Category: conflict management

RESOLVING RECURRING CONFLICTS

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date February 16, 2014
1 Comment on RESOLVING RECURRING CONFLICTS

One day Beetle Bailey and Sarge have a conflict:

As you can see, eventually the conflict is resolved.

But a few days later, the two have another conflict.

Again and again other conflicts spring up between these same two individuals. These recurring conflicts come about with a distinctly higher frequency than usual for two people in the types of situations in which they live and interact.

When we see two people having an unusual amount of recurring conflicts, at some point we might want to dig a little below the surface to figure out why.

Using the DIG Conflict Model to Help with Challenging Conflicts

From time to time on this blog, we have been using the word DIG to remind us of a simple way to briefly summarize any conflict. The letters in the word “DIG” reminds us to look for a desire, what is interfering with achieving the desire, and if someone feels that the person who is viewed as interfering with the desire is guilty of doing something wrong. We also noted earlier that the word “DIG” is a useful memory device because sometimes we have to dig below the surface to understand a conflict (see DIG FOR THE CONFLICT and DEALING WITH CRITICISM BY DIGGING DEEPER).

In an earlier post, I discussed two digging tools that help us to find ways of improving our style of providing criticism and resolving conflicts (see WHY IS CRITICISM SO HARD TO BEAR?). There, I mentioned that it is helpful to stay mindful that when people are criticized, their desire to be liked and to maintain their freedom may become threatened. By keeping this in mind, we can often come up with less threatening alternative styles to engage people during our disagreements. During recurring conflicts, these tools for digging can be very helpful.

Today, we are going to look at three other digging tools because they are especially helpful when we notice that we are dealing with recurring conflicts.

Three Digging Tools Especially Helpful for Resolving Recurring Conflicts

The three digging tools we will focus on today are in the form of questions:

1. What desire might be motivating the conflict?

2. What other desires might be motivating the conflict?

3. Why do the people involved in the problem have this desire in this situation?

To familiarize yourself with this aspect of conflicts, please consider the following Beetle Bailey comic:

From this comic, we might get the impression that Sarge views this situation as a conflict he is having with Beetle, a conflict that we might describe from his perspective as follows: Sarge desires Beetle to wait in a certain spot and interfering with his desire, Beetle wants to wait in a different spot. Sarge believes that if Beetle doesn’t follow his order, he will be guilty of insubordination.

Suppose we ask Sarge if, from his perspective, these two sentences capture a conflict he is having with Beetle, and he replies, “Yes! That lazy bum is trying to goof off again!”

At this point, something strikes me over the head, urging me to dig a little deeper than the two-sentence conflict description Sarge has said captures his conflict with Beetle. It seems to me that Sarge and Beetle seem to be having far more conflicts with one another than is usual between a sargent and a private under his command.

Hmmm. To begin digging into this conflict, I put my tools out there where I can easily get at them. In bold letters I write out the following three questions.

1. What desire might be motivating the conflict? 2. What other desires might be motivating the conflict? 3. Why does the party have this desire in this situation?

As I begin to think about this a little more, I wonder if the desire that I identified in my first attempt to describe the conflict is the best that I can come up with. Is this really about Sarge’s desire to have Beetle wait in the exact spot that he has pointed to?

In this situation I don’t see how Sarge thinks Beetle is likely to behave in a manner that is interfering with what Sarge says he desires. Beetle just asks if he can wait sitting in the shade. Sarge knows Beetle well enough by now so that he must realize that once he orders Beetle to wait where he tells him to wait, he isn’t likely to be insubordinate. Moreover, it wasn’t any problem for Sarge to figure out how to get Beetle to wait where he wanted him to wait. All he had to do was bark orders at Beetle, something he’s done numerous times. Perhaps Sarge has some other desire that is part of the reason he is getting so worked up here.

My memory scans over the other recent conflicts I’ve seen happen between Sarge and Beetle. I recall, over and over again, situations that had Sarge perceiving Beetle as lazy.

I also recall seeing many times over the years Sarge becoming furious about Beetle’s laziness.

OK, so in most of the situations that conflicts spring up between the two, laziness is an issue.

Let’s pretend, for instructional purposes, that I can explore with Sarge whether or not we can reword the original conflict description as a recurring conflict.

“Sarge, I’m gonna describe your conflict a little differently than before because I don’t think the original description is as good as we can make it. If you don’t mind, let me know if it is more or less accurate. Earlier I described it from your perspective as follows: You desire that Beetle wait in a certain spot and Beetle interfered with your desire when he indicated that he wants to wait in a different spot. You believe that if Beetle doesn’t follow your order, he will be guilty of insubordination. You agreed that it is pretty accurate. But what if I describe it instead like this: You have a desire to have privates under your command that are energetic go-getters, and after Beetle was assigned to your outfit you have found his laziness has been interfering with this desire. You believe Beetle is, and will continue to be, guilty of laziness.”

“Yes, that is a much better description of my conflict with Beetle than your original description.”

“I thought it might be. Beetle has been in your outfit for years. Specific conflicts arose. To deal with his laziness I’ve noticed that you have yelled at him, given him KP duty that required that he peel potatoes up to his ears, and used all manner of threats and physical attacks.

Beetle at least listens to your orders, though sometimes taking them a bit too literally. But, nevertheless, he is never blatantly insubordinate. Although Beetle continues to be lazy, you found that with a little assertive hollering (“I SAID WAIT HERE, AND I MEAN RIGHT HERE!”) he usually complies even if he has to stand in place while a steam shovel comes roaring by.”

“Yeah, but he keeps acting lazy. It’s driving me BERSERK!”

“I can tell it’s starting to really get to you.”

“You’re telling me!!!”

“This last conflict you had with Beetle was resolved with so little difficulty that it really didn’t qualify as a conflict or even a problem. And yet, Sarge, you remained angry. And this kind of troubling interaction with Beetle has been happening in one situation after another. Something else has to be going on.”

“Sarge, I noticed that in each situation that you get angry with Beetle Bailey, it usually has to do with his laziness.”

“You’re right about that!”

Once Sarge clearly understands the nature of his recurring conflict, he is in a better position to seek out a resolution. Before he understood this, when he would complain to his fellow sergeants about Beetle not doing this or that, they would ask, “Well, did you get him to do it?” When Sarge would answer yes, they would shrug, and say, “At least he’s not insubordinate.” But now Sarge tells his fellow sergeants, “See if you can help me with this problem. I want privates under my command to be energetic, hustling team members, and after Beetle was assigned to my outfit I’ve found his laziness has been interfering with this desire. Beetle continues to be guilty of laziness. Any of you have any ideas to fix this?”

“Well, I had a recruit once by the name of Bob,” says one of the sergeants, “and he was the laziest bum I ever saw in my life. Well, what I did was, I told this here Bob, the next time you do anything that strikes me as lazy, I’m gonna put you on KP duty until you go a whole two weeks without my catching you acting lazy. Then I’m gonna let you off KP duty until I catch ya being lazy again. We’re gonna keep doing this until you stop being lazy. Anyway, it worked like a charm.”

Now I’m not saying this plan is ideal or that it will work every time. I simply lay it out there as a part of a parable designed to give you an example of a recurring conflict and to suggest that by digging a little to better define a conflict, we are oftentimes better positioned to seek more specific, helpful advice.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags Beetle Bailey, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, desire, dig for the conflict, dispute management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, negative criticism, recurring conflict

Chris Christie conflict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults politicians Rep. Michael Grimm

THE IMMATURITY OF POLITICIANS

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date February 9, 2014
1 Comment on THE IMMATURITY OF POLITICIANS

Regular readers of this blog well know that I have been advocating that there are some ways of responding to interpersonal situations that are more mature than others. For example, in one post I describe four levels of maturity for responding to criticism. In another, I describe five levels of maturity for providing negative criticism. In those posts, I contend that when dealing with criticism the use of insults and threats tend to lower your level of maturity. Moreover, people who are less mature tend to be less liked and respected, and in the long run, less effective in achieving their goals. Shortly after I began to write these posts, I began to hear from some people who wondered if my levels of maturity don’t apply in the realm of politics. One reflection of this sentiment came from E. Mark Stern who wrote: My wife is in local politics. And though she decided to run for office knowing that there would be political opponents, she had not bargained for the name calling and personal attacks on her being….One may think of such bullying as much in the American tradition – a to be expected risk that elected officials need to grin and bear. But when attacks get personal, and one’s being is fair target, then it gets intolerable and the people one serves suffer for it. After reading these types of comments, I began to think of the many attack ads that we all are exposed to during political campaigns. And then I thought about what I had heard from several TV political analysts over the year–attack ads are used because they work. There is obviously a great deal of money to be made from producing and running these ads for the very same people who hire TV political analysts, so I decided to look deeper into this claim.

How Effective Are Attack Ads?

