Want Your Relationship To Last? Viral 'Bird Test' Offers Insight

There's a new TikTok trend called the "Bird Test" — and if the kids on the social media platform are to be believed, the experiment's supposed to give you instant insights into your romantic relationship.

The Bird Test

Here's how it works:

1. You are chilling with your significant other.
2. You oh so casually and out of the blue gesture toward a bird that may or may not be there, by saying something like, "Oh, check out that bird."
3. If your significant other drops what they are doing and pays attention — it means they are more connected to you.

Why it matters

OK, before you go breaking up over a fictitious bird, the test is basically a shorthand to a greater question — how attuned are you and your partner to each other's needs?

The basics of romantic "bids" for attention

This "Bird Test" is based on a concept called, "bid." A bid can either be verbal or nonverbal, but the purpose is to create an opportunity for a collective experience with someone you care about in hopes that they engage with you enthusiastically.

The concept comes from the research of Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman and Dr. John Gottman — clinical psychologists, and the husband-and-wife team behind the Gottman Institute that studies relationships and marriages.

The research

The Gottmans created an apartment laboratory at the University of Washington in the mid-80s and observed thousands of couples to better understand the science of "bids."

"There were cameras bolted to the walls," said Julie Schwartz Gottman. "We took their urine, blood, blood pressure, measured their heart rate."

The data allowed them to quantify the success rate of "bids" in long-term relationships. The Gottmans found that couples who passed the bird test 86% of the time stay together longer compared to other couples.

"The great relationships are only responding 86% of the time, so 14%, they're just not responding or [offering an] irritable response," said John Gottman.

So "you don't have to be perfect," he added.

The key is to be attentive to your partner's needs as much as you can.

There are nuances, though, the Gottmans said. You must not only communicate your intention, but come off clearly to the other person. So nonverbal cues may not be enough; they may need verbal communication to understand how you're feeling.

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