MarriageSuccess.com: Tools to Improve a Marriage

There are various emotions that people go through as they experience different events in their life. You and your spouse go through emotions like cheerfulness, anger, grief, fear, and apathy, depending on what’s happening around you.

But each person tends to have a more or less chronic emotional condition too, and they tend to respond with that type of emotion to a variety of events. For example, you have probably known people that are more or less angry all the time, or people who will cry at the least provocation, or people who don’t seem to care about anything, or people who are generally cheerful and upbeat no matter what.

If you knew the chronic emotional state that your spouse tends to be in, and also knew more about that chronic emotional state, you would be able to understand your spouse better and even predict how he or she would act in various situations.

L. Ron Hubbard developed a scale of emotions called the Emotional Tone Scale. He discovered that when people have something good or bad happen to them, that they always move up or down this scale of emotions in a predictable fashion.

â€oeThe Emotional Tone Scale, by L. Ron Hubbard

â€oe4.0 Enthusiasm

â€oe3.5 Strong Interest

â€oe2.5 Boredom

â€oe2.0 Antagonism

â€oe1.5 Anger

â€oe1.1 Covert Hostility

â€oe1.0 Fear

â€oe0.5 Grief

â€oe0.05 Apathy"

For example, if someone is at the level of Strong Interest on the Emotional Tone Scale, and something bad happens to him, he will then move down the Tone Scale through Boredom, Antagonism, Anger, and so on. The degree of how bad the event is will affect how far the person will move down the Tone Scale. If the event were something life threatening over which the person could exert no control, for example, he would go far down the Tone Scale indeed.

Now let’s take the other side of the coin. Let’s say the person is in Anger, but then something good happens, like he receives a promotion, or meets a new romantic interest, then he will tend to move up the Tone Scale through Antagonism, Boredom, Strong Interest, etc.

Repeated losses in life tend to move the person down the Tone Scale as he gets older, thus often leaving him in a fixed low emotional tone. You have probably noticed this phenomenon, where the optimism of youth has faded.

By studying this Emotional Tone Scale fully (and there is a complete chart developed by Mr. Hubbard), you can first of all plot where someone is on the Tone Scale on a chronic or continual basis, and also on a temporary basis. Then you can predict the person’s ability to get along with others, how the person will handle and relay communication, his level of ethics, courage and responsibility, how that person will deal with others, and a number of other factors.

When you are choosing a marital partner, or trying to better understand your spouse, how they act and why they do what they do, or how you act yourself, the Emotional Tone Scale is a great tool.