Dr. Heidi Grant

What Makes You (and Me) Act Like a Jerk

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Lessons from Good Boss, Bad Boss

I recently finished fellow PT blogger Robert Sutton’s excellent new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss.  In it, he describes not only what the best (and worst) bosses do, but why they do it, identifying the essential beliefs that form the foundation of effective (and ineffective) management.

It struck me again and again as I was reading that so much of the advice Sutton offers on how to be a good boss can also be applied to the universal challenges of being a good and happy person.   I think one of my favorite chapters, “Squelch Your Inner Bosshole,” is a perfect illustration of what I mean.

In it, Sutton points to the some of the forces that turn otherwise decent human beings into rotten bosses.  We would be wise to remember that these forces are often present in the lives of non-bosses as well – who among us hasn’t been a real jerk on occasion?  The good news is, if you can identify the triggers of your unpleasant behavior, and become aware of their influence on you, you too can effectively squelch your inner a**hole.

Here are some of the triggers of bad boss behavior Sutton highlights:

1.     “Power Poisoning.”

Sure, power sometimes corrupts.  But more often, it just turns us into jerks.  Studies show that when people are given power, they become less tuned in to other people’s feeling and needs, paying less attention to what others say and do.   With power, our language and behavior becomes more insulting and inappropriate, and we become more self-absorbed, focusing more on our own personal gain than what is best for the group.

It’s not just bosses who experience the nasty side effects of power.  Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who was just a bit too needy and insecure?  Were you surprised to find how cold, selfish, or downright cruel you became in response?  When friends or romantic partners give us all the power, when we find ourselves with too much “hand,” it can lead to pretty callous behavior.

2.     “Extreme Performance Pressure.”

Being under time pressure, or knowing that a lot is riding on what we’re doing, makes all of us less sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.   We’re so busy thinking about what could wrong, and worrying about our own performance, that it creates a kind of tunnel vision.    Feeling anxious makes you irritable – this is why you come home from work after a hard day and yell at your spouse, your kids, or your dog.

3.     “Sleep Deprivation, Heat, and Other Bodily Sources of Bad Moods.”

Sutton points out that a lack of sleep, or uncomfortable temperatures, can disrupt our ability to make good, rational decisions, because tiredness and heat make us irritable and impatient.  Poor nutrition and illness can also leave you feeling unusually jerky.

(Interestingly, do you know what doesn’t predict mood?  Day of the week – people aren’t actually reliably happier on Friday and more depressed on Monday.  So if you’re acting like a jerk on a Monday, find something else to blame.)

4.     “Nasty Role-Models” and “A**hole Infected Workplaces”

Throughout Good Boss, Bad Boss, Sutton emphasizes the enormous power of social influence.  We emulate the people around us, often unconsciously.  And as he writes, “emotions are remarkably contagious.”  Anxiety, cynicism, selfishness, and negativity rub off.  So if you are surrounded by cranky jerks, you just might begin to behave that way yourself without realizing it.

Sutton’s solution to the trigger problem is a good one  – make sure you have people in your life you can trust to tell you when you are acting like a jerk.  Give them explicit permission to do so, and make sure you really listen and react without defensiveness.

Then take a good hard look at how you’re acting and ask yourself if that’s really the person you want to be.    If not, start looking around for the trigger.  Is power going to your head?  Are you under too much pressure?  Are you hanging around too many jerks?

If you’re not happy with your own behavior, renew your commitment to noticing and respecting the needs and feelings of the other people in your life.  And if you need one, take a nap.

3 Reasons Why It Pays to Not Let Sexist Comments Slide

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From my Fast Company blog:

Your colleague Jim calls you “honey,” makes cracks about women drivers, and suggests that you be the one to shop for the retirement gift for Bob because “women like that sort of thing.”    A lot of the sexism that women encounter in the workplace looks like this – comments that are not necessarily meant to cause insult or discomfort, uttered by otherwise decent enough male coworkers who you generally like.  But they are harmful nonetheless, because they perpetuate stereotypic views of women’s preferences and abilities.  If you found yourself in a situation like this, what would you do?

While we’d all like to believe that we would confront anyone who said something sexist (or otherwise bigoted) to us personally, the truth is that it rarely happens. For instance, in one study, 68% of women said that they would refuse to answer sexually harassing questions in a job interview, and 28% said they would openly confront the interviewer.  But when the interview actually happened, all of the women answered the offensive questions, and not one confronted the interviewer.

