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- Consumer Behavior
Consumer behavior
— or how people buy and use goods and services
— is a rich field of psychological research, particularly for companies trying to sell products to as many potential customers as possible.
Since what people buy
—and why they buy it
—impacts many different facets of their lives, research into consumer behavior ties together several key psychological issues. These include communication (How do different people respond to advertising and marketing?), identity (Do our purchases reveal our personality?), social status, decision-making, and mental and physical health.
Why Consumer Behavior Matters
Corporations, political campaigns, and nonprofit organizations all consult findings about consumer behavior to determine how best to market products, candidates, or issues. In some cases, they accomplish this by manipulating people's fears, their least-healthy habits, or their worst tendencies. And consumers themselves can be their own worst enemy, making rash purchasing decisions based on anxiety, faulty logic, or a fleeting desire for social status. But consumers aren’t powerless: Learning more about the different strategies companies employ, as well as the explanations for people's often confusing purchasing decisions, can help individuals more consciously decide what, why, and whether to buy.
Why do marketers study consumer behavior?
In developed countries, people spend only a portion of their money on things they need to survive, and the rest on non-essentials. Purchasing decisions based on want, rather than need, aren’t always rational; instead, they are influenced by personality, emotion, and trends. To keep up, marketers continuously investigate how individuals and groups make buying choices and respond to marketing techniques.
How do politicians use marketing research in campaigns?
Political marketing is, in many ways, similar to product marketing: it plays on emotions and people’s desire for compelling stories, rather than pure rationality, and aims to condense complex issues into short, memorable soundbites. Smart politicians use marketing research to tailor their messages, connect with voters who share their values, and counter their opponents’ narrative.
Why are people drawn to fads?
Humans are social animals. We rely on a group to survive and are evolutionarily driven to follow the crowd. To learn what is “correct,” we look to other people—a heuristic known as the principle of social proof. Fads are born because a product’s popularity is assumed to signal value, which further bolsters its popularity.
How is consumer behavior affected by natural disasters?
Natural or man-made disasters can trigger panic buying or hoarding behaviors, either before the disaster or after it has passed, usually of products deemed necessary for survival. In the weeks and months after a disaster, some evidence suggests that “hedonic purchases”—such as alcohol or unhealthy foods—rise as victims of the disaster attempt to cope.
How does consumer behavior change during a recession?
After large-scale recessions, such as the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, consumers typically become more frugal and sensitive to price. These changes become permanent for some consumers, especially for those who were particularly hard-hit; for others, behaviors revert back to baseline once the economy has stabilized and any personal financial challenges have been overcome.
Will the COVID-19 pandemic change consumer behavior?
It already has. Consumers are buying less, shifting more purchasing online, and spending less on travel and in-person events. Whether those changes will endure, though, is unclear. Some experts predict that most people will revert back to old habits post-COVID; a small few, it’s predicted, will become more frugal and less materialistic in the long term.
The Psychology of Buying and Spending
Much of what people purchase—like food, shelter, or medical care—is necessary for their health and security. But what compels someone to buy things that aren’t necessary, like the latest iPhone or an impractical pair of high-heeled shoes? The study of why people make such purchases—which are often irrational—is closely related to the field of behavioral economics, which examines why people deviate from the most rational choice available.
Behavioral economists, marketing professionals, and psychologists have concluded that extraneous purchases may be driven by a need to display one’s social status, or in response to an emotion like sadness or boredom. In other instances, retailers may successfully manipulate the desire for a “good deal” by making an unneeded item seem especially affordable or portraying it as being in limited supply.
Learning how to recognize common manipulation tactics may help individuals and families save money—and stress—in the long term.
Why does buying things feel good?
Many human behaviors are driven by reward. Purchasing a new gadget or item of clothing triggers a surge of dopamine, which creates pleasurable feelings. Though the glow of a new purchase may not last long, the desire to once again be rewarded with a burst of dopamine drives us to buy more.
Does buying more things make you happy in the long run?
It depends. Some research suggests that experiential purchases like vacations bring more happiness than material goods, in both the short- and long-term. However, this rule may not apply universally. For lower-income people, spending on material goods that meet basic needs is often more conducive to happiness, especially if the items remain useful over time.
Why do I buy things I don’t need?
Consumers are often irrational. Instead of only buying things they need, they also buy unnecessary items—often because the purchase makes them feel good, soothes negative emotions, or boosts social status. A consumer may also buy something that has been framed by a marketer as especially attractive; “buy one get one free” offers, for instance, are hard to resist and encourage people to buy things they don’t need.
Why do I buy things that are bad for me?
Certain buying impulses can ultimately be harmful, but they often serve a psychological purpose. Purchasing unhealthy foods or excessive alcohol, for instance, can temporarily offer comfort from painful emotions; buying a new pair of designer jeans might break the bank, but can also help the purchaser prominently display their social status.
How can I stop buying things that are bad for me?
Dissonant buying impulses—or purchases that conflict with one’s resources, needs, and goals—can be difficult to manage, especially when they’re driven by negative emotions. Learning emotional regulation skills—such as naming any negative feelings, redirecting attention to productive activities, or practicing mindfulness—or creating physical “barriers” (such as freezing credit cards so they can’t be used impulsively) can help.
