Social Animal: #14--Other Social Stuff

Other Social Stuff: Brooks touches on the ups and downs of relationships, including marriage. He quotes studies by famed ‘love doctor’ John Gottman who studies and predicts the health and longevity of marriages. Gottman’s research concludes that to have a strong relationship, couples need to have a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. Good leaders understand this ratio innately; bad leaders unfortunately do not. One interesting stat—women over 50 initiate over 65% of divorces. And, when it comes to moral/social concerns, key researchers in the field offered five concerns that account for much unconscious moral decision making: Fairness/Reciprocity—equal and unequal treatment; harm/care concern, including empathy; authority/respect relative to hierarchies; purity/disgust that drives us from that which is contaminated, from food to poor relationships; and, in-group, out-group loyalty that produces antipathy for out-groups but strong visceral loyalty to group members and disgust if people violate that loyalty.