According to an August 8, 2013 article in Scientific American: “A comprehensive literature analysis published in 2007 in the Journal of Politics examined the effects of political ads. The authors reported that negative ads tended to be more memorable than positive ones but that they did not affect voter choice. People were no less likely to turn out to the polls or to decide against voting for a candidate who was attacked in an ad.” The Scientific American article goes on to say that the reviewed studies all had some drawbacks and therefore evidence on the effectiveness of negative political ads is best viewed as inconclusive. After looking at the scientific evidence for the insulting actions that politicians regularly engage in, I wrote two posts that tried to throw some light on this topic–one back on October 13, 2012 about two presidential debates, and a more recent one on January 13, 2014 about New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie’s use of insults. Since I wrote those posts, a couple of particularly vivid examples came to my attention. The first again involves Governor Christie; the other involves US Congressman Michael Grimm.

The Governor Christie Example

This example I first learned about it on the Feb. 6, 2014, edition of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. According to Rachel’s report, on Nov. 17, 1996, Chris Cristie, who had recently been elected to be a Morris County Freeholder, made a public apology and retraction to two people who ran against him in the Republican primaries. He had claimed in attack ads that they were under investigation for their part in some corruption scandal. Here is his apology: Dear Cissy and Ed, I am writing to express my sincere apology to both of you and your families concerning two political advertisements which ran on my behalf during the Freeholders Primary Election Campaign in May and June, 1994. The commercials ran over 400 times on cable TV. He goes on to state that “the ads were not appropriate. They should not have been part of my campaign when I ran against you. I fully intend, in any future campaigns in which I am involved, to be more sensitive to the impact of such tactics. I hope you will accept this heartfelt apology in which it is made.”

Rachel reported that the “spirit in which that apology was made is that it was legally required of Chris Christie after he was sued over those ads.” Although the ads were declared false after the election was over, Rachel expressed her belief that they worked for Christie who won that race. I’m not really sure I agree with Rachel that the ads worked. We really don’t know for a fact that Christie wouldn’t have won the election anyway. In addition to the apology, as part of settling the law suit, Christie had to pay money to the people that he ran the ads against. After the voters heard what he had done, they failed to reelect him when he ran again for the same seat. Moreover, he tried to get elected during that same period to another office, and again he lost. Christie was only able to get back into politics after that incident after raising a great deal of money for George W. Bush during Bush’s run for president, who then rewarded Christie by naming him top federal prosecutor of NJ even though he was never a prosecutor before at any level. The years went on, and finally Christie again ran for office–this time for Governor of New Jersey–and won.

The Rep. Michael Grimm Example

About a year or so ago, Rep. Grimm was being interviewed by Michael Scotto, a NY1 reporter, about President Obama’s State of The Union speech. When Scotto tried to turn the conversation to the subject of a two-year federal investigation into allegations of a campaign finance violations investigation, Grimm told him, “I’m not speaking about anything that’s off topic. This is only about the President,” and then he walked away. But as Scotto was talking to viewers back in New York, the Congressman stormed back into the shot and threatened and insulted him. “Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I’ll throw you off this f—–g balcony,” Grimm said. “Why, why, I just wanted to ask you …?” Scotto responded. “If you ever do that to me again …,” the Representative shot back. “It’s a valid question,” Scotto said in his defense, but Grimm replied: “No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy,” according to the NY1 transcript. The next day, Grimm issued a public apology: “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to get the better of me and lose my cool. I have apologized to Michael Scotto, which he graciously accepted, and will be scheduling a lunch soon. In the weeks and months ahead I’ll be working hard for my constituents on issues like flood insurance that is so desperately needed in my district post-Sandy.”

Discussion

I began this post by contending that: 1. there are some ways of responding to interpersonal situations that are more mature than others 2. when dealing with criticism the use of insults and threats tend to lower your level of maturity 3. people who are less mature tend to be less liked and respected, and in the long run, less effective in achieving their goals. If I am correct, why then do so many politicians regularly display behaviors that I characterize as immature?

One reason that we looked at was that many people have a financial interest in selling the idea that smear tactics do work. In actuality, the best scientific evidence currently available suggests that this claim is false. Since this evidence is not perfect, the best that we can say for the claim is that there is no convincing evidence to support it despite years of research that has focused on addressing this issue.

After discussing this research, I then presented two examples of politicians using immature ways to criticize others. Chris Christie used a smear campaign against his opponents in a Republican primary. Although he won the election, he had to issue a public apology, pay a financial settlement and he became unelectable for several years afterwards. Rep. Grimm desired to not have to publicize the fact that there has been an investigation into allegations regarding his campaign. When he criticized a reporter for bringing the topic up in front of a TV camera, he included in his criticism, threats and insults. Like Christie, he too had to issue a public apology. Moreover, because of his immature actions, the press publicized the story to a far greater audience leading to far more people learning about the investigation.

The levels of maturity for responding or providing negative criticism are most relevant to your interpersonal relationships. The relationship between politicians and their voters is best viewed as an intergroup relationship, rather than an interpersonal one. This intergroup relationship involves the group of people who might potentially vote for him, the group of people who have a vested interest in getting the politician elected, and the groups of people who are working to get someone else elected.

Although I contend that the levels of maturity are relevant in intergroup relationships, other issues often become more important. When people decide on who to vote for, they consider many issues, not just whether or not the candidate insults anyone. If some voters recognize that Governor Christie insults others a bit more than other candidates, they may feel that his stand on keeping taxes low is a far more important issue for them. Politicians, moreover, are not seeking to develop a sound interpersonal relationship with you. Instead, they are seeking your vote. They know very well that not everyone is going to vote for them. If they anger 49 percent of voters, but 51 percent end up voting for them, they achieved their goal, at least in the short run. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, if you act in a manner that leads to 49 percent of the people you personally know not liking you, those who don’t like you can begin to say things behind your back to people who actually personally interact with you. Some of what they say can be untrue and very unfair. You may find that when people that you like have parties, you no longer get invited. When you used to be invited to go bowling, now someone else is getting invited instead. These types of consequences have far more direct effects on your personal life than anything that is likely to happen as a result of a typical election. And so, for these reasons, I hope that you don’t come to believe that because many politicians act in insulting ways throughout their careers that this means that the notion of maturity is irrelevant to your own interpersonal relationships.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, Governor Chris Christie, Governor Christie, insults, interpersonal relationships, maturity levels, Michael Scotto, negative criticism, politicians, Rachel Maddow, Rachel Maddow Show, Rep. Michael Grimm

conflict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults interpersonal conflicts MATURITY negative criticism social intelligence types of criticism wisdom

LEARNING TO HANDLE CRITICISM MATURELY: A PRACTICE SESSION UTILIZING COMIC STRIP EXAMPLES

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date January 26, 2014
2 Comments on LEARNING TO HANDLE CRITICISM MATURELY: A PRACTICE SESSION UTILIZING COMIC STRIP EXAMPLES

In an earlier post, eight reasons were given for why someone might criticize or insult you. Becoming familiar with the various reasons is helpful because once you identify the reason, it becomes easier to choose a plan to maturely deal with the criticism. If you see that someone is just playfully teasing you, just a smile may be all that is needed as a response. If someone is criticizing you because he or she is in a bad mood, all that might be needed is a gentle, sympathetic response such as, “Is everything okay?”

One of the most frequent reasons why people might criticize you is to encourage you to make some type of improvement. For example, let’s say we’re going out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. I see that you have a stain on your shirt. I might say, “Your shirt has a stain on it.” In this example, I criticized your shirt because I want to encourage you to change your shirt for something that I think would be an improvement.

When we discussed handling this type of criticism, I proposed that there were:

Five levels of maturity for responding to this type of criticism (see posts titled RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY and RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: THE MOST MATURE LEVEL).

and

Five levels of maturity for providing this type of criticism (see post titled PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY).

Today we will have some fun practicing identifying what level of maturity is being displayed by a comic strip character and then describing what the character would have to do to earn a more mature rating. By diligently working on the following exercises, you will find that you will be far better at applying these skills to real life situations.

Exercises with Comics

These exercises require that you read a comic and then respond to one or more questions. After you create each of your answers, you will have the opportunity to compare it to how I would go about analyzing the situation.

Here’s an interesting one. Linus criticizes his sister, Lucy, in the hope that this will encourage her to make an improvement. How would you rate Lucy’s response to Linus’s criticism?

MY ANSWER:Of the FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY FOR RESPONDING TO CRITICISM, the lowest level is described as follows:

1. This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

Weeps or sobs with tears or pouts
Physically attacks the criticizer
Damages property

Because Lucy hits Linus, she deserves a rating of 1, the lowest level of maturity.

It is interesting that after she hits Linus, Lucy does begin to ask for more information about the criticism he had provided. This is encouraging from a developmental point of view. It suggests that Lucy is at least trying to come to some understanding about the criticism. Mature individuals do process the criticism they receive rather than just ignore it. But once Lucy has shown Linus that she is likely to slug him when he provides her criticism, he is unlikely to be willing to provide her even more criticism out of fear he would get slugged again. And so, even though Lucy is interested in learning more about this “talking too much” issue, she may not get a fair and accurate report. The fact that we silence people from providing important information to us when we hit them is one of the reasons hitting leads to a very low rating. Wise people encourage criticism rather that discourage it.

