was his bookshelf or the art on his walls, we wouldn’t have that
same problem.
What people say about themselves can also be very
confusing, for the simple reason that most of us aren’t very
objective about ourselves. That’s why, when we measure
personality, we don’t just ask people point-blank what they
think they are like. We give them a questionnaire, like the Big
Five Inventory, carefully designed to elicit telling responses.
That’s also why Gottman doesn’t waste any time asking
husbands and wives point-blank questions about the state of
their marriage. They might lie or feel awkward or, more
important, they might not know the truth. They may be so
deeply mired — or so happily ensconced — in their relationship
that they have no perspective on how it works. “Couples simply
aren’t aware of how they sound,” says Sybil Carrère. “They
have this discussion, which we videotape and then play back to
them. In one of the studies we did recently, we interviewed
couples about what they learned from the study, and a
remarkable number of them — I would say a majority of them
— said they were surprised to find either what they looked like
during the conflict discussion or what they communicated
during the conflict discussion. We had one woman whom we