The ‘bird test’ is a new relationship trend circling TikTok. The trend was originally shared by user Alyssa Caribardi. It suggests that how your partner responds to something seemingly insignificant, like pointing out a bird, can reveal the strength of your relationship.
In a viral video by Caribardi, she explains, “If you’re with someone, romantic or not, if you say something that could be deemed insignificant and your partner responds with genuine curiosity – that’s a really good sign that your relationship will last a long time.”
She once got coffee with a new friend and noticed a woodpecker outside. She pointed it out with enthusiasm. Her friend responded eagerly. The two then spent around 10 minutes watching the bird and looking up facts about it together.
Caribardi says she now has a strong friendship with this person. She credits the bird test with proving it would last.
Since this video was posted, the trend has spread widely on TikTok. Users now film their own experiments to see whether friends or romantic partners pass the bird test. For example, a girlfriend might exclaim, ‘Come look at this bird!’ to see whether her boyfriend looks up.
Key Takeaways
- Origin: TikTok user Alyssa Caribardi coined the ‘bird test,’ using a partner’s reaction to a small remark as an informal read on relationship health.
- The Science: The idea lines up with Gottman’s research on bids for emotional connection, small everyday attempts to connect that partners can turn toward, away from, or against.
- The Numbers: Gottman’s newlywed studies found couples still together after six years turned toward bids about 86% of the time, versus 33% for couples who later divorced.
- Caution: These striking percentages have not been cross-validated on an independent sample, so they deserve more caution than most popular coverage gives them (Heyman & Slep, 2001).
- In Practice: Small, consistent responsiveness, not one dramatic gesture, is what the underlying research links to lasting relationships.
Is there actual proof behind the ‘bird test’?
The bird test is actually based on established relationship research. What Caribardi describes aligns with what psychologist John Gottman calls ‘bids for emotional connection.’
According to Gottman, bids are attempts people make to connect with others. This could involve sharing a thought, making a gesture, asking a question, or expressing affection.
The idea is that couples who consistently turn toward each other’s bids and respond positively have more fulfilling relationships.
The bird test has captured attention online because it raises awareness of Gottman’s research in a simple, fun to understand analogy.
Behind this trend lies insights into human relationships and how the quality of our emotional connections depends on how much we invest in the little, intimate moments.
One study makes this concrete. Driver and Gottman (2004) filmed 49 newlywed couples during a relaxed, 10-minute dinnertime chat, then separately during a 15-minute conflict conversation.
Coders scored the playfulness, humour and affection in the dinnertime chat, then compared it with how the same couples later handled the disagreement. The direction only ran one way. Warmer, more playful dinners predicted more constructive conflict behaviour, not the reverse.
The researchers called their design “strictly observational and therefore correlational,” a strong pattern but not proof of cause.
Gottman’s wider divorce-prediction research has drawn criticism too. Predictions that look accurate on the original sample often lose accuracy once tested on a fresh group of couples, a problem called cross-validation (Heyman & Slep, 2001). The classic 86%/33% split may not hold up as firmly as it’s usually presented.
The samples themselves are narrow too. Most of Gottman’s newlywed couples were Western, educated and married, the kind of sample psychologists label WEIRD. That may not represent how bids work in every relationship culture (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010).
None of this means turning toward bids doesn’t matter. It means the popular version of the “test” oversimplifies a gradual pattern into a single pass-or-fail moment.
The real research describes a tendency across years. It is not a verdict from one missed bird.
What are bids for emotional connection?
The 86% vs. 33% Split
Bids are attempts people make to connect with others emotionally, according to Dr John Gottman.
Through observing thousands of couples interact, Gottman found that newlyweds who were still together after six years turned toward each other’s bids around 86% of the time.
Whereas newlyweds who had divorced in the six years after their wedding turned toward each other’s bids only 33% of the time (Gottman & Gottman, 2017).
Gottman concludes that the happiest couples consistently turn toward each other’s bids positively, whereas unhappy couples frequently ignore or reject each other’s bids.
An Example: Toward, Away, and Against
In the case of the bird test, imagine you are looking out of your window into the garden and see an interesting bird on the lawn. You say to your partner, ‘Wow, that’s a beautiful bird!’ how they respond indicates whether they turn away, against, or toward your bid. If your partner does not respond to you at all, Gottman suggests this is a partner ‘turning away’ from your bid. If your partner responds with, ‘Be quiet, I’m busy over here,’ this is an example of ‘turning against’ your bid. If your partner responds by coming over to the garden window with you and says something like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a nice bird. I saw a similar one last week.’ then this is your partner ‘turning toward’ your bid.
Examples of bids
Bids can be verbal as well as nonverbal, such as winking to communicate that you are feeling playful or sighing after reading a message on your phone to indicate that you want your partner to ask what is wrong.
Logan Ury, dating coach at the Gottman Institute, claims that the aim of bids is to communicate, ‘I want to emotionally connect with you – please turn toward me.’ But, they are purposefully subtle because directly pleading for connection feels risky and vulnerable.
Below are some examples of bids for emotional connection and what they could be communicating:
- “What have you been up to today?” – Share the events of your day with me.
- “Do you like the food I cooked?” – Show interest or appreciation in my skills.
- “I feel so tired” – Help me feel less stressed.
- “The dog wants to go for a walk, but I don’t have time” – Help me problem-solve.
- “Let’s cuddle” – Be affectionate with me.