Although Lucy’s interest in the criticism does suggest that maturity is beginning to blossom within her, the rating system calls for a rating of 1 if she hits someone regardless of what else she does. However, if you would like to give her a little higher rating because she shows some real interest in the criticism, that’s fine with me.

In the next comic, Charlie Brown is provided two types of criticism, first positive and then negative. How would you rate each of Charlie’s two responses?

My Answer: As Patty is telling Charlie what’s on her mind, he seems to be smiling, and then he says, “Well, thank you, Patty…I appreciate the compliment.” This seems to be very consistent with a level 4 response.

Patty then replies, “Don’t mention it…I think that’s the least a person can say about you…” Charlie appears to be offended by this. There is a hint of a lowered eyebrow in the final picture (Mr. Shultz often used a lowered eyebrow to convey anger). Also, Charlie’s mouth is wide open, and the word, “LEAST” is in bold letters, followed by an exclamation mark. I’m going to give Charlie’s second response a 3 because it matches the level 3 description, which states:

3. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

Displays defensiveness without directly insulting the criticizer (raising voice’s volume or pitch)
Displays a lack of interest either by verbally indicating this, or with nonverbal cues, or complete silence.

I think Charlie’s response matches level 3 because he made it pretty clear to Patty, without hitting her or calling her any names, that he has become defensive as a result of her second criticism. If Charlie had said the same words, but with a twinkle in his eyes, followed by a friendly smile, I would have given his response pretty close to a level 4.

Let’s do a Calvin and Hobbes comic; they’re so much fun. As you read it, please take a look to see how Susie handles Calvin’s criticism and then give her response your rating.

My Answer: After Calvin criticizes Susie’s statement about Hobbes looking cuddly by saying, “HA!”she does not cry, hit Calvin, destroy any property, insult or glare at him, nor does she indicate that she is uninterested in his criticism, so she doesn’t deserve to get a 1, 2, or 3 rating for her response. She begins by saying, “Ferocious?” This indicates to me that she has heard at least a part of the criticism and is giving it some thought. Summarizing the criticism is one way to show that whatever was said by the criticizer has been heard, and this is an important part of a level 4 response (“…the person criticized makes it clear that he or she fully understands what was said.”).

Later in her response, Susie indicates that she disagrees with Calvin’s criticism by saying, “No, he’s not. He’s a big cutie.” Then she hugs Hobbes and smiles sweetly.

Level 4 responses permit people to disagree, but it must be done without being disagreeable. I’m not sure if Calvin completely sees Susie’s style of disagreeing with him as not being disagreeable, but it strikes me as rather sweet.

In the last scene, Calvin and Hobbes argue and Hobbes says, “I was beguiled by her feminine charms, yow.” Because we, the readers, know Hobbes is really a stuffed animal, the words of Hobbes really are designed to capture a little of how Calvin feels inside. Thus Calvin recognizes at some level that Susie’s responses in the interaction he had with her were somewhat beguiling. I guess I’m leaning toward giving Susie a rating pretty close to a level 4. She could have been a little warmer to Calvin and showed some empathy for his desire to have a stuffed tiger that looks ferocious, so I’ll remove some fraction of one off her level 4 rating and give her a 3.8. If Susie was a student of mine, I’d provide her rating in the following format—“I gave you 4 points because your plan best matches the level 4 description, and then I subtracted .2 points because you didn’t show you fully understood Calvin’s criticism. Therefore you earned a 3.8.”

In the following Baby Blues comic the wife is angry about something.

It looks pretty obvious to me that the wife is angry because her husband is relaxing while she is doing one chore after another. Pretend that you are her and you decide to criticize your husband. This leads you to pause to consider how you are inclined to do this. You see within yourself that you plan to act nasty to him. Please rate that plan and then see if you can come up with something more mature.

My Answer: If I was imagining I was the wife in this situation, I would rate the plan that is used in the comic a 2 because it best matches the level 2 description:

This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

The criticizer does not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead expresses displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm
Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said

In seeking to figure out a more mature response, I think I might end up creating something like this— I’d say to my husband, “When I’m cleaning around the house and you are relaxing, I prefer that you get up and get your own drink. Are you okay with that?” Then I would listen to his response in a caring manner, show him that I heard what he said, and then, if I wanted to provide some additional negative criticism to him because I disagreed with his response, I would pause to rate the response I am inclined to make, and try to create something more mature.

Well, this concludes our little practice session for today. I hope you had some fun.

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Tags Calvin and Hobbes, Charlie Brown, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, maturity, negative criticism, types of criticism

anger Bullied bullying conflict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults interpersonal conflicts MATURITY Name calling negative criticism playful teasing psychological maturity respect social intelligence taunting teasing types of criticism wisdom

PUTTING DOWN NON-GROUP MEMBERS

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date January 20, 2014
4 Comments on PUTTING DOWN NON-GROUP MEMBERS

On this blog, I have often discussed various reasons why someone might throw insults at you, and, depending on the reason, how to maturely deal with these challenging experiences (see for example, “Insults: A Comic Strip Guide“). If John is throwing an insult at you because he is in a bad mood, just asking in a concern manner, “Is everything OK, John, you sound like something is bothering you?” might be a useful way to begin to respectfully deal with this type of situation. You might want to respond differently, however, if you see that John is insulting you because he hopes it will encourage you to make a change he thinks you need to make. In this type of situation, beginning your response by initially ignoring the insult and instead summarizing his concern could be more helpful than asking if everything is OK or making a big thing about the insult.

In earlier posts, we have discussed eight different reasons why people throw insults at others, and mature responses to deal with each of these situations. Today let’s focus on some ways to deal with situations in which you might find yourself being insulted by those in a group because they view you as a non-group member.

Putting Down Non-group Members

Many people have a desire to join together in a common cause. This can dramatically increase their own personal power. And it is one of the big reasons why playing a game like baseball can be so much fun. Hit a homer or even a ground ball that brings in the winning run, and your group is patting you on the back and cheering.

When immature people join together, however, because of their lack of empathy, they often join together to put down and humiliate non-group members–particularly if the non-group members are a minority or viewed as too powerless to defend themselves.

Sometimes we see this sort of behavior occur when a new girl starts a new school.

When someone faces these types of difficult situations, what is a respectable way to respond? No single blog post can fully answer this question, but I would like to throw out some ideas for your consideration. Let’s begin with a parable.

The Parable of Jason and Ron

As you look at the four pictures of this parable, let me add some details. When Jason says, “I’m sorry you feel that way, Ron,” he looks squarely into Ron’s eyes. Then he gives Ron a slight nod of his head and goes on his way. Throughout the interaction between Jason and Ron, Jason remains friendly, while at the same time, self-assured.

When I was in school, one day I noticed a boy handle a similar situation like Jason. The other students seemed to respect how the boy handled the teasing. So I began to rehearse this style in front of a mirror over the course of a few days. The next time one of the older students teased me, I gave it a try. It ended up working just fine.

The “Give The Teasers What They Want” Approach

Now I understand that the approach described in “The Jason and Ron Parable” might not work perfectly in every situation. Acting self-assured might actually increase the desire by group members to prove that they are powerful and the person being insulted is nothing but a pile of trash. To try to prove this, they might insult you even worse than if you said nothing, or they might even physically attack you. Because of this risk, many people faced with insults from a larger, more powerful group choose to give the teasers what they want–to feel they are more powerful than others. People using this approach, when faced by these teasers, keep their eyes down toward the ground, and try to walk away as quickly as they can without saying anything. In this way, they don’t challenge the teasers sense of power in any way.

I’ve seen people use the “Give the Teasers What They Want” approach and it sometimes works to a certain degree. The immature group members, with their lack of empathy toward others, after saying a few mean things, let the teased person walk by, and there is no more of these incidences. The group members feel that they had a little fun and the teased person gets away without any physical harm. His or her feelings might feel hurt, but this passes before too long.

I must admit that I used this approach a few times when I was young. It bothered me that I didn’t stand up for myself in a more “manly” manner, but at the same time I was glad that I got home safe.

The “Physical Attack” Approach

Now in contrast to the approach used in the “Jason and Ron Parable” and the “Give The Teasers What They Want” approach, some people have made the case that if anyone insults you, the only proper way to deal with this is to start swinging with everything you got. It doesn’t matter if you end up getting ganged up, beaten severely, or evenbeing killed, you must physically attack to maintain your dignity. Consider Mike’s story.

Mike’s Story

One day, I received a comment on my blog by a young man who recalled an incident that he had had when he was a new kid at school. “On the school bus,” he wrote, “I began to get picked on. I was not the kind of mature kid who ignored the situation and so I ended up getting into fights as a result. I’d like to preface my next statement with the following–I am not condoning fighting and do not recommend fighting as a solution to any type of verbal altercation. That being said, after showing the bullies that I’d stand up for myself, not only did the bullying come to an abrupt end, but I ended up becoming friends with several of them and seemed to garner the respect of many of the other kids on the bus. Again I’m not condoning fighting but am suggesting that in some cases a show of strength can be an effective way to resolve conflict.”