It’s no wonder so few are willing to confront sexism in the workplace (or anywhere else).  People usually want to avoid being seen as complainers, and assume that their objections will elicit very hostile reactions that will make their work environment even more tense and uncomfortable.  Why make it worse for myself? we think.  Just roll your eyes and try to ignore him.

Well, it turns out that there are three very good reasons why you should confront the perpetrator of a sexist comment.

1. It Won’t Be As Uncomfortable As You Think

Countless psychology studies show that people are surprisingly bad when it comes to predicting how an interaction with another person will go.  So it’s worth asking, how do men actually respond when they are confronted about sexism in this day and age?

The answer:  they are remarkably nice about it.

In a new study, conducted by Robyn Mallett and Dana Wagner at Loyola University Chicago, male participants were teamed with a female partner (who was actually a confederate in the experiment).  Their assignment was to read a set of moral or ethical dilemmas and discuss together how to deal with each situation, including one in which a nurse discovers that a hospital patient has been given tainted blood.

During their discussion, the female confederate confronted her male partner either for sexism (i.e., having assumed the nurse in the story was female, which every male participant did) or in a gender-neutral way (i.e., disagreeing with the male’s suggested solution to the dilemma).

As expected, men had much stronger reactions to being told that their remark was sexist than they did to mere disagreement.  But the reactions weren’t what you might expect.  The men accused of sexism smiled and laughed more, appeared more surprised, gestured more often and with greater energy, and were more likely to try to justify or apologize for their remark.   But they did not react with more hostility or anger – in fact, they reported liking the female partner in both conditions equally well, and were generally pleasant across the board.

It turns out that when it comes to offensive remarks, offenders are also susceptible to social pressure, just like the victims of sexism who are so reluctant to complain.

Men who make insensitive sexist comments usually want to avoid being seen as sexist jerks.  (Not always, but more often than not).  This tempers their response to confrontation, and as a result, they react less negatively or harshly than anyone might have imagined, including the men themselves.

2.  He Will Probably Be Nicer, and Like You More

Once confronted, perpetrators of offensive remarks are motivated to smooth the awkwardness of the situation.  In the study, men were significantly nicer to their female partner while discussing a second set of dilemmas after having been accused of sexism, than they were after merely being told they wrong.

The “sexists” were more agreeable, more likely to try to search for common ground with their partner – they even smiled at her more.  And because they had worked harder to make the relationship work, at the end of the study the men accused of sexism reported liking their partner more than those who weren’t accused of it.

3.  Being Confronted Makes You Less Sexist

Perhaps the best reason to confront sexism is that it is the single most effective tool we have if we want to get rid of it.

Hundreds of studies show that confronting bias (toward any group) actually improves intergroup perceptions and reduces future bias.   If no one points out to Jim that his remarks about women are offensive, it’s not likely he’s going to figure it out on his own.  And chances are, he doesn’t really want to offend you or anyone else.  Confronting him gives him a chance to see things from your point of view, and understand where his “innocent” comment went wrong.

Follow me on Twitter  @hghalvorson

The Cure for Loneliness

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The world grows ever smaller, more connected, more crowded, and ironically, increasingly lonely for many of us.  This is a problem with a whole host of unhappy consequences, not just for the individuals who experience it, but for society as a whole.

It’s important to point out before I go any further that loneliness is not the same thing as being a private person, or a “loner,” because some of us actually both need and enjoy a lot of time to ourselves.  Loneliness, instead, refers to the difference between the amount of social contact and intimacy you have and the amount you want.  It’s about feeling isolated, like an outcast.

(That said, the opposite of loneliness isn’t popularity either – you can have dozens of “friends” and still feel lonely.  True intimacy and feelings of relatedness are much more about the quality of your relationships than the quantity.)

Persistent loneliness is not only emotionally painful, but can be more damaging to our physical and mental health than many psychiatric illnesses.  For instance, lonely people sleep poorly, experience severe depression and anxiety, have reduced immune and cardiovascular functioning, and exhibit sings of early cognitive decline that grow more severe over time.

Not surprisingly, psychologists have created dozens of interventions designed to try to tackle this epidemic of loneliness.  The approaches taken are varied, but can be broken up, roughly speaking, into four different categories.

There are interventions aimed at:

Improving social skills. Some researchers argue that loneliness is primarily the result of lacking of the interpersonal skills required to create and maintain relationships.  Typically, these interventions involve teaching people how to be less socially awkward – to engage in conversation, speak on the phone, give and take compliments, grow comfortable with periods of silence, and communicate in positive ways non-verbally.

Enhancing social support.  Many lonely people are victims of changing circumstances. These approaches offer professional help and counseling for the bereaved, elderly people who have been relocated, and children of divorce.

