FF: Losada Brand: Promoting marriage in a positive way

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The Losada Line, or Losada Ratio, is an important number in relationships. Named after psychologist Marcial Losada, the Losada Line is calculated based on the ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback a person receives from their boss, friends, parents, or spouse. When the ratio is above 2.9 positive feedback to 1 negative feedback, things are going well. When the ratio is lower, things are not going well. This has been proven to be true over and over again, in business, sports teams, and marital relationships. John Gottman has done extensive research on this issue in marriage and came up with a 5 to 1 ratio.

This means that for every “bad” thing you say, you should have at least three to five good things to say. For every bad thing you say, you should have at least three to five compliments to say. This means that corrections and complaints should be no more than one-third the number of “good job” and “you really helped me”. A lower ratio leads to frustration and kills motivation to work hard to improve.

Yes, it can be hard when your marriage is struggling. So here’s the challenge – when the going gets tough, when neither of you can hit that 3-to-1 goal, choose to be the adult and start saying more good things and less bad things. In fact, get to 5-to-1. Doing so is one of the few ways to turn things around, so do it!

[This post first appeared Aug 31, 2012.]

Image credit: © Paul H Byerly Created using stockdreams.ai
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