An overview of the Four Horsemen
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are four destructive patterns of communication that John Gottman identified over decades of research on couples, and which predict the breakdown of a relationship with high accuracy. Named by analogy with the Four Horsemen of the biblical book of Revelation, the patterns are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. In Gottman's research, couples in whom these patterns appear frequently during conflict are reported to divorce at a higher rate than couples in whom they do not. The crucial point is that the Four Horsemen are an index not of whether conflict exists but of how conflict is handled. Every couple experiences conflict; those who can manage it without reaching for the Four Horsemen are able to keep their relationship intact. The four also tend to escalate in a characteristic order. Criticism comes first, it sours into contempt, and once defensiveness and stonewalling are added the collapse of the relationship accelerates.
| Horseman | How it shows up | Antidote |
|---|---|---|
| Criticism | Attacks the partner's character rather than a behavior, with sweeping generalizations such as "you always" and "you never" | The gentle start-up: speaking about a concrete behavior with an I-message, "I feel" rather than "you are" |
| Contempt | An attitude of looking down on the partner, through sarcasm, mockery, eye-rolling and name-calling | The everyday work of building a culture of fondness and admiration |
| Defensiveness | Denial of responsibility, counter-criticism, or a posture of injured innocence | Accepting some part of the responsibility, however small |
| Stonewalling | Complete withdrawal from the conversation: ignoring, silence, or physically leaving the room | Self-soothing: stepping away deliberately to calm down, then returning to the conversation |
Contempt is the most destructive of the four. Each entry is discussed in detail in the next section.
Each horseman in detail, and its antidote
Criticism attacks the partner's character rather than a specific behavior, and typically arrives with sweeping generalizations: "you always," "you never." The antidote is the gentle start-up, in which one speaks about a concrete behavior using an I-message, saying "I feel" rather than "you are." Contempt is the most destructive of the four and shows itself in an attitude of looking down on the partner, through sarcasm, mockery, eye-rolling, and name-calling. Its antidote is the everyday work of building a culture of fondness and admiration. Defensiveness is a self-protective reaction to criticism and appears as denial of responsibility, counter-criticism, or a posture of injured innocence. Its antidote is accepting some part of the responsibility, however small. Stonewalling is a complete withdrawal from the conversation, expressed through ignoring, silence, or physically leaving the room. Its antidote is self-soothing: stepping away deliberately to calm down, and then returning to the conversation rather than abandoning it.
The Four Horsemen, personality traits, and compatibility
How often a person resorts to the Four Horsemen is associated with the Big Five traits. People high in neuroticism reach for criticism and defensiveness readily, and because they are prone to emotional flooding they also end up stonewalling. People low in agreeableness are inclined toward criticism and contempt. People low in conscientiousness avoid engaging with problems that need solving, which leads toward stonewalling. In terms of attachment style, anxiously attached people tend toward criticism and defensiveness, while avoidantly attached people tend toward stonewalling. Which horseman shows up most readily is not only a matter of one person's traits but of how two sets of traits meet. A pairing of high neuroticism with low agreeableness, for instance, carries a high risk of escalating criticism, while a pairing of avoidant with anxious attachment carries a high risk of falling into the stonewalling-and-pursuit pattern.