Active-constructive responding

Imagine your partner tells you that they won two tickets to a baseball game. You respond in one of the following four ways:

• Option 1: “That’s great.”
• Option 2:  “Baseball games are really long. Do you have the time right now?”
• Option 3: “Awesome! Who is playing? How did you win the tickets? That’s going to be a great way to relax.”
• Option 4: “Can we talk about what happened to me today?”

There’s a clear winner – Option #3. This is an example of what Dr. Shelly Gable calls "active-constructive responding." It’s active because you are interested and asking questions, and constructive because you are building up their points. Contrast that to the first option (“That’s great”), which is passive-constructive, the second option (“Baseball games are really long…”), which is active-destructive and the final option (“Can we talk about me…”) which is passive-destructive. To no one’s surprise, Dr. Gable and her researchers found that active-constructive responding is the only one associated with strong relationships.

The first time I heard this, I had two problems with it.

First, active-constructive responding is SO MUCH BETTER than the alternatives, that the finding did not seem applicable to my life. I thought, “I’m a nice person -- OF COURSE I practice active-constructive responding.” Then I read about the experiences of Dr. Martin Seligman in Flourish. Dr. Seligman is considered to be the founder of positive psychology, and even teaches active-constructive responding. He shared an anecdote about how he taught the concept of active-constructive responding in a morning seminar, and then later in the afternoon went shopping in a bazaar with his family. Two of his daughters approached him, excited about a purchase they had made. Dr. Seligman’s first response was, “Didn’t you negotiate?” Classic active-destructive. You may be a better natural active-constructive responder than Marty Seligman, but chances are you're not.

The second problem I had with the active-constructive concept was that I don’t want to walk around being blindly positive my entire life. Maybe I DO think someone is too busy for a boring baseball game. Can’t I tell them that? What Dr. Gable’s research suggests is yes, you can, but watch your initial response. If you don’t feel constructive about the topic, maybe start by being active. Show that you’re interested by asking questions and sharing in their initial excitement (“I’m glad you’re excited. How did you win the tickets?”)…you’ll probably even find a genuinely positive thing to say about the experience (“I know the baseball game would be a great chance to relax with your co-workers”)… and then share your concerns.

Try being a little more specific than Jim

A related concept to active-constructive responding is Dr. Carol Dweck’s work on effective praise. The main takeaway is to praise details. Army sergeants are trained to praise specific skills – “Good job clearing that hurdle even though someone stepped on your foot” – rather than a vague “Way to go.” That’s because specific praise shows that (a) you were really watching and (b) the praise is authentic, rather than perfunctory. What works for the army can work for your relationship.

Try some active-constructive responding over the next 24 hours. When someone shares something with you that is somewhat positive, ask them a little more about their good news (be active) and build up the experience for them (be constructive). You don’t need to be overly effusive, just be yourself.

Let us know how it goes.

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When things go right

Will you be there for me when things go wrong? We think of this question as the classic test of a relationship: how much support will you provide your partner when the going is tough. Support even gets precedence in marriage vows: It’s “In sickness…and in health” not “In health…and in sickness.”

But according to the research of Dr. Shelly Gable and her colleagues,

how you respond to positive events in your partner’s life is an even more important predictor of a high quality relationship than how you respond to negative events.

Dr. Gable tested this hypothesis in a study where she asked couples in long-term relationships to share a recent positive and negative development in their own lives with their partner. The experience was supposed to be unique to the individual (such as a promotion at work), not a shared experience of the couple. Both partners were asked to rate how their counterpart reacted to the positive story and the negative story, and also asked to rate their overall relationship on a number of factors. The researchers found that “feeling understood, validated and cared for following a positive event disclosure is more strongly and consistently associated with relationship well-being than ratings of responsiveness following a negative event disclosure.” In other words, it really matters how you respond to positive news from your partner.    

I find it harder to be consistently ‘present’ when my friends or family deliver positive news to me – particularly if its someone I know very well. When something is wrong, the ‘alarm bells’ go off and its very easy for me to try to make them feel better: put some tea on, offer a hug, try to help them talk through things. I would also like to think I am decent at celebrating when there is positive news, and I probably am for the REALLY big events like promotions or admittances into school. But for day-to-day positive events…I wonder? It’s probably easier for me to zone out, make some passing acknowledgement or ‘hog the stage’ with my own positive news.

Feel free to share what you think in the Comments section. Are you surprised by the research finding that it is as important, and maybe more so, to be good at responding to positive news as it is to be supportive to negative news? Are you good at being ‘present’ when your partner gives you good news? Any tips for others?

