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=                            John_Gottman                            =
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                            Introduction
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John Mordechai Gottman (born April 26, 1942) is an American
psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of
Washington. His research focuses on divorce prediction and marital
stability through relationship analyses. Gottman's work is centered on
the field of relationship counseling: enhanced relationship
functioning and mitigation of behaviors detrimental to human
relationships. Gottman's work has also contributed to the development
of important concepts on social sequence analysis.

In 1996, Gottman co-founded and led The Gottman Institute alongside
his wife, psychologist Julie Schwartz Gottman. Together, they are the
co-founders of Affective Software Inc., a program seeking to make
marriage and relationship counseling procedures more accessible to a
broader audience.


                           Personal life
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John Gottman was born on April 26, 1942, in the Dominican Republic to
Orthodox Jewish parents. His father was a rabbi in pre-World War II
Vienna. Gottman was educated in a Lubavitch Yeshiva Elementary School
in Brooklyn. Gottman practices Conservative Judaism, keeps kosher
(follows Jewish dietary laws) and observes Shabbat.


In 1987, he married Julie Schwartz, a psychotherapist. His two
previous marriages had ended in divorce. He has a daughter named
Moriah Gottman. John and Julie Gottman live in Washington state.


                   Education and work experience
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John Gottman received his bachelor's degree in Mathematics-Physics
from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1962. In 1964, he earned his
master's in Mathematics-Psychology from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He received a second master's degree in Clinical
Psychology-Mathematics in 1967, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology in
1971 from the University of Wisconsin.

At Fairleigh Dickinson University, Gottman worked as an instructor for
the mathematics department, a research assistant for the department of
physics, and a researcher for the school of engineering. At the
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, he worked as a computer programmer and
mathematician. He was a program evaluator and research designer for
the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. In 1981, Gottman
became a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois.
Additionally, he was a professor of psychology at the University of
Washington for 16 years. Since 2002, Gottman, now an emeritus
professor of psychology at UW, has served as the executive director
for the Relationship Research Institute in Seattle.


                         Awards and honors
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Gottman has been the recipient of four National Institute of Mental
Health Research Scientist Awards: the American Association for
Marriage and Family Therapy Distinguished Research Scientist Award,
the American Family Therapy Academy Award for Most Distinguished
Contributor to Family Systems Research, the American Psychological
Association Division of Family Psychology, Presidential Citation for
Outstanding Lifetime Research Contribution and the National Council of
Family Relations, 1994 Burgess Award for Outstanding Career in Theory
and Research. In addition, Gottman was chosen as one of the
Psychotherapy Networker's Top 10 Most Influential Therapists of the
past quarter-century.

In 2021, Gottman received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


                               Works
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Gottman has published over 190 papers, and is the author or co-author
of 40 books, notably:

*
*
*'The Marriage Clinic' (W.W. Norton, 1999),
[http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=9070, W W Norton page]
* – a 'New York Times' bestseller
*
*
*
*
*
* Gottman, John; Gottman, Julie Schwartz (2015). '10 Principles for
Doing Effective Couples Therapy'. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
*
*
*


                             Critiques
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Gottman has been criticized for describing his work as being able to
accurately predict divorce. Generally, this type of work involves
simply fitting statistical models to a data set, not making
predictions about events in the future.
In 2001, professor Richard E. Heyman from New York University
analyzed 15 divorce prediction models and questioned  their validity
due to problems with overfitting and small sample sizes (n = 60
couples in Gottman's 1998 study). Heyman argued that a 90% prediction
may actually mean much less when considering the possibility of false
positives and the low base rates of divorce. He also argued that it is
inappropriate to make claims of "predictive power" without validating
the model on independent samples.
Heyman showed his points by creating a divorce prediction model with a
data set, and demonstrated its low validity when the above
considerations are tested. Gottman never published a reply to this
critique.
Journalist Laurie Abraham also disputed the prediction power of
Gottman's method. Abraham writes, "What Gottman did wasn't really a
prediction of the future but a formula built after the couples'
outcomes were already known. This isn't to say that developing such
formulas isn't a valuable -- indeed, a critical -- first step in being
able to make a prediction. The next step, however --one absolutely
required by the scientific method-- is to apply your equation to a
fresh sample to see whether it actually works. That is especially
necessary with small data slices (such as 57 couples), because
patterns that appear important are more likely to be mere flukes. But
Gottman never did that."
The Gottman Relationship Institute claims that six out of the seven
of Gottman's studies have been properly predictive, by a non-standard
definition of prediction in which all that is required is that
predictive variables, but not their specific relationship to the
outcome, were selected in advance.


                              See also
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* Thin-slicing
* Julie Shwartz Gottman


                           External links
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* [http://www.gottman.com The Gottman Institute website]
* [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gottman05/gottman05_index.html The
Mathematics of Love - An interview] (Edge)
* [http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/John_Gottman An Interview
with John Gottman] (Psychotherapy.net)
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20141031234454/http://www.butler-bowdon.com/7-principles-making-marriage-work
Gottman's 'Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work'] - Commentary
from '50 Psychology Classics' (2007)
* [http://www2.kuow.org/program.php?id=15530 John Gottman: Raising an
Emotionally Intelligent Child]  KUOW-FM Speaker Forum
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20151011111027/http://kassanevents.co.uk/
John Gottman : Couples workshop training first time in London United
Kingdom in 2013]


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