Here’s how I responded to Mike:

Hi Mike,

You are absolutely right. In some situations a kid who starts to get picked on will physically go at those doing the tormenting. The tormentors end up backing down, others end up respecting the kid who shut the tormentors up, and the kid even ends up making friends with the tormentors. This is a real possibility. Now, let’s consider other possibilities of a kid physically going at his tormentors so all of us can make an informed decision about how best to handle these types of situations.

In one case that I’m familiar with, a boy that we will call Cal, went to his dad and complained in a choked up voice of a bully picking on him on the bus. The dad, having had a very similar experience when he was young that you had, Mike, began to holler at his son. “If someone picks on you, you go at him with everything you have and that will shut him up. That’s how I handled that type of situation and it worked every time. I can’t believe you didn’t do that. Here you are crying over it. I’m ashamed of you!”

What the dad didn’t know at the time was that Cal had already witnessed another kid on the bus who was bigger and stronger than him try to do just what his dad had said to do. The bully quickly grabbed the arm of this kid, twisted it behind his back until it was excruciatingly painful. After the kid tried his best to get free, the twisted arm was twisted tighter and the kid let out a scream. The bus driver yelled to quiet down. The bully then loosened his grip on the kid, slapped him on the side of his face, and said, “If you ever start in with me again, I’ll catch you after school and you’ll really be sorry.”

Cal, seeing this happen to someone he knew was stronger than he is, became increasing depressed and when he began to talk about killing himself, he ended up in my office. Before long he blurted out all that he was going through.

Now, here’s another possible outcome of a kid going physically at bullies. The kid ends up winning the fight, or at least does enough harm to the bullies, that they settle down for the remainder of the trip. But the bullies belong to a gang, and having embarrassed the bullies on the bus, the gang decides to get revenge. The kid gets attacked and ends up with serious injuries, or even dead.

Or the bullies, seeing that they can’t get the kid to kowtow to them, end up working up their fury until they begin to get revenge by doing some things behind the kid’s back. The kid discovers his backpack has been slashed and in the crowd that is looking on, he sees the bullies smirking. Then the kid’s bike is stolen. Again the bullies have smirks on their faces. The kid tries to get even, the conflict escalates, and before long someone gets knifed or a gun explodes.

These are just some of the other outcomes that have occurred when someone has decided to physically attack bullies. Each person has to consider the situation and decide what is right.

Since writing the above reply to Mike, I read Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, Outliers. In one of his chapters, I learned that communities that have a higher than average percentage of people who hold the attitude that the only way to deal with people being disrespectful to you is to physically attack them tend to have higher than average murder rates. Is that the type of community you wish to live in. Some of the bullets that fly by in those communities end up striking people who are not even involved in the anger arousing situation, including children. And so, I think people should think seriously about this issue.

Making a choice between which type of approach to use in any given situation requires some deep thought. I hope this post gives you some useful material as you go about deciding for yourself what makes the best sense.

——————–
Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, bullied, bullies, bully, bullying, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, dispute management, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, maturity, non-group members, out groups, psychological maturity, types of criticism, wisdom

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GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE’S USE OF INSULTS

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date January 13, 2014
1 Comment on GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE’S USE OF INSULTS

In earlier posts on this blog I have advocated that it can be helpful to become familiar with five levels of maturity for responding to negative criticism and five levels of maturity for providing negative criticism (see for example Providing Negative Criticism: Five Levels of Maturity). In those posts, I have contended that when responding or providing negative criticism the use of insults tends to lower your level of maturity. Moreover, people who are less mature tend to be less liked and respected.

If the arguments that I have made in those earlier posts are accurate, how then can I explain the successful career that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has had? Here is a man who is well known to use insults when he is criticized and when he is criticizing others. Here is a man who likes to characterize his use of insults as his way of being “blunt and direct” even though a person can surely be blunt and direct without seeking to insult people. Here is a man who has managed to get himself elected as a county legislator in New Jersey’s Morris County, appointed as United States Attorney for New Jersey, elected Governor of New Jersey twice, and viewed as one of the front runners for the next U.S. presidential election. Here is a man that many people have come to admire.

By addressing this apparent paradox between my proposed levels of maturity and the success of Gov. Christie, readers will have an opportunity to come to a more refined, precise understanding of how to utilize the levels of maturity as a guide for dealing with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.

Explaining the Paradox

First of all, as I have explained in earlier posts, the five levels of maturity for responding or providing negative criticism are most relevant to your interpersonal relationships and your intrapersonal relationships. As I define these terms, your interpersonal relationships are your interactions with people with whom you have direct, face to face interactions on an ongoing basis; your intrapersonal relationships involve interactions that you have with yourself.

The relationship that Gov. Christie has with his voters is best viewed as an intergroup relationship, rather than either an interpersonal or intrapersonal relationship. This intergroup relationship involves the group of people who might potentially vote for him, the group of people who have a vested interest in getting the governor elected, and the groups of people who are working to get someone else elected. Although the five levels of maturity are relevant in intergroup relationships, other issues often become more important.

In an interpersonal relationship, if you attempt to insult the person whom you are interacting with, that person might insult you back and the interaction can escalate into violence. When we see Gov. Christie seeking to insult someone, he almost always has a group of supporters standing behind him and a team of armed security personnel well trained to intervene if an insulted party makes any moves at all that can be viewed as violent. Under this set of circumstances, it is far safer to play the part of a tough guy who doesn’t take any crap from anyone than if you, personally, seek to insult someone with whom you have an interpersonal relationship.

Here’s another difference between what typically happens during your interpersonal relationships and the intergroup interactions that involve the governor. When someone directly seeks to insult you, unless you are well trained in handling this in a peaceful manner, you are likely to take the insult personally. The emotions that arise in this situation are more likely to be stronger than if you see on TV, or in a large arena, the governor throwing insults at someone you are not likely to personally know.

The governor, moreover, is not seeking to develop a sound interpersonal relationship with you. He is, instead, seeking your vote. He knows very well that not everyone is going to vote for him. If he angers 49 percent of voters, but 51 percent end up voting for him, he’s achieved his goal. In the last election, the governor managed to get 60% of the vote and not only did this mean that he was reelected, but the media repeatedly described his win as a landslide victory. This victory meant that 40% of the voters voted for someone else. Now, when it comes to interpersonal relationships, if you act in a manner that leads to 4 people out of 10 not liking you, this can lead to far more direct problems for you then if 4 out of 10 people don’t vote for you in a statewide election. Those who don’t like you can begin to say things behind your back to people who actually personally interact with you. Some of what get says can be untrue and very unfair. You may find that when people that you like have parties, you no longer get invited. When you used to be invited to go bowling, now someone else is getting invited. These types of consequences have far more direct effects on your personal life than anything that is likely to happen as a result of a New Jersey election.

When people decide on who to vote for, they consider many issues, not just whether or not the candidate insults anyone. When Gov. Christie insults someone, many voters are apt to say to themselves, he isn’t doing anything different than all the other politicians. They therefore decide to choose a candidate based on other issues. If some voters recognize that Governor Christie insults others a bit more than other candidates, they may feel that his stand on keeping taxes low is a far more important issue for them.

Gov. Christie’s popularity, in my opinion, is largely based on his positions on the issues and, indeed, on some of his personal characteristics. Although the media plays up, and repeatedly show instances in which he insults people, if you really follow his career, you find that the vast majority of the time he conducts himself in a manner very consistent with the highest levels of maturity. When someone criticizes him, most often he listens without getting defensive, clearly shows that he understands the criticism, and when he agrees with the criticism, he says so. When he disagrees, in a warm and friendly style he very articulately explains why he disagrees. People who have not made up their minds on a particular issue have an opportunity to see his take on the issue and a significant amount of undecided voters end up becoming convinced that the governor’s position is correct.

Gov. Christie has demonstrated that he knows how, when he is criticized or when he criticizes others, to act in the most mature manner. When he does choose to throw an insult at someone, in the vast majority of cases he is very careful to do so when it is unlikely to harm him politically. You can be sure that when he was the United States Attorney for New Jersey, any time he disagreed with one of the judges involved in a case he was working on he never chose to directly insult the judge. If he had, his career would have taken a tailspin.

The governor knows full well that there are voters in New Jersey who will never vote for him no matter what he says. And so, when he chooses to insult someone, it is almost always directed at that group of people or the positions that they tend to believe in. By doing so, his supporters come to see him as a leader who will be a strong defender of the positions they hold dear.

In recent events involving some lane closings on the George Washington Bridge into New York City that created gridlock traffic in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Gov. Christie began to use his style of insults in a very different manner than I had become accustomed to, and it has landed him in a heap of trouble. The lane closings appeared to some reporters as a “get back” strategy designed to punish someone who didn’t support Gov. Christie in his latest run for reelection. When questioned about this, the governor became sarcastic, and he sought to insult the questioners, saying they were “obsessing” over a minor issue, and claiming that the questioners must “having nothing else to do.”

