science

Stonewalling

Stonewalling is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stonewalling rather than just read about it. In short: Stonewalling is a refusal to communicate or cooperate. Such behaviour occurs in situations such as interpersonal relationships, marriage counselling, diplomatic negotiations, politics and legal cases.

Key takeaways

Stonewalling belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stonewalling to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stonewalling from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Stonewalling is a refusal to communicate or cooperate. Such behaviour occurs in situations such as interpersonal relationships, marriage counselling, diplomatic negotiations, politics and legal cases. Body language may indicate and reinforce this by avoiding contact and engagement with the other party. People use deflection in a conversation in order to render a conversation pointless and insignificant. Tactics in stonewalling include giving sparse, vague responses; refusing to answer questions; and responding to questions with additional questions. Stonewalling can be used as a stalling tactic rather than an avoidance tactic. In the original definition by John Gottman, in interpersonal relationships, it is an involuntary physiological condition where one's nervous system shuts down in response to being flooded, and it is part of the pursuer-withdrawer, or criticism-stonewalling cycle.

Politics In politics, stonewalling is used to refuse to answer or comment on certain questions about policy and issues, especially when a committee or politician is under investigation. Stonewalling in politics and business can sometimes create a critical advantage. William Safire wrote that stonewalling was originally used to describe a defensive playstyle in Australian cricket, but its use during president Richard Nixon's Watergate affair brought it into usage in American politics as a "refusal to comment". Stonewalling can also be seen as filibustering, or stalling the passage of bills until they become outdated or changed when engaging in parliamentary procedures.

Relationships John Gottman talked about a negative feedback cycle in the fourth horseman in his Cascade Model of Relational Dissolution. In his studies, "stonewalling" is an involuntary nervous system shutdown response to being flooded, and most frequently happened to men, with women more frequently engaging in "criticism". Criticism and stonewalling are part of a cyclical pattern, also known as pursuer-withdrawer cycle, where one partner reaches out with complaints or criticism, and the other shuts down and withdraws, often triggering physiological flooding in the criticizing partner, which escalates their pursuit and can lead to harsher criticism in an attempt to get a reaction. Conversely, ongoing criticism also drives partners to stonewall as a defense mechanism against feeling overwhelmed. Gottman goes into detail on The Four Horsemen in his book, "The Seven Principles of Making a Marriage Work". As the criticism/stonewalling cycle continues, it becomes the greatest predictor of divorce in a marriage, as the partners don't hear each other or listen to each other's disagreement, concern, side or argument, reduces their ability to engage and help address the situation, and there is no chance for resolution of conflict. When stonewalling occurs, it has both a physiological and psychological effect on the person who is stonewalling. Stonewalling is a physiological reaction, where the nervous system of the person who is stonewalling shuts down, because of a spike in heart rate and an increase in adrenaline and cortisol due to an increase in stress. It can be thought of as a fight or flight response causing the person to freeze. At another level, psychologically, stonewalling acts as a defense mechanism for preserving one's self and emotions. Other signs of stonewalling are silence, mumbling monotone utterances, changing the subject and physically removing oneself from the situation (e.g., leaving the room).

Witnesses Witnesses in court or other legal actions may refuse to cooperate with a counsel by withholding information and refusing to testify. Prosecutors may try to break their united front by offering incentives such as immunity from prosecution. Another tactic of stonewalling is to provide the jurors with misleading information or withhold possibly self-incriminating information. When witnesses use the stonewalling practice, they are usually in an agreement with other witnesses to do the same in order for the tactic to be effective.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stonewalling

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stonewalling claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stonewalling before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stonewalling ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stonewalling

In research: Stonewalling appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stonewalling in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stonewalling is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human behavior, Shunning, Silence, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stonewalling outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Stonewalling in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stonewalling means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Stonewalling out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stonewalling in simple terms?

Why does Stonewalling matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stonewalling?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stonewalling.