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THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER E

https://www.frominsultstorespect.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/personal-power.jpgOn this blog we have been discussing personal power.  We have noted that the reason why people use insults is to try to achieve their desires.  This strategy often backfires.  Therefore, we have been learning plans to increase our skill to achieve our desires without launching insults at others.

Learning the sources of power greatly enhances our skills to achieve our desires.  And once we become confident that we have a variety of effective ways to achieve our desires, we begin to feel more self assured and less likely to become defensive when others begin to criticize us.

After introducing these basic ideas, I  began to build a list of sources of power.  This list is in alphabetical order.  So far, it looks like this:

THE ABCs OF POWER

A=Advancing Skill (see The ABCs of Power: The letter “A”)

B=Breaking Down a Conflict into its Three Conditions:  Desire, Interference and Guilt (see The ABCs of Power: The Letter “B”)

C=Coalitions (see The ABCs of Power: The Letter “C”).

D=Discussions or Debates (see The ABCs of Power: The letter “D”)

When the list is completed, there will be sources of power all the way up to the letter “F.”  Today we add to our list a source of power that begins with the letter “E.”

E is For Encouraging Caring

One way to achieve your desire is to make a request.  For example, suppose Judy, whenever she criticizes me, does so by shouting and calling me names.  I find that I have a desire to maintain a good relationship with Judy but the way she goes about criticizing me is leading me to consider ending it.  What can I do about this?  Well, one thing I could do is to wait until Judy is in a relatively good mood, and then make the following request.

ILLUSTRATION BY ERIC SAILER
ILLUSTRATION BY ERIC SAILER

By making my request in this way to Judy there is a better chance that my desire to continue to have a good relationship with Judy will occur than if I just end my relationship with her without making my request.

There are, of course, several ways to go about making a request–some are more likely to achieve your desires than others.  For example, imagine what might happen if I asked Judy to stop shouting and insulting me while she is in the middle of shouting and insulting me.  And let’s say that as I made this request, I began to shout at her while calling her a pile of garbage for shouting and insulting me.

Illustration by Eric Sailer
Illustration by Eric Sailer

Using that style of making a request can actually make it harder for me to achieve my desire.  Rather than making me more powerful, it can lead to my becoming a weaker individual.  It can increase the chances that Judy will become angry with me and she may end up storming away.  She may begin to talk about me behind my back in a way that leads others to lose respect for me.  All of this is the very opposite of what I desire.

So, as these two examples demonstrate, your style of making a request  can either increase, or decrease your power.

Interestingly, even if I make my request in a way that is respectful to Judy, as in the first of the two above examples, if she learns that whenever she refuses any of my requests I then begin to shout and insult her, she can still end up losing respect for me.  For example, consider the following scenario:

GUILTING1 Notice that when John first makes his request, he does not shout or insult Pete in any way.  It is only when Pete turns down his request that John begins to shout and insult him.

When turned down, John angrily conveys his belief that Pete is selfish and uncaring.  This pattern of responding when a request is turned down is often referred to as “guilting.” “Laying a guilt trip on someone” and “seeking to impose guilt on someone” are other expressions that may be used to refer to this pattern.  Guilting is a very common way to respond when a request is turned down.

Contrast this guilting approach to the following:

encouraging caring illustration

In this comic, Diane expresses sadness about coming to class late and requests that Tom pick her up on time.  As she makes the request, it is very similar to how John asks for help in the previous example.  Neither John or Dianne insults the person to whom the request is made while they make their request.  But when John is turned down, he begins to use guilting.  When Dianne sees that Tom has refused her request, she remains supportive.  We will be calling Diane’s style of making a request “encouraging caring.”

It’s crucial to point out here that even with all that Diane does in this comic, a slight change in the end could turn it into guilting.  For example, suppose that after becoming convinced that Tom will not do as she asks, she gets up to leave and yells at him, red faced, “You’re a selfish creep!”  Then she would have used guilting and Tom would consequently begin to develop an expectation that this will be her pattern of reacting whenever he turns down her requests.