How does anxiety affect what we buy?
Anxiety is known to spur impulsive purchases—in part because buying things offers a sense of control and can be used to self-soothe. Anxiety can also lead someone to prioritize products that promote safety or a sense of security—such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer, or canned goods.
What causes panic buying?
In a word, panic. Anxiety and fear make the world appear frightening and senseless; stocking up on certain items like toilet paper is one way to restore a feeling of control. Panic buying is also driven in part by herd mentality; if people see that others are hoarding hand sanitizer, they assume they should too.
What motivates impulse purchases?
Impulse buying may be motivated by negative emotions, as purchasing something often temporarily boosts mood. It may also be driven by personality—the naturally more impulsive or less conscientious may be driven to more frequently purchase items on a whim. Marketing strategies, like advertising products as “limited time offers,” can increase the tendency to impulse buy.
How Advertising and Marketing Work
Two vast, interrelated industries—advertising and marketing—are dedicated to introducing people to products and convincing them to make purchases.
Since the public’s desires tend to change over time, however, what works in one product’s campaign won’t necessarily work in another’s. To adapt messages for a fickle audience, advertisers employ focus groups, market research, and psychological studies to better understand what compels people to commit to purchases or become loyal to brands.
Everyone has heard the advertising maxim “sex sells,” for instance—but exactly what, when, and why sex can be used to successfully market a product is the subject of much debate among ad makers and behavioral researchers. Recently, some evidence has suggested that pitches to the perceived “lowest common denominator” may actually inspire consumer backlash.
How does marketing influence what we buy?
Marketers regularly use psychology to convince consumers to buy. Some common strategies include classical conditioning—training consumers to associate a product with certain cues through repeated exposure—creating a scarcity mindset (suggesting that a product only exists in limited quantities), or employing the principle of social proof to imply that everyone is buying a product—so you should, too.
Do marketers take advantage of how the human brain works?
Marketers often exploit cognitive shortcuts, known as heuristics, to convince consumers to make purchases. One example of this is the anchoring bias, or the brain’s tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information it learns. A savvy marketer may say, for instance, that a car costs $20,000, then quickly offer to take $1,000 off. Since the consumer “anchored” on to the initial $20,000 price tag, a $1,000 discount seems substantial and the consumer may leap at the offer. But if the car was truly worth $15,000, it would still be overpriced, even with the supposed discount factored in.
Why do some ads succeed while others fail?
Renowned marketing researcher Robert Cialdini found that advertisements are perceived very differently depending on consumers’ state of mind. Fearful consumers, for instance, are more likely to respond negatively to ads that promote standing out from the crowd. However, consumers in a positive state of mind respond well to ads encouraging uniqueness; thus, timing and context are often critical to an ad’s success.
Why are “limited time offers” so appealing?
Limited time offers trigger a sense of urgency and force consumers to make quick decisions. A product only being available “for a limited time” (either at all or at a lower price) creates a sense of scarcity. Scarcity—whether real or manufactured—increases a product’s perceived value, heightening the chance of an impulsive purchase.
Why are so many ads sexual?
Because the majority of humans desire and seek out sex, sexual stimuli naturally capture attention; thus, marketers often make use of attractive models or erotic imagery simply to make consumers take notice. Being “primed” with erotic content can change behavior, too; research has found that sexual priming can lead consumers to make riskier financial choices.
Do sexual ads really work?
The effectiveness of sex in advertising likely depends on several factors, including gender and context. Women appear to respond more negatively to sexual ads than men, research finds. When the product is unrelated to sex, using erotic imagery in ads can trigger dissonance and trigger negative feelings about the brand.
How to Appeal to Consumers
In a crowded marketplace, anyone hoping to sell a product or service will need to stand out. To succeed at this, marketers often turn to psychological research to identify and target their most likely consumers, grab their attention, and convince them that a product will fill a specific need or otherwise better their life. Aiming to inform and persuade consumers—rather than manipulate them—is widely considered to be the most ethical approach, and is likely to help build brand loyalty more than cheap marketing tricks.
How can I persuade people to buy my product?
Both the message and the messenger matter for persuasion. Marketing researcher Robert Cialdini has found that first impressions matter greatly—a company (or individual) that appears trustworthy and warm is more likely to gain their audience’s trust. Cialdini also coined the term “pre-suasion” to argue that marketers must grab consumers’ attention before making an appeal—by offering free samples, for instance, or couching a product pitch in an amusing commercial.
How can I make my marketing campaign more effective?
Turning to psychology can help. Appealing to consumers’ emotions and desire for connection with others are often powerful marketing strategies, as long as they’re not interpreted by consumers as manipulative. Introducing novelty, too, can be effective—research shows that consumers respond to surprising ads, humorous ads, or even “experiential” ads (such as parties or events designed to promote a product). Repeating an ad enough times so that a consumer remembers it—but not so much that they become frustrated—is also a critical part of any effective ad campaign.
How can I introduce a new product or idea?
Humans are creatures of habit and slow to adapt to change. To spread a new message or idea, advertisers have learned that simplicity is key; overcomplicated appeals can be frustrating or confusing for consumers. Summarizing the benefits of a new product, service, or political campaign in pithy, memorable phrases or images—and then repeating the message as often as possible—is more likely to grab consumers' attention and convince them to take a chance on a new object or idea.