Tomorrow I'll cover some of the ways to excel at responding to positive news, including Dr. Carol Dweck's work on effective praise, and Dr. Gable's research on 'active-constructive' responding.

Relationship communication: How NOT to respond

One of the most common things we do in relationships is respond to our partner. When we do, research suggests it’s important not to ‘hog the stage.’

This Hog may be happy, but your partner is
unlikely to be if you "Hog the Stage."

Dr. Richard Carlson describes this phenomenon in Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff. Hogging the Stage is the tendency to say something about yourself in response to someone sharing a story or accomplishment with you. The problem with Hogging the Stage is that when you immediately dive in and bring the conversation back to you, you can subtly minimize the joy someone has in sharing. It can also make you a poor listener - as soon as your partner says something that sparks your own thought, you start looking for opportunities to speak and stop listening as intently.

I wanted to test whether I was guilty of this relationship sin, but couldn’t think of a good way to do it because I was convinced that if I consciously knew about hogging the stage I wouldn't catch myself doing it. 

Boy, was I wrong.

Even while self-monitoring, I found 8 instances in the course of four days where my first reaction to someone sharing their feelings/experiences was to respond – immediately – with my own experiences. For example, my friend started telling me about their terrible neighbor after a recent long plane ride: they were in a middle seat and their neighbor leaned into their space, breathing on my friend while sleeping. “That sucks,” I THOUGHT to myself. But what I SAID was, “Yeah, you wouldn't believe what the guy next to me did…”

Doh! Hogging the Stage!

Try it for yourself. Be attentive over the next 48 hours to how you respond to your partner when they share their experiences, and keep a mental note of how many times you tend to ‘Hog the Stage.’ It’s not that sharing your own experiences is never warranted, it’s just not usually the first thing you should do. Try leading with a more inquisitive phrase such as “That’s wonderful” or “Tell me more about…” Then insert your own experience if/when it flows naturally into the conversation.

It sounds easy. But can you do it? Whether you are a master at responding or a fellow Hog like me, feel free to share your experiences in the Comments section.

Tomorrow we’ll explore some more scientific research on the DO’s of how to respond, including the pioneering research of Dr. Shelly Gable.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Our first of the 20 posts on relationship happiness will start later today. Each day, the Thrive Team will review another of the best reference materials in the field – a combination of books, articles and blogs written by experts such as Drs. John Gottman and Brene Brown. We plan to use their insights as a launching pad to add our own experiences and suggestions on how to act on these insights. We hope to make the posts personable and applicable.

So what will we cover? The materials we have chosen to review include topics that either touch directly on committed long-term relationships, or themes (for example, active listening) that are applicable to all relationships, especially those with our chosen partners.

Why are we doing this again? Simply put, we believe relationship skills are important and that we don’t get to spend enough time learning them. And as aspiring entrepreneurs, we believe innovative tools can be built to help us explore this type of material. Before we try to build those tools, though, we have to explore the material ourselves – hence our effort this January.

We’re excited about the journey, and hope you are too. You can help us by suggesting material to read along the way, commenting on what resonates/does not resonate with you and sharing the posts you like with your friends. 

Below is a list of the materials we have assembled so far to inform our posts. Again - feel free to suggest others! We would love to review some more materials authored by women.

•  Flourish by Martin Seligman
• 10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage by John Gottman, Julie Gottman and Joan Declaire
• Mark Manson's Blog (http://markmanson.net/)
• Don't Sweat The Small Stuff, and It's All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson
• Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
• Emotional Fitness for Couples by Barton Goldsmith
• Real Love by Greg Baer
• Crazy Making to Love Making by Tony Robbins
• The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
• Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen
• The Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neill
• Supportive Responses to Positive Event Disclosures by Shelly Gable, Gian Gonzaga, and Amy Strachman

Our New Year's Resolution

Welcome to Team Thrive’s blog! We are a group of friends and entrepreneurs working on creating tools for couples in relationships. Just like we learn skills that help us excel in our jobs, or techniques to kick butt in the gym, we think couples of all stages can learn skills to make their relationships even better. 

Don’t worry; we aren’t coming up with these relationship skills out of the blue. Social scientists, religious scholars and other ‘happiness’ gurus have accumulated centuries of relationship advice into academic journals, books and dispersed websites. In January 2015, we are going to start off the New Year by posting 20 entries - one for each workday - reviewing some of the best material on what makes for great long-term relationships.

Please comment on our posts: tell us how the content relates to your life, refer us to other materials we should review, and don't be shy to point out on how much we don’t know! Regardless, if you find this blog interesting, please spread the word.