Structural flaws in the bridge from basic research on marriage to interventions for couples

In an article that received widespread media attention, Gottman, Coan, Carr ere, and Swanson (1998) reported on a longitudinal study of newlywed couple s and recommended major changes in the practice of marital therapy and educ ation. Most notably, they called for the abandonment of interventions that promote active listening, they concluded that anger was not detrimental to marital outcomes, and they advocated an interaction pattern wherein wives r aise issues more gently and husbands more readily accept wives' influence. Because of several methodological and conceptual shortcomings, the recommen dations of Gottman et al. appear to us to be premature at best. We raise me thodological concerns about the nonrandom selection of research subjects, f ailure to control for factors that may have differentiated couples initiall y, procedural issues regarding observational and physiological data, and am biguity about statistical tests employed. We raise conceptual concerns abou t how the labeling of patterns affects the conclusions drawn and also about the use of correlational data to make strong causal inferences. We conclud e that the article by Gottman et al. risks influencing couples and practiti oners alike in a manner that, in our view exceeds the scope and methods of the underlying research.