When someone makes a request in a manner consistent with encouraging caring, they do the following:

When we ask others to help, it is acceptable to express sadness at the current state of affairs and to seek a mutually satisfying solution.  If our request is turned down, it is not acceptable to view the refuser as evil.  To seek to humiliate those who turn down our requests is forbidden, while showing empathy and support are essential.  Some people make the mistake of thinking that to use encouraging caring effectively, people must learn to resign themselves to doing nothing else but graciously accepting it when a person turns down their requests.   In many situations that is the wisest choice.  But there are many alternatives that can be considered that are consistent with the supportive encouraging caring source of power.

In two earlier posts, I gave some examples of people using encouraging caring and guilting (see AN INTRODUCTION TO GUILTING and GUILTING VERSUS ENCOURAGING CARING).  I also described in those posts the research indicating that those who use encouraging caring instead of guilting are more likely to enhance their reputation and in the long run are more likely to achieve compliance to their requests.  Those posts are worth taking a look at.  For now, let’s take a look at a fresh example of someone making a request.

charlie brown making request

Here Charlie Brown asks Lucy to trade her Joe Shlabotnik baseball card for some of his cards.  He makes the request in a sincere manner, and when Lucy refuses, he remains respectful, avoids any insults, and offers her some additional choices to entice her to trade.  Again she refuses, and although he is clearly disappointed, he walks away without insulting Lucy.  Is this a case of encouraging caring?

Encouraging caring requires that the requester remains supportive and respectful throughout the request, even when it becomes quite clear that the other party will not comply.

What appears missing in Charlie Brown’s efforts to acquire the card is showing empathy and support for Lucy’s position.  He doesn’t seem to care why Lucy wants to hold onto the card.

Charlie Brown could have provided us a clearer demonstration of encouraging caring if he had taken more time to ask her more about why the card was valuable to her, and then listened carefully to what she had to say.  He could have summarized her position in a kind tone of voice that showed he understands and empathizes with her position.  In the end, he could have said: “I understand that you think Joe is cute.  Well, Lucy, it’s your baseball card.  If you don’t want to trade it, that’s your right.”  To show Lucy that he is able to put himself in her shoes, he might mention a time when someone wanted to trade with him, but he refused.

Charlie Brown 2 making a request.png

When we think about encouraging caring as a source of power, it is important to remember that when someone does turn down your request it doesn’t mean that your only option is to graciously accept it and resign yourself to not having your desire fulfilled.  As long as you remain supportive, there are other things that you can do that are consistent with encouraging caring.

In our example of Charlie Brown’s efforts to obtain a baseball card, what are some other things he could have done to persuade Lucy to make a trade with him while remaining supportive?

Well, at one point, Lucy explains why she doesn’t want to make the trade.

Charlie trade

If Lucy wants the baseball card because Joe Shlabotnik is cute, perhaps Charlie Brown could find some used sports magazines that have several pictures of Joe’s cute face.  Charlie could offer them as part of his trade.  Or he could offer to take a picture of the baseball card with his camera, have the picture blown up, and put in a 9 X 12 inch frame.  These ideas come from thinking about why Lucy desires to have the card and trying to come up with a way that fulfills her desire in a manner that does not interfere with Charlie’s desire to have the baseball card for his collection.

Lucy may have another motive for not trading with Charlie Brown than her stated reason—“Joe Shlabotnik is cute.”  Perhaps it is because she is after power.  By refusing to trade with him, Lucy is demonstrating that she has the power to refuse his offer.  If Charlie Brown were to ask her what she believes would be a fair trade for the card, it empowers her to make an offer.  Notice that Charlie does not do this.  Instead, he keeps trying to come up with offers.  If Lucy does come up with an idea for a fair trade, Charlie can then either accept her offer, or use it as a basis for coming up with a counter offer.

These are just some of the possible approaches that are open to Charlie as he seeks ways to have his desire fulfilled while remaining consistent with encouraging caring.  When used with the other sources of power, people have the capacity to find numerous ways to fulfill their desires.

Well, I hoped you enjoyed today’s lesson.  I hope to see you again real soon.

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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.

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anger Bullied comic strip conflict resolution criticism dig for the conflict emotional intelligence insults jealousy Name calling negative criticism playful teasing psychological maturity social intelligence teasing types of criticism wisdom

INSULTS: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE

Teasing is a game sometimes known as bantering, joshing, crackin’, rankin’, playing the dozens, trash talk, and infighting.  You are judged 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.