Increasing opportunities for social interaction. With this approach, the logic is simple:  If people are lonely, give them opportunities to meet other people.  This type of intervention, therefore, focuses on creating such opportunities through organized group activities.

Changing maladaptive thinking.  This approach might seem surprising, and its rationale less obvious than the other approaches.  But recent research reveals that over time, chronic loneliness makes us increasingly sensitive to, and on the lookout for, rejection and hostility.  In ambiguous social situations, lonely people immediately think the worst.  For instance, if coworker Bob seems more quiet and distant than usual lately, a lonely person is likely to assume that he’s done something to offend Bob, or that Bob is intentionally giving him the cold shoulder.

Lonely people pay more attention to negative social information (like disagreement or criticism). They remember more of the negative things that happened during an encounter with another person, and fewer positive things.

All this leads, as you might imagine, to more negative expectations about future interactions with others – lonely people don’t expect things to go well for them, and consequently, they often don’t.

Interventions aimed at changing this self-fulfilling pattern of thinking begin by teaching people to identify negative thoughts when they occur.  Whenever they feel anxious about a social encounter, find themselves focusing on everything that went wrong, or wondering if they’ve made a bad impression, a red flag is raised.

Next, they learn to treat these negative thoughts as testable hypotheses rather than fact.  They consider other possibilities – maybe everything will go smoothly, maybe it wasn’t all bad, perhaps everyone liked me after all.  They practice trying to see things from the perspective of others, and interpret their actions more benignly.

Take the case of Bob the Distant Coworker.  With thought retraining, lonely people learn to ask themselves questions like “Am I sure Bob doesn’t like me?  Could there be other, more likely reasons for his quiet, reserved behavior at work?  Could he simply be preoccupied with some problem?  I know sometimes I get quiet and distracted when something is bothering me.  Maybe Bob’s behavior has nothing to do with me!”

Once the negative thoughts are banished, lonely people can approach new relationships with a positive, optimistic outlook, see the best in others, and learn to feel more confident about themselves.

With four approaches to curing loneliness, the obvious question is:  What works?  Thanks to a recent meta-analysis of 50 different loneliness interventions, the answer is clear.  Interventions aimed at changing maladaptive thinking patterns were, on average, four times more effective than other interventions in reducing loneliness.  (In fact, the other three approaches weren’t particularly effective at all.)

It turns out that fundamentally, long-term loneliness isn’t about being awkward, or the victim of circumstance, or lacking opportunities to meet people.  Each can be the reason for relatively short-term loneliness – anyone who has ever moved to a new town or a new school and had to start building a network of friends from scratch certainly knows what it’s like to be lonely.   But this kind of loneliness needn’t last long, and new relationships usually are formed… unless you’ve fallen into a way of thinking that keeps relationships from forming.

More than anything else, the cure for persistent loneliness lies in breaking the negative cycle of thinking that created it in the first place.

Follow me on Twitter @hghalvorson

The Dark Side of Self-Control

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From my Psychology Today Blog:

Why do people drink too much, eat too much, smoke cigarettes, take drugs, or have sex with people they’ve just met?  What’s to blame for all this bad behavior?

Most people would say that, while these self-destructive acts can have many root causes, they all have one obvious thing in common: they are all examples of failures of self-control.  Each of us has desires that we know we shouldn’t give in to, but when faced with temptation, some of us lack the willpower to resist it.

A recent paper by psychologists Catherine Rawn and Kathleen Vohs, however, argues that if you really think about it, something about that simple answer doesn’t quite make sense.  In fact, it turns out that sometimes it’s having willpower that really gets you into trouble.

Think back to the time you took your very first sip of beer.  Disgusting, wasn’t it?  When my father gave me my first taste of beer as a teenager, I distinctly remember wondering why anyone would voluntarily drink the stuff.   The experience is similar for most of us when it comes to our first sips of wine, hard liquor, and coffee as well.  And smoking?  No one enjoys their first cigarette – it tastes awful, burns your throat, makes you cough, and is often nauseating.  So even though smoking, and drinking alcohol or coffee, can become temptations you need willpower to resist, they never, ever start out that way.

Just getting past those first horrible experiences actually requires a lot of self-control.  Ironically, only those individuals who can repeatedly override their impulses, rather than give in to them, can ever come to someday develop a “taste” for Budweiser, Marlboro Lights, or dark-roasted Starbucks coffee.

We automatically think of willpower as a resource we use to help us do the things we know we should do – the things that are good for us. So why then would anyone ever exert willpower in order to do something that isn’t good for them?