- “Let’s choose a board game.” – I want to spend quality time with you.
- “Look at this.” – Pay attention to me.
- “Do you want to walk in the park with me?” – Join me in an adventure.
- “What do you think I should do?” – I value your perspective and want your input.
Why are bids important?
The Emotional Bank Account
Bids for connection are thought to be vital in relationships because consistently responding to them builds trust, fondness, and intimacy over time (Gottman & Gottman, 2017).
More recent research backs this up day by day. A seven-day diary study of 99 couples found that feeling a partner was responsive predicted higher satisfaction, both that day and across the week (Candel & Turliuc, 2021).
Responsiveness even softened the sting of unrelated relationship strains, cushioning satisfaction rather than adding to it.
Ellie Lisitsa from the Gottman Institute explains that frequently accepting bids creates positive momentum and emotional ‘deposits’ in the couple’s ‘Emotional Bank Account.’
These accrued deposits cushion relationships during hard times. If you are having doubts about the relationship, investments in the emotional bank account can help reduce the possibility of fights occurring.
Turning Away vs. Turning Against
Turning away from bids, such as ignoring someone completely, can feel very upsetting to the other person. They may even be more upsetting than turning against bids, according to Zach Brittle at The Gottman Institute.
Rejecting a bid still gives the opportunity to engage or repair, but missing the bid could result in fewer bids being made or making bids elsewhere.
“If your spouse tries to bring up conversation, not even necessarily something positive… it can be very hurtful if you don’t respond. It’s like you threw the ball to them, and they just dropped it.”
Dr Angelica Shie, Clinical Psychologist.
What Happens When Bids Are Missed
Turning towards subtle, everyday bids, such as looking at a bird that your partner points out, can help prevent your partner from feeling neglected and disconnected from you.
Relationships with anyone may not necessarily end due to major blowups, but a thousand small dismisses and turn aways that leave someone feeling emotionally impoverished.
That’s why noticing and meeting someone’s bids for emotional connection, no matter how small, is essential for healthy bonds.
Turning towards a bid sends a clear message. You are telling the bidder, ‘I hear you,’ ‘I would like to understand you,’ ‘I want to be with you,’ and ‘I accept you.’
Couple’s therapist, Colette Jane Fehr, explains that, as humans, it’s normal to make the mistake of missing bids sometimes but expresses why it is important.
She uses an example of times when she has been so engrossed in a TV show that she becomes annoyed at her husband trying to talk to her through it:
“That is him making a reach for me… and even though I don’t mean it this way, anytime I don’t respond back saying ‘What, honey? Tell me more,’ I’m sending a message that you are not important to me. And that erodes at a relationship over time.”
Licensed therapist Esther Perel has described this same pattern in her own clinical work. One partner kept proposing plans. The other always found a reason it couldn’t happen.
As Perel explains, this is “what happens when you reach out with a bid for connection” and it goes unmet.
Perel adds that even a received bid still needs to be noticed and appreciated out loud. Otherwise, its value is lost.
How to respond to a bid
Below are some tips for skilfully responding to bids for connection:
- Make eye contact and put down your phone or other distractions so you can fully focus on the person.
- Respond enthusiastically, even if the bid is minor.
- Ask questions to show interest and learn more about what they’re sharing.
- Validate the underlying emotion, e.g., “It makes sense that you would feel anxious.”
- Share a related story or experience to convey that you relate.
- Offer help or assistance if relevant.
- Apologize quickly if you miss a bid and respond to it.
- If you cannot respond straight away, reassure them that you will respond fully when you feel less overwhelmed.
Putting the phone down matters more than it might seem. Researchers call this “technoference”: phones and other devices interrupting shared time. It’s linked to more conflict about technology use. This also predicts lower relationship satisfaction (McDaniel & Coyne, 2016).
A notification often hides an everyday bid completely.
So, tying this back to the bird test proposed by TikTok user Alyssa Caribardi, next time your friend or partner enthusiastically points out a woodpecker, make sure you don’t ignore them!
Acknowledge that they want to connect with you, so take a moment to admire the bird together or any other bid they present to you.
According to Gottman, you will be nourishing a strong relationship that endures. After all, it’s not grand gestures but small daily attentions that allow intimacy to grow.
References
Brittle, Z. (n.d.). Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids. The Gottman Institute.
Candel, O. S., & Turliuc, M. N. (2021). The role of relational entitlement, self-disclosure and perceived partner responsiveness in predicting couple satisfaction: A daily-diary study. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 609232. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.609232
Driver, J. L., & Gottman, J. M. (2004). Daily marital interactions and positive affect during marital conflict among newlywed couples. Family Process, 43(3), 301-314. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2004.00024.x
Gottman, J., & Gottman, J. (2017). The natural principles of love. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 9(1), 7-26.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Heyman, R. E., & Slep, A. M. S. (2001). The hazards of predicting divorce without cross-validation. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(2), 473-479. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.00473.x
Lisitsa, E. (n.d.). An Introduction to Emotional Bids and Trust. The Gottman Institute.
McDaniel, B. T., & Coyne, S. M. (2016). “Technoference”: The interference of technology in couple relationships and implications for women’s personal and relational well-being. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 5(1), 85-98. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000065
Perel, E. (n.d.). Vocal Criticism & Silent Compliments: Family Dynamics. Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlQyyBOf-PA
Ury, L. (n.d.). Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids. The Gottman Institute.
