Trust is built in small moments, slowly over time. Dr. Gottman’s insightful talk explores the key elements that form the foundation of trust in relationships. Delving into the intricate dynamics of human connections, he emphasizes the importance of emotional attunement, effective communication, and the cultivation of a positive and supportive environment.
Transcript:
But how do you build trust? Again, you can turn to research because research is going to tell you, specifically, what it is that increases this trust metric and what it is, eventually, that helps us understand the dynamics of betrayal.
Okay. Turns out that trust is built in very small moments, which I call sliding door moments, after the movie Sliding Doors. Because in any interaction, there is a possibility of connection with our partner or turning away from our partner.
Let me give you an example of that from my own relationship. So one night I was really wanting to finish a mystery novel. I thought I knew who the killer was, but I wanted to really find out. So I put the novel on my bedside, and I walked into the bathroom. And before I even got into the bathroom, I looked at my wife’s face in the mirror, and she looked sad. She was brushing her hair.
So there was a sliding door moment. I had a choice. I could kind of sneak out of the bathroom and think, I don’t want to deal with her sadness, I want to read my novel. Now, that really wouldn’t define our relationship any. But because I’m a sensitive researcher of relationships, I decided to go into the bathroom. I took the brush from her hair, and I said, What’s the matter, baby? And she told me why she was sad.
Now, that moment I was building trust. I was there for her. Right? I was connecting with her rather than choosing to think only about what I wanted. These are the moments that we’ve discovered that build trust.
Now, one such moment is not that important. But if you’re always choosing to turn away, then trust erodes in the relationship, very gradually, very slowly.
And the next slide, you can see this idea of attunement is really the mechanism that my graduate student, Dan Yoshimoto, discovered is the basis for building trust. And attunement stands for this acronym: awareness of the other person’s emotion, turning toward the emotion, tolerance of two different viewpoints, going for understanding the partner, responding non-defensively, and responding with empathy.
The discovery in the research is that betrayal and distrust are not related to each other very strongly. In other words, betrayal is not the same as distrust. And we usually think of it as related.
But the atom of betrayal is not just turning away — not just turning away from my wife’s sadness in that moment — but doing what Caryl Rusbult called a CL-ALT. And you can see that on the third line. And what that means is I not only turn away from her sadness, but I think to myself, I can do better. Who needs this crap? I’m always dealing with her negativity. I can do better.
Caryl Rusbult spent three decades studying this variable, CL-ALT. Because once you start — it stands for comparison level for alternatives — and once you start thinking that you can do better, then you begin a cascade of not committing to the relationship, of trashing your partner instead of cherishing your partner, of building resentment rather than gratitude, of lower investment in the relationship, less dependency for getting your needs met, not sacrificing for the relationship, and escalating conflict so it becomes an absorbing state.
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