How can marketers sell products ethically?
Customers trust businesses that are honest with them, sharing accurate information about everything from the benefits of using their products to how they run their business. Other guidelines for ethical marketing include clearly distinguishing ads from other types of content (news, entertainment, etc.), prioritizing the interests of children or other vulnerable groups (by not marketing unhealthy products to children, for example), avoiding negative stereotypes, and respecting consumers’ intelligence and privacy.
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Understanding Sex in Advertising
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9 Tools to Prevent Anxiety and Depression
Inside the Mind of a Narcissist
Why We Need To Structure Our Days Differently Than We Think
Tips on Using Your Body Language to Make a Better Impression
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Could Artificial Intelligence Replace Therapists?
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The Psychology of Bad Marketing
The Psychology of Bad Marketing
3 Cognitive Shortcuts Exploited by Marketers
These marketing ploys hack your mind and your wallet.
To handle the massive flow of data we're exposed to each day, humans are constantly relying on mental shortcuts. These quick and frequently unconscious processes play a major role in how we make decisions.
These quick ways of choosing can make us more efficient. However, they also provide easy targets for external attempts to sway our purchase decisions. Here are three cognitive shortcuts exploited by marketers and how to see through these psychological ploys for our money.
1. The framing effect
Let’s be honest—we all appreciate a good deal. But how do you know you’re not actually getting the short end of the stick? The framing effect is a potent way marketers can get us to believe something is a bargain, even when it’s not.
Framing refers to the idea that we see things differently depending on how they are presented. For example, if you see an expensive car next to a slightly less expensive (but still overpriced) car, the cheaper car seems like a steal. Deceived by the framing, we buy into an illusory discount and are duped into thinking we came out ahead.
Framing also explains why marketers will sometimes emphasize percentage price reduction and other times a dollar discount. Framing a sale as 20 percent off an original price of $5 sounds much better than $1 off. Similarly, $200 off of a $20,000 car sounds more enticing than 1 percent off, even though the actual discount is the same.
2. Anchoring bias
Anchoring bias is another way our purchase decisions can be swayed to our detriment. This is basically the idea that we rely heavily on initial information (the "anchor") in our subsequent decisions. As you might expect, problems arise when we forget to question the initial reference point.
For example, imagine a salesman shows you the base price for a new TV and then tells you he can take $50 off. Anchoring on the original price, you feel like this is a great deal. But the initial offering could be $100 overpriced, so even with the discount, you'd still be paying way too much.
In the same vein, if we're told we can save a bunch of money by buying a product in bulk, we can become anchored on the concept of saving money and wind up with far more of the product than we really needed.
3. Social proof
To successfully navigate a complex world, many of us rely on the wisdom of the crowd. The idea that we copy the behaviors of others forms the basis for the concept of "social proof." In theory, this seems like it shouldn't be an issue. If people, in general, make good choices, and many people are doing something, we should do the same.
However, we can be led astray when marketers provide a few cherry-picked testimonials or ambiguous claims, like a product being “the most preferred” without providing any context or substantiation. We can also fall victim to celebrity or "expert" endorsements that try to convince us to buy a product, even though the paid opinions in the ads have little connection to the quality of the item being sold.
Countermeasures
Marketing practices are, in essence, a series of attempts to sway our decisions. This doesn’t make them inherently bad, as they do provide us with useful information. But when marketing exploits known weaknesses in our rational decision-making, we have to employ countermeasures.
The first step in counteracting the impact of framing, anchoring, and social proof is just to know they exist and look for instances where they are put into play. Next, you can lower the chances of falling for these cognitive traps by creating opportunities for critical thinking and a more objective viewpoint.
One quick way to gain perspective is through comparative shopping. Next time you're considering a substantial or unplanned purchase, do a quick price search for similar products online to see if the "special deal" or "20 percent discount" translates into any objective savings. Make sure your focus is on the actual price, not the discount.
Next, create some time and space for further consideration. For bigger and unexpected purchases, spend some time away from the product before deciding to buy. Does that new car seem like as good of a deal when you think about it outside the flashy showroom? Are you as interested in that bulk purchase when you get home and see your small cupboard space?
Finally, enlist the help of people you can trust. If you're repeatedly falling victim to marketing ploys, find a friend who generally makes reasonable purchase decisions, and ask for their opinion prior to making your next big purchases.
Deception refers to the act
—big or small, cruel or kind
—of encouraging people to believe information that is not true. Lying is a common form of deception
—stating something known to be untrue with the intent to deceive.
While most people are generally honest, even those who subscribe to honesty engage in deception sometimes. Studies show that the average person lies several times a day. Some of those lies are big (“I’ve never cheated on you!”) but more often, they are little white lies (“That dress looks fine”) deployed to avoid uncomfortable situations or spare someone's feelings.
Trust is the bedrock of social life at all levels, from romance and parenting to national government. Deception always undermines it. Because truth is so essential to the human enterprise, which relies on a shared view of reality, the default assumption most people have is that others are truthful in their communications and dealings. Most cultures have powerful social sanctions against lying.
