For this assignment, I participated in two online relationship quizzes offered on the Web sites of the Gottman Institute. The first quiz entitled "How Well Do You Know Your Partner" assessed the quality of the friendship in the relationship by addressing: a) my knowledge of my partner's perceptions about herself and others; b) our physical, mental and psychological connection with one another; and c) our communication The Gottman Institute, 2001a).
On the whole, this relationship quiz can be considered to offer a comprehensive assessment of the quality of the relationship by identifying all the key components that are vital to a healthy intimate relationship. Specifically, the statements about my partner's "life dreams" and "basic philosophy of life" (Gottman Institute, 2001a) challenged me to reflect deeply about the inner workings of my partner's beingùaspects that can be easily forgotten in the daily life. At the same time, this relationship quiz's identification of the simple gestures such as how we touch and kiss, talk and think of each other when apart is also extremely useful in helping me attend to the seemingly insignificant details (Gottman Institute, 2001a).
However, I believe that the wording of the relationship quiz may not produce an accurate assessment of relationships for two main reasons. First, statements such as "I often touch or kiss my partner affectionately" lack specific references such as frequency. Second, the "yes-no" format for responding to these statements made me err on the positive side in my assessment of my relationship. The lack of an interval forced me to adopt an "always" or "never" perspective, though an assessment somewhere in the middle would have been more accurate. Therefore, though I believe that this relationship quiz is highly comprehensive, it should be modified to include specific references and/or a Likert rating scale.
The second quiz is entitled "Bids for Con...