This incident does demonstrate that using the most mature levels of dealing with criticism can be important even in the political arena. If the governor, when he was being criticized for how he was handling the bridge lane closings incident, instead of responding with insults, replied in a manner consistent with a 4 or 5 level of maturity, his response would have looked something like this:

“I understand your concern. Those lane closings led to thousands of people being inconvenienced for several days. If it was one of my kids who ended up missing two hours of school for no apparent good reason, I would have been very upset, and as someone who cares about my fellow New Jersey citizens, I am very upset. Making this situation worse was that police and ambulances had difficulty getting to where they were needed. This is a very serious issue, and I am bound and determined to get to the bottom of what happened.”

Such a response would have shown the questioner and all that listened in that he shared their concerns and had empathy for those who were involved in the mess. Because of his more immature responses, a few days ago, after it became more and more apparent that his administration was indeed involved in a “get back” scheme, the governor had to apologize for his insulting actions. In his nearly two hours of addressing the criticism in a national televised press hearing, the governor did not even once attempt to insult those who were publicly criticizing him as they asked their questions. Instead, the governor modeled the most mature levels of responding to criticism. Will it be enough to overcome all that he created when he responded at the lowest levels? We’ll have to wait and see.

———————
Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE

Tags anger, bully, bullying, Chris Christie, conflict management, criticism, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, interpersonal relationships, maturity levels, respect, wisdom

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PROVIDING POSITIVE CRITICISM: THREE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 29, 2013
2 Comments on PROVIDING POSITIVE CRITICISM: THREE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Earlier on this blog, I provided a post that describes what I view as the five levels of maturity for providing negative criticism. Now let’s turn our attention toward providing positive criticism.

With positive criticism—that is, criticism that points out what we like about someone’s actions, possessions, or appearance—our task of distinguishing mature responses from immature ones is considerably easier than when it comes to doing likewise for providing negative criticism. That’s because people are far less likely to become defensive when you inform them that you like something related to them. I think just three levels of maturity are sufficient.

Level 1, the most immature form of positive criticism, is described as either:

A. too much positive criticism for something that is just too minor to warrant positive criticism

B. vague flattery.

In the above Sally Forth comic, the coach is giving so much positive criticism about good hustling for the girls’ slightest efforts that they are becoming sick and tired of hearing it. Thus, this is an example of positive criticism that best matches level 1.

If, instead, the coach just cried out, “Great job” to one of the players without saying anything more specific about what she had done that was great, his positive criticism would also match the level 1 description.

Now oftentimes it is so obvious why someone is saying “Great job” that there is no necessity to explain the reason for the compliment. For example, if one of the girls just hit a home run and the coach then says, “Great job,” everyone is quite clear why he is saying it. In such cases, the positive criticism would be rated higher than level 1 even though he didn’t explain his reason for his comment.

Level 2, the more mature way to provide positive criticism, involves providing enough detail so that the person being criticized ends up knowing what is viewed favorably and it avoids giving too much positive criticism for minor efforts.

To say to an actor, “Your performance was divine!” might be pleasant to the actor, or it might be viewed as shallow—something said to flatter, and nothing more. It is simply too vague to be really helpful. Better to say something like, “During your performance, when you are supposed to be upset, the way you wring your hands and the way you twist the muscles in your face, they really dramatically capture your anxiety; well done!”

Level 3 individuals seek to provide positive criticism in a manner similar to the level 2 individuals but first consider the situation, the person who is the target of the positive criticism and others who are likely to hear about the criticism.

Consider this Big Nate comic:

What does Nate mean by a Q score?

When Nate provides Teddy with a Q score of 96 and Francis a score of 93, these are pretty positive ratings. But because Nate provides a higher score to Teddy in front of Francis, a conflict begins to erupt.

In the future, Nate might decide that it would be wiser to provide his Q score only in situations in which he has privacy. He also might want to consider that within his school situation, even if he shares his Q ratings in private only to fellow students who promise to keep their score a secret, some will probably reveal the secret. Once this happens, he may find himself in heaps of conflicts.

As I pointed out above, in addition to considering the situation in which positive criticism is provided, it is also important to consider the person whom you wish to provide positive criticism before deciding on how to provide the criticism.

Nate attempts to provide Mrs. Godfrey positive criticism by letting her know that he is pleased to see her. His style of doing this is to provide her a friendly greeting that includes a chuckle. It turns out that Mrs. Godfrey is very sensitive about being laughed at. Now that Nate has learned this, in the future, whenever Nate wants to provide positive criticism to Mrs. Godfrey, he would be wise to take her sensitivity about being laughed at into consideration and avoid any sounds that might come across as a laugh.

Let’s take a little time to practice using this three-point providing positive criticism rating system.

PRACTICE

Consider the following Blondie comic.

What rating do you think Blondie’s comment to Dagwood deserves?

If you gave Blondie a rating of 1, you matched my own rating.

Here’s a Luann comic that has Mrs. Horner offering Luann some positive criticism. Do you think Mrs. Horner’s comment in the first box matches the level 1, or the level 2 description?

I think Mrs. Horner’s comment best matches the level 2 description. If she had just said, “Luann, you are so sweet,” I’m pretty sure a young lady like Luann would experience the comment as pleasant, and most likely she would know why the white-haired woman was saying she was sweet. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Horner makes it clear that she thinks Luann is sweet for “taking her to the store” this type of communication, as a general rule, is less likely to lead to confusion and doubts.

Here’s a little tricky one. In the last panel of the below comic, Quill provides Luann some positive criticism. Would you say it is at level 1, 2, or 3?

If I didn’t know what happened before the last panel, I would think Quill deserves a 1. After all, he just says while providing the positive criticism, “And now you sound it, too,” implying she now sounds pretty. But, by knowing what came before his statement that provides the positive criticism, I think he deserves a mature rating of 2. That is, at first he provides Luann some negative criticism. He does so by giving her very specific criticism. She has been singing to her toes, which has led her to sing through her nose. He then provides some specific advice about what she can do to correct the problem. When Quill ends up giving her positive criticism—indicating Luann now sings pretty—she is perfectly capable of putting together what he had just said moments before during his negative criticism with the positive criticism. She therefore no doubt understands that Quill thinks she sounds pretty because she now plants her shoulders back, chin up a bit, while singing. Given the context of his positive criticism, I think Quill deserves a mature rating. Quill doesn’t show us any clear signs that he has considered any situation or person variables before providing his positive criticism, so I’m going to stick to a 2 rating.

In this Big Nate comic, the principal provides Nate with some positive criticism. Do you think the principal’s comment best matches the level 1, 2, or 3 description?

In this context, the principal’s comments best match the level 2 description. Nate had just mentioned some very specific thing that he did, and when the principal says, “wonderful,” he is obviously referring to that specific thing. The principal, moreover, goes beyond Nate’s own description and adds some details about what he likes—initiative and leadership. This is quite clearly a level 2 style of providing positive criticism.

Let’s try another Big Nate example. The bald man with chin whiskers is Nate’s dad. He provides Nate some positive criticism. Does the criticism match the level 1, 2, or 3 description?

I think the father’s positive criticism is specific enough for me to say it matches the level 2 description. If he had just said, “I’m very proud of you,” a boy like Nate probably would experience these words as pleasant, and he probably would know what specific behavior of his that they relate to. Nevertheless, I contend that it is a good habit to get into the practice of being specific because it decreases the likelihood of confusion.

Nate’s dad adds to his positive criticism the statement about a celebration. Positive criticism is often designed to encourage someone to continue to do something. Did Nate’s dad add to his positive criticism the celebration after considering what works best to encourage his son? If so, Nate’s dad would deserve a rating of 3.

Okay! There you have it–some of my thoughts on positive criticism. Any thoughts? I’d love to hear from you.

Have a great week and a wonderful new year.

Jeff

Tags conflict management, criticism, dispute management, feedback, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, positive criticism, positive criticism rating system, psychological maturity, wisdom

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DEALING WITH SUBTLE FORMS OF CRITICISM

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 22, 2013
7 Comments on DEALING WITH SUBTLE FORMS OF CRITICISM

If you have been following this blog, you know that from time to time I have been discussing insults and criticism. In earlier posts, we looked at situations in which people end up feeling insulted because someone provided negative criticism.

I have argued that rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism, as well as words that might come off as insulting. When we learn to respond skillfully to negative criticism and insults, we develop a confidence in these types of situations. This dramatically reduces our defensiveness.

An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring. If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t be able to know when to apply the brakes on the car, and you are likely to end up in a serious accident.

Illustration by Lois Hubertz

Similarly, if you can’t identify when criticism is occurring, you won’t be able to know when to begin to put in place the plans that effectively deal with criticism.