The Many Forms of Deception
There are sins of commission and sins of omission; omitting information and concealing the truth are considered lies when they are done with an intent to deceive. In addition to statements that are false, deception encompasses statements that misrepresent or distort facts as well as the withholding of information. People can lie through outright statements or by strategic silence.
What kinds of lies do people tell?
People may deliberately create false information or fabricate a story. But most often, sheer invention is not the soul of lying. Rather, people deceive by omitting information, denying the truth, or exaggerating information. Or they might agree with others when in fact they don’t, in order to preserve a relationship. Self-serving lies, on the other hand, help liars get what they want, make them look better, or spare them blame or embarrassment.
How do I lie to myself?
Deception isn’t always an outward-facing act. There are also the lies people tell themselves, for reasons ranging from maintenance of self-esteem to serious delusions beyond their control. While lying to oneself is generally perceived as harmful, some experts argue that certain kinds of self-deception—like believing one can accomplish a difficult goal even if evidence exists to the contrary—can have a positive effect on overall well-being.
What is gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a pernicious form of manipulation in which someone is deliberately told false information with an intent to harm—specifically to undermine their sense of reality. Lies are used as weapons in an effort by one person to exert control over another. The tactic is commonly deployed by abusers, narcissists, cult leaders, and dictators.
How are delusions different from lies?
Delusions are an extreme, pathological form of self-deception. They are false beliefs that contradict reality but which a person is convinced are true—and may go to great lengths to convince others are true. Delusions are typically a symptom of impaired reality perception, common to mental disorders such as mania and psychosis.
How to Spot Deception
Researchers have long searched for ways to definitively detect when someone is lying. They know that some people are better at lying than others; their visual and verbal cues are in sync with what they are saying. But studies consistently show that most people are terrible at detecting deception, performing no better than chance. There’s evidence that many people have inaccurate beliefs about signals of lying—for example, that fidgeting is always a giveaway.
How do I know when I’m being lied to?
Many experts propose that liars reveal themselves in "tells," major and minor changes in body language or facial expressions. But observable signs of lying can be unreliable. Researchers do find that some people lie more than others. Studies show that children under two never lie and that lying peaks in adolescence, when social relationships take on heightened importance.
How do I know when I’m lying to myself?
Most people are not aware of the ways they fool themselves. But psychologist have identified many signals of self-deception. Outsize emotional reactions to present situations, behavior that is out of step with who you claim or aim to be can be indicators that we believe things about ourselves that are false or fail to believe things that are true.
Is lack of eye contact always revealing?
There is a longstanding belief that the eyes are a window to the truth, that liars are “shifty” and inadvertently signal their deception by averting their gaze or altogether avoiding looking a conversation partner in the eye. But science gives the lie to that belief. In fact, researchers have found that people make more eye contact when lying than when telling the truth.
What are body language signals of lying?
Covering a neck with a hand, raising the inside edge of a foot, compressing the lips—all are signs of tension that has been linked to lying. There is a widespread belief that the body and face are always honest and provides reliable clues to lying—often called “tells”—if you know what to look for. But experts now believe that there a no single behavior indicative of deception, although such so-called nonverbals should be seen as alerts to possibly concealed or suspicious information that requires further probing.
Can speech give clues to deception?
Researchers find that language and speech can offer possible but not definitive clues to deception. In analyses of text messages, liars tend to ramble more, present few verifiable facts, and seem less certain of the facts. In speech, overuse of little utterances like um, ah, you know, right?, I mean can be clues to the cognitive load involved in lying.
Are lie detector tests reliable?
One of the best-known methods, the polygraph test, is based on the theory that lying alters normal psychophysiological patterns that can be detected by sensitive machinery. Although popular in crime dramas and movies, the test has long been controversial, with no evidence that there are definitive fluctuations in physiology. Evidence suggests that those with certain psychiatric disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder, cannot be accurately measured by polygraph or other common lie-detection methods.
Why People Engage in Deception
According to one expert, lies are like wishes—often, what is said are things people wish were true. A large body of research identifies three major reasons why people lie: to get something they want, so-called instrumental reasons; to protect or promote themselves; and to harm others. Avoiding punishment may be the main motivation for both children and adults.
While everyone lies a little, it appears that only a small percentage of people do most of the lying. There’s evidence that prolific liars share the personality trait of Machiavellianism: They are manipulative and exploitative of others; the trait is closely related to psychopathy.
Is honesty always the best policy?
Intentions matter when it comes to behavior—it’s often a deciding factor in the law—and there are times when lies can help others or shield them from harm. Sometimes lies are told to prevent difficult conversations, such as those involving critical feedback, and they may appear protective. But they can ultimately disadvantage the recipient by depriving him or her of useful information that can promote positive change.
Is deception always harmful?
Experts differ on the topic. Some believe that even white lies, told with the aim of protecting others or smoothing social relationships, are damaging because they deny people the experience of reality that could be used to improve their lives. Lies are damaging to relationships because they block intimacy. Lies are considered harmful because they destroy trust—the bedrock of society—the belief that others are dependable and intend no harm.
Is deception always wrong?
