Welcome to the 'love lab'

Set up by psychologist Dr John Gottman, and run by his Relationship Research Institute, the "love lab" is a laboratory where couples are observed, interviewed and their heart rates and skin conductivity monitored.

Using Gottman's "specific affect coding system", which examines facial expressions, dialogue and physical reactions to identify 20 separate categories of emotion, experts at the lab have examined videos of hundreds of couples in conversation. What they have discovered is that it is possible to predict, from observing just a few short interactions, the outcome of a relationship with between 88% and 94% accuracy.

Gottman identified four key emotional reactions that are destructive to a relationship: defensiveness, "stonewalling" (withdrawing from a conversation), criticism and contempt. Of these, he sees contempt as the most damaging. Expressed in casual insults and sarcastic remarks, contempt reveals an underlying inequality in a relationship, which Gottman believes is difficult to repair.

Watching happy couples in dispute, on the other hand, Gottman observed that they display five times more positive behaviours than negative ones. They know how to "repair" an argument, for example through humour, changing the subject, or using language that demonstrates to their partner they are taking their feelings into account. Gottman has published a series of books aimed at improving relationships, including Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. gottman.com