relationship prediction

this entry is more about relationships than fitness. warning.
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i am supposed to be doing my taxes right now. i've never waited this long to do them. instead, i am watching tig3r win the masters and writing this little review. actually they just went to a playoff so who knows. DiMarco is playing lights out, impressive.

i finally finished blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. fascinating book. an average read but some interesting conclusions. i won't review the whole thing because you can read reviews elsewhere. i'll hit one segment though.

this guy can listen to a couple having a conversation and after 15 minutes he can predict whether or not they will still be married 15 years later with 90% accuracy. they can be talking about anything (not just their relationship), eg the prospect of getting a dog or whatever. after an hour of listening to them talk, he can predict it with 95% accuracy.

he focuses on 4 things: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. that last one, contempt, is the most important predictor. "...having someone you love express contempt toward you is so stressful that it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system. (it)... is completely rejecting and excluding someone from the community."

"The big gender differences with negative emotions is that women are more critical, and men are more likely to stonewall. we find that women start talking about a problem, the men get irritated and turn away, and the women get more critical, and it becomes a circle. but there isn't any gender difference when it comes to contempt."
interesting stuff. the rest of the book is not about relationships between couples; its more of a psychology thing and our initial reactions.

ok. taxes. bleah.