Although some forms of criticism are as easy to recognize as a red light, some forms of criticism are far more subtle and therefore often go unrecognized as criticism. I therefore have presented posts that discuss dealing with direct and implied forms of criticism. I’ve noted that when someone makes a suggestion, this usually implies some negative criticism.

I also explained how recommending that someone get some additional education also usually implies some negative criticism.

We also took a good hard look at certain forms of levity, in which negative criticism is designed to be charmingly provocative. It seeks to get people to think more deeply about an issue. As George Bernard Shaw put it in his provocative book, Back to Methuselah:

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”

Shaw, to ward off defensive reactions to his quips, often created fictional plays and had the characters in the plays say them. Great examples are:

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.“

“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Today we will spend a little more time practicing enhancing our skills for recognizing subtle forms of criticism. This will help to improve our ability to know when to start using our dealing-with-criticism skills.

More Examples of Subtle Forms of Negative Criticism

As we move forward, please keep in mind that for the purposes of this blog, if someone evaluates something as negative the evaluator has made a negative criticism.

FIRST EXAMPLE

In the above Calvin and Hobbes scenario, Miss Wormwood politely asks Calvin to put his tiger, Hobbes, in his locker. Calvin objects to this request by crying out—“In my locker?! He’ll suffocate!”

Calvin’s response to Miss Wormwood’s request is an example of indirect negative criticism. He doesn’t directly state he has evaluated her request and found that there is something wrong with it, or that it is bad, or something of that sort. Nevertheless, he indicates that if he did what she asked, his tiger would suffocate. To recognize this as a form of negative criticism, it helps to notice that in addition to Calvin’s statement there are other indications that he thinks there is something wrong with Miss Wormwood’s request. The exclamation marks after Calvin’s statement, the drawing of Calvin with his mouth being wide open as if he is shouting, and the fact that he is practically flying out of his seat while he is shouting, all add up to indicate that Calvin’s reply is rightfully classified as a form of negative criticism of Miss Wormwood’s request.

Although Miss Wormwood takes Calvin’s negative criticism in stride, other teachers might become defensive, and yell something like, “Don’t you talk back to me, young man!” This might silence students, but leave them seething with anger that is expressed by a rejection of the school enterprise; or it might lead to shouting back at the teacher, creating an escalation of conflict that takes valuable learning time away from the class.

If Miss Wormwood would have become defensive and started to yell at Calvin in response to his negative criticism, this would, according the the DIG Conflict Model, be rated an immature level of responding (see Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity). Instead, she steers in the direction of Calvin’s criticism by offering the compromise of putting his “tiger” under his desk where it will be at least out of the way. This, according to the DIG Conflict Model, is one of the most mature responses (see Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level). We see, in this example, that Calvin quickly complies and his teacher can now go on with her lesson without any further delay.

SECOND EXAMPLE

Here’s a Sally Forth comic that illustrates that whenever there is a transaction involving a request or demand, we would be wise to anticipate negative criticism will be present as well.

In this comic, because Sally is visiting her mother for a few days, Ted is left on his own to deal with his nine-year-old daughter, Hil. When Ted tells Hil it’s time for bed, she begins to reject his demand. Is Hil’s rejection of the demand a form of criticism?

Well, consider her reply to her dad: “But Mom’s not here! We don’t need a bedtime!” Hil has negatively evaluated her dad’s demand by expressing her disagreement with it. If you tell someone you disagree with what he or she has done, you have negatively criticized the person’s act.

If Ted was skillful at first recognizing that Hil was providing him criticism, he would be in a better position to say to himself, “From what I’ve learned about the different levels of maturity, let me see if I can design a mature response.” What if he came up with something like this?

“Hil, I admire the way you seek to defend your freedom. I want to encourage that. And you know I’m crazy about you. At the same time, I also love your mom, as I know you do. It seems to me that we don’t want to break her rules behind her back. The bedtime schedule is designed for you to get enough rest so you will do well in school. Both of us have seen what happens to you when you don’t get enough rest. When your mom gets home, if you want to discuss the rules, we can do it with her, you and me all altogether. That would be the fair thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

These Examples are Designed to Encourage Deeper Thought

Above, I provided two examples of someone providing negative criticism. For each example, a response was described that I think is pretty mature. Please note, however, that I am NOT claiming that they are the ideal responses. Nor am I trying to make the case that the responses portrayed in the above examples are the only mature responses that can be made. There is a great deal of flexibility that we have for coming up with high level responses. I present the above examples in an effort to challenge you to think more deeply about what mature levels of responding look like according to your own lights.

Well, that’s my post for this week. To all of you who celebrate the beautiful Christmas season, I wish you good cheer, peace on Earth, and good will toward all of our fellow human beings!

With Warmest Regards,

Jeff

Tags anger, challenge, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, dispute management, disrespectful, emotional intelligence, emotions, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, frustration, insults, negative criticism, parenting, threats, types of criticism

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THE ART OF PLAYFUL TEASING

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 19, 2013
5 Comments on THE ART OF PLAYFUL TEASING

Young group of men who are bullying one of them.

Teasing is a game sometimes known as bantering, joshing, crackin’, rankin’, playing the dozens, and trash talk. You are judged in part on the quality of your insults and also how well you keep your cool on being insulted.

Even the most mature people may like to play the teasing game, for they enjoy the duel of wits and the occasional humorous comeback.

MATURE VERSUS IMMATURE TEASING

Mature people are distinguished from immature people in this game by their lack of desire to hurt somebody in this game. Their empathy helps them to realize that the smiles and the lighthearted tone they try to set throughout the game sometimes mask real tensions. Thus, they keep their senses tuned to the subtleties of the repartee, and know when to back off when things begin to get too serious.

Less mature people, partly because of their lower levels of empathy, may think that the more awful they can make someone feel during this game, the better they are at it. When the criticizers have themselves been humiliated by other immature people, they may come to be even more motivated to humiliate others as a way to take out their own pain on others.

IS PLAYFUL TEASING REALLY WHAT IS GOING ON?

If you find that you are being criticized and it doesn’t seem to be motivated by a desire to get you to improve, and you’re not sure what else may be the reason, my advice is to first theorize that it’s just some playful teasing. If the criticism is provided with a smile, or by someone you know who likes to tease in a friendly way, you can be pretty sure that it is just for fun. Then, if you reply with a smile and a comment such as, “That’s a good one,” it shows that you can take a little teasing without getting defensive. If you want to take the game a little further, you can throw a friendly insult right back, like “Same to you, fellow.” When you’ve had enough of the game, smiling and giving the other player a pat on the back can be a good way to draw the game to an end.

Sometimes you are not sure if playful teasing is the name of the game. Then you have to be careful about throwing insults back at the insulter. If it turns out that the criticizer’s comments are not meant to be playful teasing, throwing back insults might make the situation worse. Here are some ideas that permit you to play along while providing you time to figure out what’s really going on.

After the first insult, consider responding in a kidding around way by crying, “OH YEAH!?” As you do this, pretend, in an obviously joking around way, that you have become defensive at the insulter’s comment. But then follow up your fake outrage with a broad smile. This shows that you can play along with the insult while, at the same time, you can take a joke.

If the insulter again insults you in a manner that still leaves you uncertain if the person is just teasing, consider saying the following. “It looks like you have some more missiles to send my way. Okay, hit me with your best shots. I already know that you think my nose is too big and my mother is a fool, so there’s no need to bother with those. Go ahead. I can take it.”

Then, if the insults continue, cry out, “Look out! Incoming torpedoes! Mayday! Mayday! I’m going down! I’m sinking! I’m sinking!” Then fall to your knees, and cover up your ears.

All of this allows you to continue to play along without throwing insults back at a criticizer who may not be playing the teasing game. By the time you fall to your knees, if you still aren’t clear about what is going on, get back up and try saying in a concerned, caring way, “Listen, at first I thought you were joking around. Now I’m not so sure. Is everything okay?”

This often leads to the insulter revealing what is actually motivating this behavior. But if the insulter walks away, and then begins to insult you on another occasion, it’s time to go down the list of other desires that motivate criticism (see HERE).

If you find that the person, or the group of people teasing you are playing the game of teasing in the immature manner—that is, just trying to make you feel as awful as possible—what can you do? I suggest that you just give a quick nod at the comment and then get as far away as possible. Then do your best to stay away from such people.

Now, I certainly realize it is not always easy to avoid a person or a group. Students or bus monitors who ride the school bus are pretty much forced to be confined with a certain set of students for a period of time a couple of times each day. Or the group you want to avoid might be in your classes. As you leave the class you might be stuck walking down the hall with the criticizers. In such cases, when you feel that you have reached your limit of dealing with the put downs, sometimes the following approach is worth a try.

To begin, this approach only requires that you learn to say two words—Please, enough. That’s the easy part. For some, learning how to say these words is the hard part of this strategy.

To use this technique, after two or three insults, say, in a very serious way, rather softly, but loud enough to be clearly heard, “Please.” Then pause for about three seconds while looking firmly into the eyes of each person who has been teasing you. Than say, “e” using the long “e” sound. Then, after another second, say, “nough!” When you look into the eyes of each of the name callers, you are NOT to glare at them in a threatening manner, with your eyebrows pressed to the middle of your forehead. Rather, you are seeking to be firm and very, very, serious.