Lies that knowingly inflict harm are widely regarded as immoral. But sometimes lying is done for good purposes. People may lie to protect others—so-called altruistic lies, such as when a doctor tells a family that their father died a peaceful death when he in fact did not. Some lies are told to help people achieve their goals, such as when a spouse tells a dieting partner that there are no sweets in the house. Many ethicists believe that lies that committed to benefit others should be seen as justified, and that a certain amount of deception may be necessary for maintaining a healthy, functioning society.
How are pathological liars different?
Pathological, or compulsive, liars tell lies about themselves and others for no discernible purpose, and they lie even when their claims are obviously false. Sometimes their behavior is an indicator of a personality disorder such as psychopathy. Researchers believe that such people may lie as a way of maintaining control or to avoid disappointing others. Or their lies may be a form of wishful thinking.
Has fake news always been a problem?
Although the term “fake news” is relatively recent, the dissemination of deliberately false information, or disinformation, to manipulate public attitudes is not new. Nazi propaganda spread anti-Semitic lies to further Hitler’s goals of exterminating the Jews. The internet enables the creation and spread of fake news, including doctored videos, at high speed and puts the burden of verification of information on the reader. Experts advise people to generally exercise skepticism, especially at information that is surprising, and to always check the reputation of news sources.
Humor, in even the most serious of settings, opens creativity, growth, and hope.
KEY POINTS
-Leaders can benefit from moments of laughter.
-Serious partners—married or not—need laughter, especially during tense moments.
-Laughing at one's own vulnerable moments can defuse them for others.
We recently interviewed two professionals who have found a real place for humor in the work setting. Drs. David Fessell, former professor of musculoskeletal radiology at the University of Michigan, and Ed Hoffman, CEO of Knowledge Strategies and former CKO of NASA, spent an hour with us talking about humor and play in the workplace.
Humor and business
The discussion began with Ed talking about a senior manager at NASA who opened a meeting with a pencil up his nose. A simple way to bring humor, lightness, and humanness into a very serious meeting. It not only didn’t distract from the seriousness of the meeting and its topic, but it actually deepened the discussion. More ideas grew because participants were more relaxed — all from a simple moment of laughter.
David recommended that leaders laugh at themselves if they want to bring laughter and humor into the business setting. The act of laughing at something that can be funny means that laughter is allowed. As an example, he related a remarkable story of the Dalai Lama who was giving a speech. He said that he had three things to talk about and proceeded to talk about two of them. He then stopped and said to the audience, "I forgot the third thing." Whereupon, after a moment, he said, “Embarrassment. Embarrassment. Embarrassment.” And then he began to laugh — not a chuckle. It was a deep laugh that went on so long and so deeply that tears were trickling down his face. When he finally took a deep breath, his eyes brightened, and he said, "I remember the third point.” Then he finished his speech.
What were his three points? The strongest memory was of this august person finding the humor in an embarrassing situation — and naming it! It was certainly an embarrassment and a moment of real vulnerability. His choice was to laugh at himself — so hard that the audience began laughing and laughing as the joy of the moment permeated the audience as well as the Dalai Lama. And there was no loss of face to anyone.
We found this to be a wonderful example of how if we can take a moment to see the humor in things, the embarrassment can shift to joy. The tension can shift to creative thinking.
Humor and marriage
As I listened to these two professionals talk about how humor can set a tone or defuse a situation, I began to think of marriage. There are so many moments when a disagreement arises if only because you and your partner live in close and sometimes constant proximity. What if when this occurred, you stopped and thought of the humor in it. Would a good laugh defuse the tension? Would it open other possibilities for resolution? Considering these questions, I thought of my own marriage.
My husband and I have been married for a very long time, yet our relationship seems to continue to grow even today after so many years. Of course, we love each other, but we also laugh a lot. When things get tense, one of us will shift our voice and take on the persona of some favorite character from a book. We read books out loud to each other, and so we have many characters we both love — for example, Sam Gamgee from Tolkien’s work. We might use a typical phrase which would be in the case of Sam, “If you take my meaning.” That funny little phrase inspires a laugh and then opens the conversation.
Just like the Dalai Lama naming the feeling dispelled his disappointment and the audience’s confusion in forgetting his third point, a simple shift to the unexpected yet familiar helps my husband and I keep a great relationship growing even better.
Notice that in both cases, the humor was kind. Snide humor doesn’t create relaxation from concern or tension. As I write this, I realize this is one of the reasons that some comedians make me laugh until I cry and others I turn off almost immediately. If I want to be entertained, I want to also be dealt with kindly.
Is humor a sign of or a generator of hope?
As we were closing out the conversation, David said, “Humor is a sign of hope.” When we can laugh, it means that we see there is a future. When I look at the numbers of suicides and depressed individuals in this country, I am reminded that we rarely take the time to see the humor in our public discourse. There is nothing to laugh about after a mass shooting, but there can be something to laugh about when a politician says only their talking points instead of answering questions or lies in the face of obvious facts. Would laughing at them defuse not just the tension but also their power?
David also suggested that a good strategy is to have a Humor Club where you share humorous situations, jokes that were heard, or moments when laughter broke the ice. In this way, we can become more aware of the role of humor in our lives and begin to recognize them when they happen. For me, those moments are almost always a funny video on Twitter of a cat protecting a child from climbing into danger or perhaps where a dog allows a cat to groom them or where a mother calms a temper tantrum by squirting whipped cream into the yowling mouth of her child. As I watch, they are moments when laughter bubbles up.
