Magic Ratio

[madd74]

The following is a quote from a book in my psychology course of Family and Marriage:

Across the board we found there was a very specific ratio that exists between the amount of positive and negativity in a stable marriage, whether it is marked bu validation, volatility, or conflict avoidance. That magic ratio is 5 to 1. In other words, as long as there is five times as much positive feeling and interaction between husband and wife as there is negative, we found the marriage was likely to be stable.

Hmm... I feel this goes beyond marriage. I studied this aspect in my class back before I got smarts and graduated, and see it applies to any type of friendship, actually.

Close best-friend relationship, casual friend, screw buddy, childhood friend, it honestly does not matter. This book focuses on marriage, since it is for a marriage class, yet, Madd can see how it applies to almost any relationship. It deals with humans, and you know, humans like to have some sort of importance in the life of others they know. If you praise those you know more than not, then, they tend to follow a liking of the type of human you are, since, you are adknowleding who they are. Boyfriend, girlfriend, relative, co-worker... just imagine, if someone gave you 5 parts praise to 1 part critisism... would you not respect them more?

(book is "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail" by John Gottman)