If immediately after you finish saying this, somebody begins to insult you again, repeat the same words in a similar manner, but this time say it distinctly louder, though just short of shouting. At this point you are seeking to communicate that dire consequences are at hand. You must be firm and look squarely into the eyes of each insulter once again. Then you are to remain very serious while staring either out the school bus’s window or straight ahead where you are walking, but not at any one of the criticizers. You are to remain silent, without talking to anyone, for the remainder of the period you are stuck together, looking the whole time like you are through fooling around and enough is enough!

When the end of the time period that you are stuck together comes, immediately take your stuff and hurry away from the group continuing to look like you are very much annoyed.

The next time you see them, again, turn very serious and silent. If the group members don’t bother you, after a few minutes you can slowly begin to reduce the tension you have created. If the group members again insult you at any time, be silent and serious while again staring out the window or, if you are walking, straight ahead.

The game of immature name calling is kind of like a tennis game. In tennis, if someone hits the ball over the net to you and you refuse to hit it back, people will stop playing with you. Similarly, if someone insults you and you remain silent, often the insulter will find the game too boring to continue.

Although the style I want you to consider comes fairly easy to some, others must learn it with someone who can model the right tone and expression. Some people I worked with over the years found it hard not to put a smirk on their face after they said, “Please, enough!” Some came off as embarrassed while they carried out the technique. If you are not sure how you look while carrying out each step, observe yourself in a mirror. Also run through a role play with a couple of friends or family members and ask them if it looks right to them. Better yet, find out who directs plays at your school. Find out the director’s office hours, and go and explain what you want to learn.

I encourage you to avoid becoming discouraged if you end up botching the performance the first few times you try this during practice sessions. I’ve worked with students that at first kept cracking up throughout the process. Every one of them eventually learned to effectively utilize this technique. Five sessions, each lasting about fifteen minutes, can usually get a shy guy to put together an academy award winning performance.

There are times when those who are doing the teasing are being so cruel and relentless, that the wisest course of action is to inform authorities such as a school principal and the police. This may take courage, but keep in mind that if you remain silent, not only will you continue to be cruelly treated, but so too will others.

Tags anger, bullied, bullies, bully, bullying, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, dispute management, disrespectful, emotional intelligence, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, playful teasing, respect, threats, types of criticism

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BLONDIE, DAGWOOD AND THE NATURE OF PERSONAL POWER

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 15, 2013
No Comments on BLONDIE, DAGWOOD AND THE NATURE OF PERSONAL POWER

We find a charming illustration of Dagwood utilizing a simple source of personal power below:

These three frames are just the beginning of a very early Blondie comic from 1932 that I found in The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. At that time Blondie was depicted as coming from the lower classes who had recently married the wealthy Dagwood Bumstead. Many from his social circle believed Blondie married for money.

I have discussed sources of power quite a bit on this blog. The simple source of power that Dagwood used to get Blondie invited to the party is often referred to as offering a fair exchange. That is, Dagwood offered to give his mother something that she wanted, but only if she gave him what he wanted. She wanted Dagwood to come to her party, he made it clear that he would come, but only if Blondie would also come.

As we will soon see, there are six more panels to this Blondie-Dagwood comic strip. But before we get to them, let’s use the DIG Conflict Model to quickly conceptualize the events that are taking place in the first panels of the comic.

Using “DIG” to Briefly Describe a Conflict

Those who have been following this blog know that when we seek to briefly describe a conflict, the letters in the word DIG help to remind us to look for the three conditions of a conflict–DESIRE, INTERFERENCE and GUILT.

During the first frame, Dagwood clearly desires that Blondie join him at his mother’s party, but interfering with this, his mother indicates she is refusing to invite her. To be a conflict according to the DIG Conflict Model, in addition to a desire and an interfering condition, there has to also be a guilt condition as well.

In the second frame of the comic, Dagwood says to his mother, “Remember, after all she is your daughter-in law.” This suggests that Dagwood believes that his mother is guilty of being wrong for not inviting Blondie.

There are several ways in which this apparent conflict can be resolved. To illustrate some essential points, let’s first look at a couple of examples that do not actually occur in the comic. As we look at these examples, please keep in mind that when we describe resolutions using the DIG Conflict Model, we are instructed to consider not only the short term quality of the resolution, but the long term quality as well.

First Example

Here is a different outcome to Dagwood’s conflict with his mother than what we will be seeing in the actual Blondie comic strip. Take special note that this different outcome leads to a couple of post-resolution regrets.

Dagwood talks to his mother and she convinces him that because of the way she was brought up, and because of the way the other party guests might react, she is not wrong in wanting to keep Blondie from attending her party. Dagwood ends up agreeing with his mother and he does not bring Blondie to the party.

From Dagwood’s perspective his conflict with his mother was resolved at the point when he came to believe his mother is not guilty of doing anything wrong when she insists Blondie is not to come to the party. The plan that was used to resolve the conflict was his mother persuading Dagwood that she is right.

Now, let’s look at the quality of this resolution. By resolving the conflict in this way, Dagwood ends up not having his desire to have Blondie join him at the party fulfilled. Because Dagwood wants to do things more with Blondie than his parents, he begins to see them less and less. When he looks for job opportunities he feels little desire to remain close to his parents. One day he sees an opening with the Dithers Company several thousand miles from his parents. He applies and lands the job. When Dagwood and Blondie start having children, his mother begins to wish she had been more accepting of Blondie early in their relationship for Blondie has turned out to be a wonderful wife to her son.

Oh, how Dagwood’s mother regrets antagonizing Blondie during their early marriage. And that’s not all. Dagwood’s mother is often heard wandering around her luxurious home moaning. From time to time she can be heard crying out, “If only I could be closer to my grandchildren! How this would give so much meaning to my life!”

Dagwood also feels that raising children with their grandparents close by would have been a good thing, but he reluctantly feels that, with his mother so rejecting of Blondie, it wouldn’t be a good thing for the children to be exposed to such rejection of their mother on a regular basis. And Dagwood really cares about his mother who has become increasingly depressed over the years. Both he and his mother have some post-resolution regrets about how things have turned out.

Second Example

Here’s another scenario that according to the DIG Conflict Model would lead to this conflict being resolved, and this one also leads to some post- resolution regret.

Dagwood decides that there is nothing he can do about bringing Blondie to the party, and so he just doesn’t show up. The party comes and goes without his desire being fulfilled. But in time, he forgets about it. When he forgets about it, the conflict has been resolved. As for the quality of this resolution, Dagwood finds that, since the party, he frequently has waves of anger overtaking him. When he is with his mother, he treats her with little respect. This leads to angry outbursts between them. Their quality of life has thus been diminished.

Now let’s look at what actually happens in the 1932 comic.

Dagwood resolves the conflict as follows. In an effort to achieve his desire, he tells his mother that he refuses to come unless Blondie is invited, too. His mother offers a compromise; he can bring Blondie if he promises to keep her in the background. Dagwood doesn’t explicitly say that he agrees with the compromise, but by thanking his mother it appears he has tacitly agreed to her stated terms. The conflict Dagwood was having with his mother is resolved at the point Dagwood realizes his mother will no longer interfere with his desire to bring Blondie to the party.

How about the quality of this resolution? In the short run things look pretty good. Although Blondie expresses some concerns about going to the party because Dagwood’s mother is so against her, Dagwood expresses optimism when he says to Blondie, “Now, don’t worry Darling — in time she’ll learn to love you just as I do!” The comic strip goes on from here to provide us some additional information. When they arrive at the party…

In this scenario Dagwood has used some skill that leads to his specific desire being fulfilled—Blondie gets to go to his mother’s party. He has a related desire as well—that his mother will learn to love Blondie. As things worked out, this desire takes a beating.

**Contrasting the Blondie Example with the Pygmalion Example**

People who are powerful at achieving their desires tend not only to develop a plan to achieve some obvious desire of a conflict, but they pause to consider how each plan that they consider would impact the achieving of other desires that are associated with the obvious desire. Consider the story of George Bernard Shaw’s great play, Pygmalion, which was later turned into the magnificent musical, My Fair Lady.

There are some similarities to My Fair Lady and the Blondie story we just discussed. One of the chief characters is Liza Doolittle, who is about Blondie’s age. She too is from the lower classes.

Professor Higgins desires to bring her to a party where the upper classes will be in attendance—the royal ball. But the good professor realizes that getting Liza invited is a relatively small problem for him. What he wants additionally is that she is a success at the ball. He and his friend, Colonel Pickering, pause to consider what being a success is.

They decide that to be successful, Liza will have to improve her speech, be able to move gracefully around the ballroom, and to learn to dance as the other ladies do. Once they understand this, both gentlemen devise a rigorous plan involving training for six months before they take Liza to the ball. Although their plan doesn’t come off entirely without hitches, the viewers of the play clearly come away understanding that the thoroughness of the planning and the practicing of the skills were enormously helpful.