Consider the following Calvin and Hobbes comic.

Our two friends are getting pretty silly in this exchange.  I guess being silly is part of the fun.

Mature people are distinguished from immature people in this game, not by how silly the interactions are, but by their lack of desire to hurt somebody in this game.  They 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.

Immature people can come across as mean when they tease.

In the above Peanuts comic, Lucy ends up smiling even though Violet ends up feeling upset.  I would have liked Lucy to show some concern about how Violet ends up feeling.

It is certainly understandable why Violet ends up feeling upset.  We all have a strong desire to be liked.  The fact that there are other people watching while Lucy teases Violet can make dealing with the teasing even harder.  But what if Violet, instead of going away looking upset, ended up responding to Lucy in the following way?

“Good one, Lucy!” says Violet with a smile.  “I guess you won this round.  Well done!”  Then Violet gives Lucy a respectful nod of her head before going on her way.

If Violet would have acted this way, it would have shown the other kids that she can take a little teasing without getting upset.  This seems to many people a sign of maturity.  We can’t expect everyone to have this level of maturity.

Apparently, in the comic below, Calvin went a little too far in his teasing.

I think a conflict has sprung up.

When I think about a conflict I think about the word DIG.  That reminds me to dig to find in the situation the desire, what is interfering with the desire, and someone who feels someone is guilty of doing something wrong.

DIG=Desire, Interfering, and Guilt

In the above comic, Calvin desires to create a situation that would lead to some fun but perceives his actions have led to a situation that is interfering with fun.  He feels he is guilty of doing something wrong.

Troubled by how Susie has reacted, Calvin becomes sad, and then he turns a bit angry.  It seems to me that his genuine concern for Susie’s feelings is a sign of emerging maturity.

In our next comic strip, we see Susie’s reaction to Calvin’s teasing.

The sadness that Susie feels is coupled with her recognition that, without Calvin, she would feel even lonelier than she does.

How might Calvin handle this situation?

Apologizing, for Calvin, is not an easy thing to do.  I wonder why?

In the next comic, we see that Susie is still trying to deal with Calvin’s insults.

Susie realizes that although words don’t hurt your body like sticks and stones, they still can hurt quite a bit.

When Calvin goes over to Susie to make up, he finds that it’s a struggle.

Sometimes when we try to fix a problem it doesn’t work.  That doesn’t mean we have to give up.  We can try again.

Sometimes someone who enjoys teasing does so in a manner that looks to someone watching on as not fun.

At other times, people who tease don’t realize that they really have created a very uncomfortable situation.

Sometimes when people call you names or insult you in some other way, you may not be sure why they are doing this.  One thing to try is to say, “I’m not sure why you are trying to put me down.  Is everything okay?  Are you mad at me about something?”

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 a list of other desires that motivate insults. By becoming familiar with these other desires, confusion can oftentimes be quickly brought under control and a plan generated to address the concerns of all involved parties.

Eight Different Reasons Why People Use Name Calling, Insults and Teasing

If you follow this blog you will become familiar with eight different desires that can motivate name calling and teasing.  This will help you to spot them even when you are beginning to feel defensive.  When you learn to see the real desire motivating the criticism, you will find it much easier to act wisely.

Below is the list of the eight desires.  It might be wise to print out this list and place it in a convenient place.  Then, whenever you are called names or teased, you can get it out.  By going down the list you might more quickly figure out what is going on.

The Eight Reasons for Insults List

The desires that oftentimes motivate name calling, insults and teasing are:

1. The desire to encourage or discourage some action.

2.  The desire to release stress because the criticizer is in a bad mood.

3.  The desire to take out on you what someone else did to the insulter.

4.  The desire to be left alone for some quiet time.

5. The desire to form a bond with a group by putting down non-group members.

6. The desire to test someone to determine worthiness to be admitted into a group.

7. Jealousy.

8. Playful teasing.

Well, there you have it, the eight desires that lead to name calling, insults and teasing.  You can already find some suggestions for dealing with most of the various types of desires from checking out some earlier posts.

