What the research says about understanding each other

If you are going to spend time reading a report about yourself and your relationship, it is reasonable to ask what the ideas are based on.

Several lines of relationship research give us good reasons to take understanding, reflection and practice seriously.

Across seven studies by Gordon and Chen, feeling understood helped protect relationship satisfaction during conflict. That matters because a disagreement can contain two separate questions: do you agree with me, and do you understand why this matters to me?

A study of 120 married couples tested brief writing exercises that asked participants to reconsider conflict from the perspective of a neutral observer who wanted the best for everyone. Three seven-minute exercises during the second year helped preserve marital quality compared with the continuing decline in the control group. Changing how people interpreted an argument made a measurable difference.

Other research has looked at structured opportunities to examine a relationship together.

The Marriage Checkup trial assigned 215 married couples to facilitated assessment and feedback or a control condition. It found improvements in intimacy, acceptance and relationship outcomes, with the size and persistence of effects varying. A separate trial with 233 Danish couples also found benefits from two checkups.

An online-program trial with 300 couples found improvements in relationship satisfaction and confidence after eight hours of activities and four brief staff calls, compared with a waitlist. It offers evidence that structured work on a relationship problem can help outside a conventional weekly appointment.

Figure Us Out uses its own assessment to identify a personality profile, then uses AI to prepare personalized reports about individual tendencies and how two personalities may interact. The scenes, explanations and suggested responses give you material to examine together: what fits, what needs explaining and what you would like to try.

The studies above tested the processes and programs described, rather than Figure Us Out’s assessment, reports or rating scales. We do not have a published outcome trial of Figure Us Out to cite. These findings support the value of the activities our reports encourage: understanding each other, looking again at a familiar pattern and practicing a different response.

The practical case for using the reports is that they can give you a structured starting point for conversations you have struggled to have: what you meant, what your partner heard, why a response mattered, and what each of you could do differently.

That is the standard a useful explanation should meet: a recognizable example, room for both people’s experience and a response specific enough to make a difference in an ordinary moment.

We have linked the sources throughout these articles and listed them below each one. You can read the original material, understand what it contributes, and judge whether this approach offers something useful for the two of you.

Published by Figure Us Out with AI assistance. Find the sources and further reading below. About the founders.

Sources and further reading (5)

• A. M. Gordon & S. Chen (2016). Feeling understood during relationship conflict. Seven studies using several methods.
• E. J. Finkel, E. B. Slotter, L. B. Luchies, G. M. Walton & J. J. Gross (2013). Conflict reappraisal and marital quality. Randomized intervention; 120 couples followed for two years.
• J. V. Cordova and colleagues (2014). The Marriage Checkup trial. Randomized trial; 215 married couples.
• T. Trillingsgaard, H. N. Fentz, M. Hawrilenko & J. V. Cordova (2016). Marriage Checkup in private practice. Randomized trial; 233 Danish couples.
• B. D. Doss and colleagues (2016). The OurRelationship online-program trial. Randomized trial; 300 couples.