Now, what have we learned from these scenarios? First of all, when you try out a plan that has promise to fulfill your desire, you are attempting to increase your power. If your plan is well designed and skillfully carried out, it may succeed in fulfilling your specific desire. However, short term success of a plan to achieve a specific desire might be offset because it ends up interfering with the likelihood that other desires will be fulfilled. Dagwood fulfilled his short term desire of getting Blondie to the party, but by putting her in a situation where she had a large chance of embarrassing his mother, he may have hurt his long-term goal of getting his mother to like Blondie. If you want the quality of your resolution to be high, increasing your power requires that you become skillful at fulfilling desires in the short and long term.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags ABCs of Power, Blondie, Blondie Comic Strip, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, Dagwood and Blondie, dispute management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, personal power, psychological maturity, respect, sources of power, wisdom

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NELSON MANDELA AND THE ART OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 8, 2013
7 Comments on NELSON MANDELA AND THE ART OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

“Great anger and violence can never build a nation. We are striving to proceed in a manner and towards a result, which will ensure that all our people, both black and white, emerge as victors.” (From Nelson Mandela’s speech to European Parliament, 1990.)

As I write this post, we are in the middle of South Africa’s 10-day mourning period for Nelson Mandela. Although I myself have never set foot in South Africa, I, along with millions of Americans, and millions more around the world, find our hearts merging with those of his country’s citizens. It is, of course, a period of remembrance of a man who learned to forgive his oppressors; a man who in his later years developed a smile full of wisdom and kindness; a man who could fill up Yankee Stadium with thrilling cheers; a man deeply respected.

For me, Nelson Mandela provided us an enduring inspirational lesson on conflict resolution.

Nelson Mandela and Conflict

When we attempt to come up with a brief description of a conflict, it helps to have a good definition of “conflict” at hand. On this blog, we have been using a definition derived from the DIG Conflict Model.

A conflict exists whenever the following three conditions exist:

Party A desires an act will occur.
Party A perceives that another party is likely to act in a manner that interferes with the desire.
Party A perceives that the other party would be guilty of doing something wrong if he or she carries out the interfering act.

Notice that each of the three conditions has a key word italicized—desire for the first condition, interferes for the second, and guilty for the third. If we take the first letter of each of these key words and put them together, they spell DIG; hence the DIG Conflict Model’s name.

Party A, in the above definition, indicates the individual who is theoretically engaged in a conflict and from whose perspective the conflict will first be described.

For most of Mandela’s life, the major conflict that existed in his country can be briefly described as follows:

The large majority of people living in South Africa desired to have basic civil rights but interfering with this was the government’s apartheid laws and policies. The majority of the people felt that those supporting the laws and policies of apartheid were, and would continue to be, guilty of doing a terrible wrong.

Many of the people who participated in the conflict experienced its guilt condition as so large that their attention was focused mostly on that particular condition, and it became hard to focus their attention on solving the desire-interfering problem. To understand this better, we have to take a couple of minutes to see how each of the three conditions of a conflict can vary in size and how that affects efforts to resolve a conflict.

The Three Conflict Conditions Can Vary in Size

The three conditions of a conflict (desire, interference and guilt) are not just present. Each of these conditions, like the sides of a triangle, can vary in size.

The Variability of Desires. People have different desires, some not as strong as others. We can get a feel for this by considering the following scenarios:

Over the course of a few months, Juliet meets four young suitors at different times. First she meets Tom, spends an hour with him at a nice café, and the next day she has no desire to ever see him again. A few weeks later she meets Dick at a play, and the next day she has a small but not overwhelming desire to see him. The following week, during a stroll through a lush park, she is introduced to Harry. The next day she finds that she wants to see him even more then she wants to see Dick. And then she meets Romeo. Juliet’s passion leads her to follow Romeo through the gates of death.

Let’s say twenty-four hours after each of these four meetings, Juliet is asked to rate on a zero to ten-point scale how much she wants to see each. Zero indicates she has no desire to see the guy, and ten indicates the greatest desire she can imagine. For Tom, she provides a rating of zero; for Dick, a three; for Harry, a six; and for Romeo, a ten.

Once a person desires something a certain amount, over time it can change. We all know cases in which both the bride and groom swear at their wedding that they desire to be together for the rest of their lives, and then after a few years, they have no desire to be with one another for another minute, let alone for the rest of their lives.

The process of asking people to rate from one to ten how much they desire something allows us to measure this kind of variability. A similar process can be used to measure the other two conditions for a conflict—interfering and guilt.

The Variability of Interfering Acts. Recall that in a conflict an interfering act refers to a party doing something that gets in the way of Party A’s desire. With that in mind, consider the following scenarios:

Juliet wants to marry Romeo. Her father gives his blessing and says, “Marry him whenever you want.” Juliet is asked to rate on a zero to ten- point scale the degree she perceives that her father will act in a manner that is interfering with what she wants. Zero indicates “not at all interfering.” Ten indicates “completely interfering.” With a delightful smile, she indicates a zero.

Let’s change the scenario a bit. Juliet wants to marry Romeo. Her father says she can see him as much as she wants six days a week. He goes on to say that on Fridays she can also see Romeo as much as she wants, but only during the day. From suppertime to bedtime on Fridays she will meet some other eligible men in the city. If after three months of this plan, Juliet still wants to marry Romeo, her father tells her he will give his blessing. Although Juliet wants to marry Romeo right away, she indicates that it appears to her that her father’s plan will not be completely interfering with what she wants by giving it a rating of three.

How about this scenario? Juliet wants to marry Romeo. Her father forbids her from ever seeing Romeo and has hired some thugs to kidnap and transport him to Australia, thousands of miles away. Juliet indicates that it appears to her that her father’s interfering act is a ten.

These three scenarios illustrate that, like desires, interfering activities can be perceived as varying on a scale from zero to ten. So too can the guilt condition.

The Variability of Guilt. Like the desires and incompatibility conditions of conflicts, people don’t perceive guilt as just present or absent, but rather they perceive varying degrees of it. For example, let’s say Juliet passionately desires to marry Romeo, but discovers that the prince has ordered that anyone marrying Romeo will be beheaded, along with all of her family. Under this set of circumstances, Juliet may not blame her father at all if he refuses to give her his permission.

What about a different set of circumstances? Juliet passionately wants to marry Romeo. In this case, the prince is not involved. Juliet’s father earns a meager living running a grocery store in town. Many of his customers hate Romeo. If they were to hear that Juliet’s father gave his permission for her to marry Romeo, they would stop shopping at his store.

The whole family depends on the income from the store. Juliet believes her family would somehow survive, but they would lose the house that they love and have to make other major sacrifices. In this case, Juliet may blame her father for refusing to give his permission for her to get married, but perhaps just a little bit.

In our final example, Juliet’s father refuses to give her his permission to marry even though everyone in town likes Romeo and thinks he would make a great husband for her. When Juliet asks her father for an explanation for his refusal, he replies, “Because I said so!”

Under this set of circumstances, Juliet may believe her father is completely to blame for his interfering act. In the case of so large a guilt condition, Juliet may begin to focus on doing something terrible to make him “pay” for his guilt. Her angry emotions can make it difficult to think rationally and creatively.

Back to the Mandela Conflict

In 1980, when Nelson Mandela was still in prison, I spoke for over an hour to a person of color about his views on South Africa’s apartheid policies. The entire time he was very angry and he spoke about all of the awful things that those supporting apartheid were guilty of doing. Each time I tried to get him to discuss what the country can do to move forward in order to achieve his desire to obtain civil rights for all of the people of South Africa, he would begin to answer me, but before he could finish his first sentence, he switched back to talking about another set of actions that supporters of South Africa were guilty of.

I believe this type of discussion was typical of many of those embroiled in this conflict until Mandela was finally released after 27 years in prison. Mandela spoke with authority when he modeled for his people a very different form of discussion, a form of discussion that was less angry, less blaming of who did what, and more on how to achieve the desire for civil rights and how to end the interfering acts of apartheid supporters. He spoke with authority in part because the people knew that if Mandela could forgive after how he suffered in prison for so long, perhaps they could find a way to do so as well.

Oh, there were those who wanted revenge despite hearing Mandela’s approach. Would have more violence bred even more violence?

In the end, the South African people decided overwhelmingly that Mandela’s approach was the wiser of the two paths that laid before them. Yes, there remains many serious problems that remain for the South African people to solve. But the people have spoken, and there are many signs that exist to say they were right. Today, according to a recent Gallup poll:

In closing, I want to leave you with the words of former President Bill Clinton. Upon being interviewed about the death of Mandela, Clinton said:

“His enduring power is that he showed us that there is truth and freedom in forgiveness and in the mental and emotional discipline to live in the present and think of the future.”

Tags anger, apartheid, conflict resolution, dig for the conflict, emotional intelligence, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, Nelson Mandela, psychological maturity, respect, South Africa, violence, wisdom