative comments, which most people don’t take seriously or only make a person resentful. Gottman’s research is fairly well proven and what he also means is that certain negative statements or worse than others (as in about their behavior as opposed to them as a person) and also positive statements are the cushion and glue in bad times for a couple that keeps them together and keeps the relationship a “safe” haven against the world.
Also there is good narcissism as opposed to “bad” narcissism. Maybe young adults today have learned not to put up with crap that many older workers have just felt they had to put up with.
I’m surprised this was written by a Psy.D. You should know better.
