Anne Truitt Zelenka

Perhaps the most important tool you have for keeping your relationships in good shape is positive flooding. You need to keep the bulk of interactions with those you care about positive; in fact, you probably need far more positive interactions than you think. There’s even research showing what ratio of positive to negative interactions you need to make relationships endure — at least 5 positive interactions for every negative one for marriages and at least 3 to 1 in professional situations.

My household is under a ton of stress lately, and so the question of what makes relationships endure is more than theoretically interesting to me. I’m finishing up a book manuscript under serious deadline pressure, having written 200-plus pages in about three months. Rick has returned to school after almost 20 years out, as a first-year law student at the University of Denver (he’s doing awesome! w00t!) My oldest child has started middle school and that’s a difficult transition for even the most adaptable of kids.

The positive-negative ratio, 5:1 for personal, 3:1 for professional

I’m trying to keep in mind the PNR — positive-negative ratio — to keep my relationships in good shape during this stressful time. You might think that if positive interactions outnumber negative interactions in a relationship the overall perception of the relationship is positive. But that’s not true, because people weigh negative interactions more heavily than positive. So for an overall positive experience of a relationship, you have to have way more positive than negative interactions.

Researcher John Gottman found that in marriages, the ratio of positive to negative needs to be 5 to 1 for a marriage to continue. If there is more than one negative interaction for every five positive, then the marriage is on shaky ground. That 5:1 ratio of positive to negative is called the Gottman ratio.

But what about for professional work? Researchers Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada found that work teams need a PNR greater than 3:1 and less than 13:1 for optimal productivity. With fewer than 3 positive interactions for every negative interaction, team members will perceive the weight of interactions as negative. With more than 13 positive interactions for each negative one, the team probably isn’t adequately dealing with inevitable problems.

Don’t count, just flood positive 

When you’re the one dishing out the positive and negative, offering 3 or 5 or more positives for each negative feels like completely overdoing it. I’m trying to manage the PNR in my dealings by thinking about flooding the people I care about with positive feelings and interactions. Because honestly, with my cranky personality reaching a ratio of 3:1 or 5:1 certainly feels like flooding. It’s a lot easier to think “flood” than to count positive and negative.  Most teams and marriages aren’t in danger of hitting the too-many-positive end of the ratio.

Read about the research: Are you practicing positive leadership? [The Practice of Leadership]