Blink !
Weird. Last post I was toying with the idea of tipping points (only I was misusing the phrase).
A "tipping point" (the proper version) is "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" or "the concept that small changes will have little or no effect on a system until a critical mass is reached. Then a further small change “tips” the system and a large effect is observed"
Well my middle sister is up visting my parents for Christmas. She bought a book to read on the train, and passed it on to me to read. It's called "Blink" and lo and behold it is the same author who wrote a book about Tipping Points !
Blink
and the other book on tipping points
The "Blink" book refers to some work by Gottman on the mathematics of relationships - by analysing short tapes of a couple in conversation, it is possible to predict whether they will still be together in 15 years time.
"couples where the dominant mode of interaction includes criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling are very, very likely to divorce. "
i.e. it is not about *what* they discuss, how much they appear to agree or disagree
And it got me thinking about the LCT (big surprise). When we talked about job hunting, when all along he knew he had not quit his job in Sweden and would return to it - was it defensiveness or contempt ?
At the end of the summer he was going to see his son, and was supposed to be travelling by train. He rang me, to say that there were problems with the trains and he was hiring a car instead. After he left and I talked to the Other Woman, I found out he had taken some of his belonging down with him. This was a good couple of months before he left. It appears to have been planned, not spontaneous. Contempt ? Possibly. Could I have picked up on that ? Even if I could not have known why ?
A "tipping point" (the proper version) is "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" or "the concept that small changes will have little or no effect on a system until a critical mass is reached. Then a further small change “tips” the system and a large effect is observed"
Well my middle sister is up visting my parents for Christmas. She bought a book to read on the train, and passed it on to me to read. It's called "Blink" and lo and behold it is the same author who wrote a book about Tipping Points !
Blink
and the other book on tipping points
The "Blink" book refers to some work by Gottman on the mathematics of relationships - by analysing short tapes of a couple in conversation, it is possible to predict whether they will still be together in 15 years time.
"couples where the dominant mode of interaction includes criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling are very, very likely to divorce. "
i.e. it is not about *what* they discuss, how much they appear to agree or disagree
And it got me thinking about the LCT (big surprise). When we talked about job hunting, when all along he knew he had not quit his job in Sweden and would return to it - was it defensiveness or contempt ?
At the end of the summer he was going to see his son, and was supposed to be travelling by train. He rang me, to say that there were problems with the trains and he was hiring a car instead. After he left and I talked to the Other Woman, I found out he had taken some of his belonging down with him. This was a good couple of months before he left. It appears to have been planned, not spontaneous. Contempt ? Possibly. Could I have picked up on that ? Even if I could not have known why ?
posted by seahorse at 8:11 pm
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