Children are good at this. Lots of things are funny to them, and when they laugh, we tend to laugh with them. Just imagine if more people could laugh out loud.
References
1] The interview was conducted on Unlocked, a television show on e360tv hosted by Madelyn Blair.
Is it true that we only use 10 percent of our brain?
No, not even close. This pervasive pop-culture myth—one survey found that 50 percent of science teachers believed it was true—has no basis in reality. We use 100 percent of our brains every day, as is clearly shown by functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. Neurons only make up 10 percent of the cells in our brains but the other 90 percent work full-time, maintaining homeostasis, providing structural support, and removing pathogens. The source of the famous notion is pioneering psychologist William James, who once write that “we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources,” and he was right—but our untapped potential has little to do with our brain cells.
Does brain size affect intelligence?
No, a larger brain does not make a person more intelligent. Some studies have suggested, for example, that a larger brain may contribute as much as 6 percent boost to one’s intelligence, but this research has come into question, and some experts doubt that a larger brain would bring any advantages because it would necessarily demand greater energy consumption, potentially contributing a drag on a person’s resources. Considering all animals, including humans, there is a theory that the size of a creature’s brain relative the size of their body may confer a higher level of intelligence, though—and human brains constitute up a higher ratio of our body size than do the brains of many other animals.
Are people becoming less smart?
The theory known as “the Flynn effect” maintains that average IQ scores have and will continue to rise over time, primarily due to changes in our environment—better diet and greater access to education and information, for example. But in recent years, IQ scores appear to declining—one-half to two points per decade—possibly a reflection of a decline in those same environmental factors.
Are there multiple types of intelligence?
In the early 1980s, Harvard researcher Howard Gardner proposed that, along with IQ, there may be multiple kinds of intelligence that people possess in varying quantities, including visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, and interpersonal (emotional) intelligence. According to this theory, someone high in interpersonal intelligence would likely excel at cooperating within a group, while someone with high levels of logical-mathematical intelligence would have a heightened capacity to understand numbers, patterns, and logic. But while the concept has gained much public attention— and is often used as part of personality or employment tests—many researchers dispute the idea of different intelligences and have criticized Gardner's theory, criteria, and research designs. For example, emotional intelligence cannot be reliably measured through testing as general intelligence can, the critics argue, and so it lacks the power to explain differences between people.
Boosting Intelligence
A critical prerequisite for intellectual growth is the idea that one can gain mastery and improve on native ability. While one can indeed improve memory and problem-solving abilities over time via practice or environmental pressure, this does not mean that one is becoming "more" intelligent. IQ scores do not fluctuate markedly over the course of a person's lifetime, and they tend to consistently correlate with other tests, such as the SAT. Many supplements and computer programs are marketed as brain boosters, but there is little long-term evidence to support those claims.
How much does going to school raise intelligence?
One reason people attend, and stay in, school through high school, college, and beyond, is to become more intelligent. And while additional years of schooling should increase one’s store of general knowledge and career prospects, until recently research had not concluded that formal education also increased one’s IQ. But then a meta-analysis determined that each additional year of schooling appeared to raise IQ by one to five points. Exactly how schooling boosts IQ is not clear, though, nor is whether or how the effect accumulates over many years of education. But experts point to the study as a sign of a more crucial truth: that an individual’s intelligence can change over time.
Can video games boost intelligence?
The right ones seem to be able to. Successful players of games requiring strategy, creativity, and teamwork, research finds, tend to have a higher IQ than others. A similar connection between IQ and gaming success was not found in studies of first-person shooter-type games that rely on hand-eye coordination. But other studies find that playing certain games can actually help boost IQ. Studies that involved popular puzzle-based strategy games, particularly those involving complex, changing environments, led to gains in problem solving, spatial skills, and persistence. Significantly, such results were not found in studies of so-called “brain-training” games marketed as cognitive boosters.
Does exercise increase intelligence?
A growing body of research supports the idea that exercise can help boost cognition, especially moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise. In one example, researchers found that, for older people, time spent in moderate-to-vigorous cardiovascular exercise was positively correlated with increases in “fluid” intelligence—processing speed, memory, and reasoning. In the same study, sedentary time was correlated with boosts in “crystallized” intelligence, such as vocabulary development. Light physical activity, however, provided little cognitive benefit.
Can stimulants and supplements make you smarter?
Stimulants like methylphenidate (Ritalin) and mixed amphetamine salts (Adderall) deliver proven benefits for many people with ADHD. But the question of whether such stimulants could improve cognitive ability is highly controversial. Recent research, however, suggests that the drugs do not deliver any cognitive enhancement—aside from an increase in confidence, interest, and energy in people’s tasks. A boost in optimism when tackling a difficult assignment is not the same as a boost in intelligence, but it can help deliver better results by motivating people to deploy their existing cognitive resources more vigorously.
Who’s Smarter?
Are men more intelligent than women?
While most research finds very little difference in the mean IQ between men and women, men are overrepresented at the tails of the distribution. This means that more men than women have scores that reflect severe retardation, and more men than women score in the profoundly gifted or "genius" range. Research shows that men are a lot more likely than women to overstate their intelligence. In one example, 71 percent of men claimed to be smarter than the average person, compared to just 59 percent of women.