  1. Criticism designed to encourage you to improve (see RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY and RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: THE MOST MATURE LEVEL)
  2. Playful teasing (see MAKING THE BUS MONITOR CRY: RATING HER RESPONSE)
  3. The desire to form a bond with a group by putting down non-group members (see MAKING THE BUS MONITOR CRY: WHY THE BOYS DID IT)
  4. Jealousy (see BEING CRITICIZED BECAUSE OF JEALOUSY)
  5. The criticizer is in a bad mood (see RESPONDING TO CRITICISM WHEN IT IS BEING PROVIDED BECAUSE THE CRITICIZER IS IN A BAD MOOD)

In future blog posts we’ll explore all of these issues more thoroughly.

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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.

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anger Bullied conflict resolution criticism encouraging caring guilt guilting negative criticism psychological maturity wisdom

GUILTING VERSUS ENCOURAGING CARING: AN ADVANCE LESSON

Last week’s post is titled, AN INTRODUCTION TO “GUILTING.”  There we compared “GUILTING” to “ENCOURAGING CARING.”  Both are different styles of making a request and reacting if someone refuses to help.

GUILTING 

People using guilting express sadness at the current state of affairs and then ask for assistance.  Upon having a request turned down, the person who employs guilting responds in anger while seeking to lower the refuser’s self-esteem and making the refuser feel deserving of punishment.  People using guilting typically shout out phrases such as, “You’re selfish,” “You don’t care about anyone but yourself,” and “How can you do this to me?” Here’s an example of guilting:

ENCOURAGING CARING

People using encouraging caring make their requests very much like those who use guilting.  As they ask others to help, they express sadness at the current state of affairs.  However, unlike those who use guilting, those who use encouraging caring seek a mutually satisfying solution.  If their request is turned down, they don’t view the refuser as evil and deserving of punishment.  To seek to humiliate those who turn down their requests is avoided, while showing empathy and support are essential. Here’s an example of someone using encouraging caring:

Defending Encouraging Caring

To those of you who simply intuit that encouraging caring is a more powerful plan when making requests than guilting, you require no additional arguments to put it to good use.  To the skeptics out there, and to those who enjoy employing principles of science to assist in verifying your belief, the following study provides some relevant information.

Data from a University Study

In the autumn of 1981, I hired four student actors at the University of Minnesota, two guys and two gals.  We met at a well-equipped film studio on campus.

First, I had one of the actors, Pete, enact a guilting scenario.  Two scenes were used.  The first shows the viewer that the character Pete is portraying typically uses guilting whenever someone turns down his request.  In that scene, upon hearing his request being turned down Pete replies angrily:

The second scene, which depicts Pete making a new request, is very similar to the “calculus test help” situation we looked at earlier. The subjects in the study who observed this first videotape saw a scene showing how Pete typically responds to someone who turns down his requests.  They then observed the second scene in which Pete makes a new request.  The subjects in the study were to imagine that Pete is a guy whom they knew typically uses guilting and is now making this new request directly to them.  The subjects’ job was to enact the role of a friend of Pete and to imagine how they would respond to this new request. After completing this two-scene guilting videotape, we got to work on a second two-scene videotape.  This one has Pete enacting an encouraging caring scenario.  It begins by showing the viewer that the character Pete is portraying typically uses encouraging caring whenever someone turns down his request.  In that scene, upon hearing his request being turned down, Pete replies sadly:

Once this scene was created, I used the exact “new request” scene as I used on the first videotape that depicts Pete requesting help for the calculus test situation.  Thus, this second videotape has a different first scene than the first videotape, but the exact same second scene that shows Pete requesting help of the viewer who was to enact the role of Pete’s friend. The third videotape that we created is designed to depict another guilting scenario, one that uses the request for a timelier car ride situation that we discussed earlier. The fourth videotape we worked on is designed to depict an encouraging caring scenario using the same request for a timelier car ride situation. Once this set of four videotapes was made, I then had the three other actors make the same set of four videotapes as Pete did, so in the end I had four actors portraying the four different scenarios. Once I had the videotapes made, I arranged for University of Minnesota students, 139 men and 109 women, to come to a viewing theater.  Each student saw just one of the sixteen videotapes, randomly chosen. Because the actor making the request in the video had pretended as if the camera is the person for whom the request is made, he or she appears to be addressing the student viewing the videotape.  As I already mentioned, the job of each student observing the videotape was to enact the role of the friend to whom the request is being made. Immediately after observing the request, students individually answered five questions.  The results of the study indicated that those students who saw the encouraging caring videotapes answered all five questions more favorably than students who saw the guilting videotapes and these differences were statistically significant. Thus, students indicated that they would be more likely to comply and less likely to become covertly and overtly angry with those who tend to use encouraging caring than those who tend to use guilting.  Moreover, guilters were less liked and were viewed as less respected for how they handle conflict than those who used encouraging caring.

