Is it possible to predict divorce?
Dr. John Gottman, co-founder of the Relationship Research Institute -- a research center that aims to strengthen and repair relationships -- stopped by "Anderson" Wednesday to talk about the four predictors of divorce.
The predictors -- which Gottman calls "the four horsemen of the apocalypse"-- are the result of more than 35 years of studying happy and dysfunctional couples at Gottman's institute.
Watch what he had to say:
Gottman has previously provided insight into his methodology, revealing how he can predict -- often with a high level of accuracy -- which relationships will succeed and which won't. In February 2004, BBC News visited the psychologist's "Love Lab," where Gottman and mathematicians James Murray and Kristin Swanson believe they have created a mathematical model that can determine with 94 percent accuracy which marriages are doomed to divorce.
To put the model to the test, the BBC sent a soon-to-be married couple to the Seattle research center for testing. After filling out a questionnaire to identify their personality types, the BBC reported that the couple were hooked up to equipment that monitored physical and emotional responses during a discussion of a touchy subjects, like money. After weighing the ratio of positive to negative interactions during the conversation, Gottman gave the couple their results: "The prognosis is very good. We predict you will have a very good relationship -- a very real relationship."