Are psychopaths smarter than other people?
There’s a persistent stereotype that people high in the trait of psychopathy are smarter than most others because they are skilled at both presenting a false façade to potential victims and at manipulating targets into doing what they want those people to do. But research shows that this is not the case. In fact, some studies find, psychopaths are generally less intelligent than others, particularly so when it comes to capabilities like recognizing emotions in others. So why do they seem so intelligent and devious? Researchers suggest that it’s because they constantly target people with schemes, to the point that even if their percentage of success is quite low, they do occasionally rope in a target.
Are narcissists smarter than others?
No, but many become obsessed with the idea that they could be. Studies of narcissism have found that a belief in their intellectual superiority is often crucial to their identity. Narcissists of the type known as grandiose are highly likely to believe they are smarter than other people; some place an especially high value on IQ testing. Vulnerable narcissists, on the other hand, who tend to be more introverted, insecure, and neurotic, are not as likely to believe that they are smarter than others, but they are more likely than others to find taking intelligence tests to be highly stressful.
Are left-handed people smarter than right-handers?
It has long been believed that left-handed people are smarter than right-handers, but research does not support the notion. In fact, a meta-analysis of studies including more than 20,000 people found that right-handers had a slightly higher IQ, on average, than left-handers, but the difference was not significant.
Are humans smarter than artificial intelligence?
This is emerging as a core philosophical question as AI systems increase in power and humans become more concerned about how many aspects of work, decision-making, and even creative production could eventually be turned over to computer intelligence. But there are some tasks humans perform far better, such as image recognition, and humans can also be seen as more flexible and adaptive learners. Some argue that the human propensity to ask original questions sets us apart from machine intelligence, along with the ability to leverage others people’s intelligence while solving problems together.
Intelligence and Relationships
The vast majority of people claim that they find intelligence to be among the most desirable traits in a potential romantic partner. As with other favorable traits, though, this appeal most strongly influences initial interest in a new partner. Once people begin dating, other factors like personality and conflict style play important roles in determining whether a couple will stay together. But for a certain group, intelligence is their primary erotic turn-on. Some research suggests that these individuals, known as sapiosexuals, may represent a distinct sexual orientation. Interestingly, whether one finds intelligence to be a turn-on does not seem to be determined by one’s own level of intelligence. But for sapiosexuals, looks and even gender may not be as vital a factor in sexual attraction as intelligence.
Are smarter people more well-liked?
Generally, yes. Studies of adolescents found that more intelligent individuals were more well-liked by peers than others—although other research finds that more intelligent people tend to like fewer people than others, and to prefer being with other intelligent people. In the dating pool, smarter people may be at an advantage because others’ preference for being with smart people is strongest at the beginning of relationships.
Is intelligence an advantage or a disadvantage in finding a partner?
Generally, it’s an advantage, although some research suggests that the most intelligent people may be at a disadvantage. When people were asked to consider whether they would want to date people in different percentiles of intelligence, the favorability rankings increased steadily from the 50th percentile to the 90th, at which point interest declined. This research is consistent with other findings that even the most appealing traits tend not be desired in the extreme.
Do men resist dating intelligent women?
In surveys, men and women both claim that they are at least as attracted to intelligence as they are to good looks. In practice, especially for men, that is not always the case. The idea that highly intelligent women may be at a disadvantage in the dating pool, research suggests, is no myth: Men tend to shy away from women who are clearly more intelligent than they are. (Women are less likely to have the same reaction to intelligent men.) Experts suggest that intelligent women avoid dumbing themselves down to attract a partner or going out of their way to support a partner’s ego, as in the end those strategies are likely to lead to unfulfilling relationships.
Test Yourself
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/iq/verbal-linguistic-intelligence-test
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/iq/visual-spatial-intelligence-test
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/career/creative-problem-solving-test
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/iq/classical-iq-test
People Who Play God
Some people belong to a one-member cult of personality trying to recruit others.
KEY POINTS
Paradoxically, people who slavishly sacrifice their egos to higher causes experience it as an ego upgrade.
When someone plays God for no greater cause than "because I said so," there may also be a surrendering of ego that feels like an ego upgrade.
Self-deification is also self-sycophancy, devotion to an imaginary idealized self-image.
Self-deifiers take so little responsibility for their actions since they're just humble servants to themselves.
We naturally assume that people look out for Number One. People tend to be egotistical, self-serving, preferring freedom, individuality, and self-determination over oppression, subservience, and slavery. The struggle for individual survival that drives all organisms is operative in humans and enhanced because, with language, we humans have the ability to rationalize our self-serving behavior.
Still, there are surprising exceptions—soldiers willing to die for God and country, suicide bombers and martyrs dying for abstract ideologies, gurus and demagogues. Short of death in the service of some higher-cause, many people become cultists, in effect slaves to crusades.
Why would people give up their autonomy like that?
Why would people surrender their egos voluntarily to become humble and often humiliated pawns?
The human capacity for language explains how we do that. With language we gain the power of abstraction. People can identify with virtual communities, for example, folding their identities into religions, nations, or sports teams, because, with words, humans can conceptualize such things in ways other organisms can’t.