The short answer is, we do it in order to achieve some goal.  And more often than not, that goal has something to do with social acceptance.   We force ourselves to consume alcoholic beverages that taste awful, inhale cigarette smoke that gags us, and try to mask the taste of coffee with generous applications of milk and sugar, in order to seem sophisticated, grown-up, and cool.  We experiment with illegal drugs, even though we are terrified of the physical and legal consequences, in order to feel accepted.  We have sex with people when we feel no sexual desire whatsoever, hoping that they will like us and that maybe it will “go somewhere.”

When we use our willpower to overcome our healthy impulses, we are choosing interpersonal gains – like forming friendships and avoiding rejection – over personal well-being. These aren’t self-control failures – far from it.  They are deliberate choices, and they are in fact self-control successes.

So if you think that your child will grow to become a clean, sober, and abstinent teenager just because he has the willpower to hold out for two marshmallows later instead of one marshmallow now, think again.

Self-control is simply a tool to be put to some use, helpful or harmful.  To live happy and productive lives, we need to develop not only our self-control strength, but also the wisdom to make good decisions about when and where to apply it.

Follow me on Twitter @hghalvorson

Get Dirty and Lighten Up!

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People might like you more when you get a little dirty.

Our language is loaded with common sayings that use cleanliness as a metaphor for goodness and virtue.  When your hands are clean, or when you have a clean conscience, it means you aren’t guilty of a transgression.  When you clean up your act, you become a better, more admirable person.  On the other hand, dirty words are those that violate our standards of speech, and dirty tricks are underhanded and unscrupulous maneuvers.  When you play dirty, it means you cheat.   There is obviously a strong psychological association between physical cleanliness and our sense of not only what is good and bad, but also what is morally right and wrong.

But it turns out that cleanliness is much more than a metaphor for virtue.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about how sitting on a hard chair can lead you to make more rigid decisions, and how holding a heavy clipboard can make what you’re doing seem more serious and important.  Recent research reveals than your own cleanliness influences not only how virtuous you feel, but how harshly you judge the behaviors of others.

In one study, half of the participants were asked to clean their hands with an antiseptic wipe before using the keyboard to answer a series of questions.  The researchers found those who had cleaned their hands subsequently rated behaviors like smoking, using drugs, looking at pornography, cursing, littering and cheating on your spouse as significant more immoral than those who had not cleaned their hands.

In other studies, people who simply spent a few moments visualizing themselves in a clean slate (“My hair feels clean and light.  My breath is fresh.  My clothes are pristine and new…. I feel so clean”) rendered harsher moral judgments on 16 issues, including abortion, homosexuality, obesity, prostitution, and masturbation, than people who had visualized themselves in a dirty state, or who did not visualize at all.  They also rated themselves as possessing a significantly more moral character than their peers.

So being clean makes you feel like you are a better, more virtuous person, and that is probably on the whole a good thing.  People who believe they are moral are usually more likely to behave morally.  But there is a potential danger here as well.  As the researchers write, “Our seemingly rational desires and acts of cleanliness have not only the potential to shift our moral pendulum to a more virtuous self, but also license harsher moral judgment on others.”

When we are squeaky clean, we are more likely to adopt a self-righteous, less empathetic and understanding view of the shortcomings and foibles of others.  We are more likely to see ourselves as morally superior to others, when we may in fact not be.  That’s the kind of thinking that leads to far greater unhappiness, for you and for the people around you, than a little dirt under your fingernails or spaghetti sauce on your tie.

So if you want to lighten up a bit and not judge others so harshly, try getting just a little bit dirty.  Perhaps more importantly, take a moment to think about the personal cleanliness of the important people in your life, like your boss, your spouse, your mother-in-law.  You’d be wise to expect the clean freaks to take a less generous view of your lapses in judgment than those with a more relaxed approach to hygiene.

And finally, if there is something you need to confess to your romantic partner, try doing it before he or she gets into the shower.

What to Say When You Have to Say “I’m Sorry”

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The 3 kinds of apology, and who they most appeal to.

Apologies can be enormously effective when it comes to resolving conflict, repairing hurt feelings, fostering forgiveness, and improving relationships in both our personal and professional lives. They increase relationship commitment and satisfaction, employee loyalty and satisfaction, feelings of trust, and cooperation. An apology can even keep you out of the courtroom. (Despite the fact that lawyers tend to caution their clients to avoid apologies like the plague, fearing that they are tantamount to an admission of guilt, studies show that when potential plaintiffs receive an apology, they are more likely to settle out of court for less money.)

