In Marriage How You Talk is More Important Than What You Say
For two years, and across hundreds of marriage therapy sessions, researchers recorded. They created a computer algorithm that examined dozens of features of the recordings, but the words and meanings were not among them. The algorithm instead focused strictly on the sonic features of the recordings, such as pitch, volume, and pacing. Then, after recording several sessions for each couple, the couples were tracked for five years after the recordings were made.
The results?
The algorithm was able to predict with 77.69% accuracy whether a couple’s relationship would deteriorate, improve, or remain constant based solely on the sonic features of their voices during therapy. That’s about 14% more accurate than the judgment of ‘relationship experts’ and only about 1% less accurate than the actual marriage therapists the couples were seeing for their problems.
One of the study‘ s collaborators, Brian Baucom, explained. “Psychological practitioners and researchers have long known that the way that partners talk about and discuss problems has important implications for the health of their relationships. However, the lack of efficient and reliable tools for measuring the important elements in those conversations has been a major impediment in their widespread clinical use. These findings represent a major step forward in making objective measurement of behavior practical and feasible for couple therapists.”
Of course, the relationship between how you talk and your eventual fate as a couple isn’t defined by the study. It may be the case that couples who ‘talk mean’ are destined to split up — but it may also be the case that problems which are deep enough to cause ‘mean talk’ are also deep enough to cause an eventual deterioration of the relationship. In other words, the study proves a correlation, but doesn’t say in which direction the cause-effect arrow is pointing.
Either way, if you genuinely want the relationship you’re in to last, it’s a good idea to stop and think carefully not just about the things you say, but about how you say them. Because even if it is the mood that causes the vocal harshness, a different study proved that how you sound when you talk also has a direct and measurable effect on your mood. So choosing to deliberately sound nicer than you feel can actually make you act more nicely than you might want to…and that might just turn the entire conversation around.
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