Teaming With Fake Cockroaches

I was digging through my purse for a quarter for the toll. My MBA classmate was driving us back to Boston from Montreal. I pulled out a cockroach.

Not a real one, to be clear, but a plastic one. Real enough that I screamed, and detailed enough that my classmate did too, almost putting us off the road.

I started laughing. (My classmate, less so.) I'd completely forgotten that cockroaches were a thing now.

When my husband and I first started out, he wrote tiny notes. Every time he traveled, he'd leave them: in my sock drawer or tucked into the silverware drawer next to the forks. "You're amazing." "How's your day?"

It lasted maybe a year. Then we had kids, and we both got busy. I forgot it was ever a thing.

The cockroaches started by accident.

We found a few real ones in our kitchen. (Eww.) We took care of it. (Or so I thought.)

This year, April Fool's Day fell on a Wednesday. I opened the kitchen drawer and found a cockroach. I screamed. My husband walked over, reached in, and picked it up with his fingers. (Ack!)

Plastic. A fake cockroach! I'll admit: a pretty good joke.

It turns out he'd ordered them online, sworn the kids to secrecy, and tucked one into the drawer. And then he waited.

Since then, the fake ones pop up. Most times he forgets where he left them, so we both open the drawer or reach in the car's cup holder and jump (or scream).

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Scientist hat on for a second. (I can't help it.)

There's a reason the cockroach works. Researchers spent years watching new couples, and what predicted the couples who lasted was the amount of what they call "positive affect" in the relationship: using humor (the bid) and accepting humor or affection (the response), especially during an argument.

It isn't just couples. Researchers who study work-teams found the same thing. In real team meetings, using and accepting humor, such as a joke that gets picked up and laughed at, tracks with the teams that worked best. More specifically, researchers see better communication, better processes and task distribution, and new solutions.

So the notes and cockroach make sense. It's "positive affect" in action. One person places the

cockroach, and the other person laughs. (Not every couple will find this funny.) And that note or roach bid and response is us making a better team. So cool! (And fun too.)

Sources: Gottman, Coan, Carrère & Swanson (1998), Journal of Marriage and the Family 60: 5-22; Driver & Gottman (2004), Family

Process 43: 301-314; Journal of Applied Psychology 99(6): 1278-1287.

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Got a partner-prank that's become its own tradition? Drop it in the comments. I'd love to hear yours. (Heads up: I might borrow it.)

Know someone whose partner writes notes? Send it their way.

We started Thymely Games because the couples who keep playing together are the ones who stay on the same team. (Even when playing means a plastic cockroach in your purse.) Get on the list and be first to play.

Go have fun!

Michelle

Co-Founder, Thymely Games