But as anyone can tell you, apologies don’t always work. (Ask Michael Richards, for instance. Or John Edwards.  Or Trent Lott.  I could go on and on.)  At times they seem to fall on deaf ears.  This can be because the person or persons we are seeking forgiveness from really aren’t interested in forgiving, or because the transgression itself is deemed simply unforgivable.  But more often than not, our apologies fall flat because we apologize the wrong way.

So what is the right way? How should you apologize to your coworker, customer, friend, or spouse, in order to be sure that your already bad situation doesn’t end up even worse?  Until recently, there has been very little (scientific) psychological research focusing on what constitutes a “good” apology.  A new set of studies, however, reveals that different kinds of apologies appeal to different kinds of people, and that the key to an effective apology lies in thinking carefully about your audience.

The researchers identified three distinct forms of apology:  offers of compensation, expressions of empathy, and acknowledgment of violated rules and norms.

Offers of compensation are an attempt to restore balance through some redeeming action.  Sometimes the compensation is tangible, like paying to repair or replace your neighbor’s fence when you inadvertently back your car into it, or running out to get your girlfriend a new phone when you accidentally drop hers into the toilet (which happened to me, by the way.  Not cool.)  Offers of compensation can also be more emotional or socially-supportive.   (as in,  “I’m sorry I was a jerk, and I’ll make it up to you by being extra nice from now on.”)

Expressions of empathy, on the other hand, involve recognizing and expressing concern over the suffering you caused.  (e.g., “I’m so sorry that I didn’t appreciate all the effort you went to.  You must have felt awful, and that’s the last thing I want.”) Through expressions of empathy, the victim feels understood and valued as a partner in the relationship, and trust is restored.

When your apology is an acknowledgement of violated rules and norms, you are basically admitting that you broke the code of behavior of your social group, your organization, or your society. (e.g.,  “No one in my family/profession/community behaves this way, I should have known better.”  “I didn’t just let myself down, I let my teammates/company/fans down.”

Research shows that these three different types of apology are most effective when offered to people who think of themselves in particular ways.

People who have an independent self-concept think of themselves primarily as individual, autonomous agents, completely separate from others.  They tend to be focused mainly on their own rights, feelings, and goals, and as a result, experience transgressions as a personal injury or betrayal.  No surprise then that they respond most favorably to apologies that offer compensation.   The United States is a particularly independent, individualistic society, which may explain why American juries seem to love doling out lots of money as compensation for pain and suffering.  (And this is why telling a deserving employee who you passed over for promotion that you “feel his pain” is probably not helpful – he doesn’t care what you feel, he wants what’s coming to him.)

People with a more relational self-concept see themselves as primarily defined by their relationships with significant others (e.g., spouse, parent, child, friend, colleague).    This type of self-concept is more common among women, for whom relationship ups and downs tend to loom large. When your self-concept is relational, you are focused on creating, maintaining and strengthening the relationships in your life.  Transgressions are experienced as betrayals of mutual respect and trust, and consequently, apologies are most effective when they include expressions of empathy, rather than offers of compensation.  (And this is why your gift of flowers after you’ve forgotten your wife’s birthday or stayed out too late drinking with the guys is usually met with an icy stare.  We don’t want your flowers – we want you to feel our pain.)

Finally, people with a collective self-concept see themselves first and foremost as members of the important groups, organizations, and cultures to which they belong.  When you are a part of a group, whether it’s your family, your company, or your society, there are rules that govern how you are supposed to behave.  For instance, baseball players aren’t allowed to take steroids.  Accountants aren’t allowed to fool around with the books.  Politicians can’t break the laws that they are elected to create and protect.  Members of my family aren’t allowed to violate the rules of grammar. (You want to see an icy stare, try saying “You did really good” in front of my mother.  It’s positively Arctic.)   Transgressions are experienced as betrayals of the rules or values of the group, and thus, apologies that offer acknowledgment of violated rules and norms are your best bet for restoring your good standing with the other group members.

When crafting your apology, remember to ask yourself:  Who am I talking to, and what are they looking for in my apology?  What troubles them the most about what I did?  Was my transgression perceived as a personal injury, betrayal of the relationship, or betrayal of the code of behavior of our group?

If you’re not sure, think about how the injured party most often talks about themselves – do they focus on their own individual qualities, their key relationships, or the important groups to which they belong?  Knowing something about how the person you wronged thinks of him or herself is your first clue into what is probably bothering them most, and will help you to apologize in the most effective way.