John Gottman

John Mordechai Gottman, born April 26, 1942, is an American psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington. His work belongs to the late twentieth and early twenty-first century growth of research-based relationship counseling, a field concerned not only with why couples separate, but also with how relationships can function better. Gottman became closely associated with studies of divorce prediction and marital stability through relationship analyses, and his research also contributed to concepts in social sequence analysis.

Gottman was born in the Dominican Republic to Orthodox Jewish parents. His father had been a rabbi in pre-World War II Vienna, and Gottman was educated at a Lubavitch Yeshiva Elementary School in Brooklyn. He practices Conservative Judaism, keeps kosher, and observes Shabbat. His personal life also connects to the subject that would define much of his public work: in 1987 he married Julie Schwartz, a psychotherapist, after two earlier marriages ended in divorce. John and Julie Gottman live in Washington state, and he has a daughter, Moriah Gottman.

His academic path combined mathematics, physics, and clinical psychology. Gottman earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics-Physics from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1962, a master’s in Mathematics-Psychology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964, a second master’s in Clinical Psychology-Mathematics in 1967, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wisconsin in 1971. Before and during his academic career, he worked as a mathematics instructor, physics research assistant, engineering researcher, computer programmer, mathematician, program evaluator, and research designer. That blend of clinical interest and quantitative training shaped the way he studied intimate relationships.

In 1981, Gottman became a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois. He also served for 16 years as a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, where he later became professor emeritus. Since 2002, he has served as executive director for the Relationship Research Institute in Seattle. In 1996, he co-founded and led The Gottman Institute with his wife, psychologist Julie Schwartz Gottman. Together they also co-founded Affective Software Inc., a program intended to make marriage and relationship counseling procedures more accessible to a wider audience.

Gottman has published more than 190 papers and has written or co-written 40 books. His best-known books include Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, The Heart of Parenting, The Marriage Clinic, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, a New York Times bestseller, The Relationship Cure, The Science of Trust, What Makes Love Last, 10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy, The Science of Couples and Family Therapy, and Eight Dates. His honors include four National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Awards, major awards from marriage and family therapy organizations, and a 2021 honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Gottman’s claims about accurately predicting divorce have also been criticized. Richard E. Heyman questioned the validity of several divorce prediction models, citing concerns such as overfitting, small sample sizes, false positives, and the need for validation on independent samples. Journalist Laurie Abraham also disputed the predictive power of the method. Still, Gottman’s words continue to be quoted because they are direct and practical, grounded in the daily habits that make or weaken connection. “Admit when you’re wrong. Shut up when you’re right” captures that plain-spoken style: less performance, more repair.