Contempt
A cold sense that another person is beneath you, of lower worth or competence, and not worth engaging as an equal.
What drives it
Protects one's own status by placing the other below; it ends the relationship as one between equals and removes the need to take the other's view seriously.
How it shows
Work
Eye-rolls, one-sided lip curl or smirk, sighs while someone speaks, sarcasm and mock-politeness ('Thank you so much for that insight'), talking about a team as 'those people'. Not bothering to respond to their points at all.
Relationships
Mockery, name-calling, mimicking the partner's voice, correcting grammar mid-argument, speaking about them to others with a sneer. Gottman's strongest single predictor of divorce.
Self
Cool superiority and a feeling of 'what's the point' about engaging; enjoyment in the other person's incompetence; thinking of them with a label rather than a name.
What tells it apart
Resentment: Resentment is hot and looks up or across at someone who wronged you; contempt is cold and looks down. The resentful person still argues; the contemptuous person no longer bothers.
Anger as a secondary emotion: Anger engages and demands change; contempt disengages and dismisses. Angry people raise their voice to be heard; contemptuous people smirk and look away.
Devaluation: Devaluation is a defence that often swings back to idealisation; contempt can be stable and settled. Watch whether the low view flips after a good interaction.
A test
Watch for the asymmetric smirk, eye-roll or sarcasm while the other person speaks, and ask whether the speaker still treats the other's views as worth answering.
Questions to carry
- While the other person is speaking, what happens on the listener’s face, and how are their points answered?
- Whom have I stopped arguing with because I decided they weren’t worth it?
How strong the research is
moderate. Gottman's finding that contempt predicts relationship breakdown is robust in his lab's data; the claim that contempt has a universal facial expression is weaker than for other emotions.
Where it comes from
Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen, 1986; Paul Rozin and colleagues, 1999; John Gottman, 1994
Sources
- John M. Gottman, What Predicts Divorce? The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes (1994)
- John M. Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (1999)