The Science of Trust by John M. Gottman Ph. D.

The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples by John M. Gottman Ph. D. provides meticulous descriptions of dysfunctional and functional relationships. This audio book would be a brutal but effective pre-test for couples considering marriage and could also be used to pull a marriage out of path headed towards dissolution. Trust in a marriage is making sure the other person puts the partner first above other people and other obligations. This is facilitated by each person attuning to the other partner.

He and a team of researchers observed marriages for twenty years watching the marriages succeed or dissolve without intervening. During that time they observed that people seeking marriage counseling were doing even worse than those who were not.  This made them even more cautious about offering advice.

They looked at successful recovery after a disagreement or a failure to be attentive to a partner. Successful repair worked best when the expressions of negative emotions were muted, There was humor, People who had successful recovery focused less on I and more on we.

It is very difficult for couples to resolve issues when one of them is flooding. This occurs when one person is very emotional with sweating and elevated blood pressure. An effective strategy involves taking a 20 minute break to let stress chemicals clear out of the bloodstream. This works best if neither party ruminates during the break.  After the break the issue is addressed again but this time with cooler heads.

Interesting marital tests: As part of a fun activity couples construct a tower made only out of sheets of paper. If the couples did this with a sense of humor and enjoyed it as a fun activity this was predictive of a successful marriage.  If they argued and bickered about how to construct the tower this predicted relationship or marriage failure.

A portion of the book was devoted to the the  separate mathematical functions associated with two parents and a child.  The researchers also discovered two low level resting states on the positive and the negative side of the relationship. It is very easy for a couple to get stuck in a negative loop and be unable to get out of it because of their heightened emotional state.

Further information on the neuroscience of trust at work is available from Six Seconds the emotional intelligence network.

The science of trust and betrayal - 7 min

How to build trust - 5 min. 

The science of Love - John M. Gottman - 28 min.