Encouraging Caring: A Secret Source of Power

I’ve just provided some information about why I think encouraging caring can often be more effective than guilting.  We now take up the question of why I think encouraging caring is a secret. When teaching conflict resolution, I frequently employ the following technique:  The class is given a typical conflict and asked to generate plans that might help to resolve the conflict.  I have found that although guilting is regularly suggested, encouraging caring almost never is.  When I have suggested it as a possibility, students have often looked puzzled, and sometimes asked, “Isn’t that the same thing as guilting?” During counseling sessions, I’ve also found that the availability of encouraging caring to deal with conflicts seems to be a secret to many people.  Here’s an example:

Patricia (not her real name), a 21-year old university student, came to the counseling center expressing a concern about her relationship with her mother with whom she lived.  Patricia desired to make her own decisions, but whenever she tried to do this, her mother fervently interfered.

“Patricia,” I said, “what do you think would be the best way to respond to your mother the next time she begins to insist on pushing you in a particular direction?”

“My friends tell me to learn to be assertive.  I read a book on it, and I’ve tried some of the ideas.  In some situations it’s helped but not with me and my mom.  Lately, my friends are coaching me to practice saying in a strong voice, ‘Mom, I’m going to make up my own mind!  I don’t want any advice from you unless I ask for it!’”

“Does your friends’ advice make sense to you?”

“In a way, it does.  The thing is, there’s no way I could ever say that to my mom.”

“Hmm.  Well, what do you think is the best way to go from here?”

“I’m feeling stuck.  I’m hoping you can help me to come up with some idea.”

“Well, I suggest we try practicing a style I call ‘encouraging caring.’  You don’t have to make any commitment to me that you’ll try this with your mother, but if you try it out with me in a role play a few times, maybe it will feel more comfortable to you than your friends’ suggestion.  Would that be okay?”

“I’m willing to give it a try.”

“Good.  I’m going to play the part of your mother.  I’ll start to give you some advice, and I’d like you to consider saying, in a sad voice, ‘Mom, I’ve been feeling sad lately.  I love you very much, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, and yet I feel that it’s best for me to make my own decisions.  Every time I try, you start to feel frustrated.’ “When you say that, Patricia, I’m going to act like I’m becoming defensive.  If this makes sense to you, I’d like you to practice replying sadly, ‘I’m not putting you down, Mom.  It’s just that I’ve been feeling so sad about this.  I really do love you.’”

“That sounds a little like guilting.  I don’t want to learn to be a guilter like my mom.”

I then explained to Patricia the difference between guilting and encouraging caring.  It was like a light went on in her head as she smiled broadly.  I gently posed a few questions for her to make sure she understood the difference, and within a few minutes she convinced me that her understanding was sound.

After a few practice role plays, Patricia expressed a high degree of confidence that she could try this with her mother. The next time I saw her, Patricia reported with a smile on her face that she was able to try encouraging caring with her mom the night of our last session.  It turned out that she and her mother ended up having a good cry together, and since then, her mother had begun to encourage her to be more independent.

We practiced a few more role plays that session, trying to anticipate what might be a response that remained consistent with the encouraging caring style in the event that her mother began to again become too pushy.  We also worked on a little note that Patricia wrote to her mother thanking her for being so understanding.  During our discussion, Patricia decided to get her mother a little gift to go with the note without my suggesting such a gesture.

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ASSIGNMENT: If you will, see if you can remember a time when you requested some assistance and was turned down. Think about how you responded? See if you can imagine replying in a way that matches the encouraging caring approach.
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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.