People are in one of two states in a relationship, Gottman went on. The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It's like a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they'll say, 'Oh, he's just in a crummy mood.' Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (ed. Back Bay Books, 2007) - ISBN: 9780316005043