I was having a bad bout of "morning sickness" all day today, and Patri's been home sick, but we wanted to get out of the house to somewhere with air conditioning for a bit and the movie theater seemed too far ;)

Wandering aimlessly around a bookstore seemed just about the right pace ;) In the process I ended up browsing the psych section. Its been a while ;) I was delighted to be reminded of Eckman's book, I'd been looking forward to it for some time! I've only read a bit of the preface thus far, but am enthused.

In the preface of "Emotions Revealed" he outlines four skills he wishes to help people improve. I was impressed that the first listed was "becoming more consciously aware of when you are becoming emotional, even before you speak or act." I'd always thought of Eckman's work as being able to read other peoples' emotions, but have to agree with him that being able to read one's self is most important, and I also don't think most people question their abilities to read their own emotions or that they are nearly as good about it as is natural to assume ;)

The other three goals he lists:

• Second, choosing how you behave when you are emotional, so you achieve your goals without damaging other people.
• Third, becoming more sensitive to how others are feeling.
• Fourth, carefully using the information you acquire about how others are feeling.

I'm curious where he's going to take #2. A thought that comes to my mind is the importance of making sure you do achieve your goals, at least for the more submissive types such as myself (depending on the situation ;). I think a lot of times in an effort to be kind and nice we dismiss what we want and need for prolonged periods of time, with a resulting emotional backfire that gets out of control. I generally am not like this anymore, and/or actively seek to avoid situations with people in which I end up in that role.

And of course, I'm very interested in reading Eckman's descriptions of reading facial expressions :)

The other book I picked up was Gottman's "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail ...and How You Can Make Yours Last." Patri and I got a lot of good out of his earlier book "The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work," but I wasn't overly impressed with "Relationship Cure." But in general I'm a big fan. According to this book, by 1994 he was confirming 94% accuracy in his predictions of whether or not a couple would last for four years. Patri's got his most recent book, "The Mathematics of Marriage," but it sounds like it actually contains some decent math, and while I think this is super cool (apparently Gottman was a mathematician before going into psych :), I think I'm going to leave that one to P and ask for the synopsis and entertaining stories ;)

An interesting bit from page 28-9 of "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail:"

If there is one lesson I have learned from my years of research it is that a lasting marriage results from a couple's ability to resolve the conflicts that are inevitable in any relationship. Many couples tend to equate a low level of conflict with happiness and believe the claim "we never fight" is a sign of marital health. But I believe we grow in our relationships by reconciling our differences. That's how we become more loving people and truly experience the fruits of marriage.

But there's much more to know than how to fight well. Not all couples resolve conflicts in the same way. Nor do all couples mean the same thing by "resolving" the conflict. In fact, I have found that there are three different styles of problem solving into which healthy marriages tend to settle. In a validation marriage couples compromise often and calmly work out their problems to mutual satisfaction as they arise. In a conflict-avoiding marriage couples agree to disagree, rarely confronting their differences head-on. And finally, in a volatile marriage conflicts erupt often, resulting in passionate disputes.

Previously, many psychologists might have considered conflict-avoiding and volatile marriages to be pathological. But our current research suggests that all three styles are equally stable and bode equally well for the marriage's future. [...]

Of course, following one of these three styles won't guarantee a happy marriage. These adaptations work only to the degree that they allow you to achieve the right balance between positive and negative interactions with your spouse. Amazingly, we have found that it all comes down to a simple mathematical formula: no matter what style your marriage follows, you must have at least five times as many positive as negative moments together if your marriage is to be stable.