But what’s the motivation? Why would people surrender their autonomy like that?
First, though they’re surrendering their selfhood or egos, they experience as an ego upgrade. A pawn in a larger game feels larger. To a two-dollar person who becomes a one-dollar person in a million-dollar movement, the exchange feels profitable. Becoming the humble servant of some lofty lord, one can lord that lord’s power over others.
Second, though we cherish our ability to exercise our free will, it’s also a burden. Left to our own devices, we experience existential angst, or what I call the “free willies,” fear about whether we’ll make the wrong choices. Many people are happy to surrender the reins to some reigning authority. “Please take the wheel. My life is too confusing. Just tell me what to do.”
Third, once we’ve surrendered our autonomy it’s hard to get it back—hard to even want it back. Emancipation from slavish devotion is a return to the free willies. Besides, when people become pawns in larger crusades they often do things that they can’t justify without the crusade. Furthermore, the crusades often punish defectors. In for a penny, in for a pounding; if you try to exit a cult, you’ll pay.
Cultists are characteristically robotic. They’re mindless swellheads. They take up a lot of space but there’s no one home. They don’t listen to anyone who isn’t a member of their cult, and when you talk to them all you get is their dogma.
I call my research “psychoproctology,” a deliberately light name for a serious subject. The symptoms of cultists and a**holes are so similar that I operate on the assumption that cult is plural of a**hole, which raises an interesting question:
Cultists surrender their autonomy to causes. A**holes claim no higher cause higher than “'cause I said so.” They’re just as robotically absent as cultists, but to whom is it that they have surrendered their autonomy?
To put it another way, when someone self-deifies or “play’s God,” which are they, the God or the God’s disciple? I would say both. Self-deification is a self-splitting whereby one becomes the slavish devotee to an imaginary idealization of oneself. It’s like “I’ve found God! It was me all along!”
I’ve known people who proudly pray to what I’ll call their “almighty gut.” They insist that their gut is never wrong—in a word, omniscient. They blame all of their mistakes on not listening to their gut.
I’ve known people who act as though they’re in the equivalent of purgatory, the Catholic waiting room for those destined to get to heaven, just not yet. Such people claim to know the path to enlightenment and are confident that they’re on that path. They haven’t arrived yet, but it’s inevitable that they will. They’re just purging their remaining faults. They have their eyes on the prize, their enlightened omniscient selves. They’re faking it till they make it. By acting as if they’re already their idealized selves, they’ll become their idealized selves sooner.
It’s possible to get so enthralled by an idealized image of oneself that one surrenders one’s autonomy to it. Self-deification is also self-sycophancy. One plays God and God’s biggest fan and recruiter. Being an a**hole is like becoming a one-member cult of personality, on a mission to recruit more members. A successful cult leader often starts out as a self-deifying personality cult of one who gradually recruits others willing to surrender their autonomy to them.
One of the symptoms cultists and a**holes share is a freewheeling oscillation between two postures: Sometimes they act out like impetuous, impulsive tyrants. Sometimes they pose as prudish, priggish pedants. They scold you from atop their high horse for not living up to their exacting moral standards and then they laugh at you for caring about moral standards.
There are rhetorical advantages to such toggling. In the framing of transactional analysis, they alternate between playing puritan parent and petulant brat, thereby avoiding adulthood altogether. They can use the trick that Socrates’ spin-doctor opponent Gorgias recommended "to destroy an opponent's seriousness by laughter and his laughter by seriousness." That’s the slippery advantage of playing both god and disciple to oneself.
Dealing with the self-deifying, you’re no longer talking to a human. You’re talking to an imperious god or their biggest fan. They enjoy the god-like advantage of total freedom to follow their impulses, and if you challenge their impulse you’ll be set straight by their strict and zealous top-enforcer.
Slavish devotion to one’s imaginary ideal self, almighty gut, soon-to-be enlightened being, is a way to have it both ways and a paradoxically “humble” ego upgrade. One humbles oneself before the lord one imagines being, and then lord’s that lord’s authority over everyone.
If you’re dealing with a tyrant, a personality cult of one, look for signs of self-sycophancy. “Hey don’t hold me responsible. I’m just following orders from the imaginary God I fantasize that I am.”
Here's a short video I made in which I imagine the process by which someone imagines surrendering to the higher power within them:
Another short video on how easy it is to self-deify
References
Sherman, Jeremy (2017) What's Up with A**holes: How to spot and stop them without becoming one. Berkeley, CA: Evolving Press.
How-partners-can-live-in-the-same-different-relationship
How-we-grieve-changes-endings-and-unfulfilled-goals
3-more-ways-rewire-shame-childhood-adversities
6-ways-how-shame-can-undermine-intimacy
Rewire-hidden-shame-adverse-childhood-experiences
Taming-underground-shame-the-early-years
Helping-your-child-teen-or-adult-child-stop-lying-you
Which-types-people-are-the-most-deceptive
The-who-and-why-elizabeth-holmes-and-her-fraudulent-behavior
Nursing-homes-growing-target-labor-traffickers
How-deal-people-pleasers-who-go-too-far
Can-murderer-be-identified-lying-112-call
3-subtle-questions-detect-deception
I-didn't-do-it-denial-lying-or-anosognosia
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-love/202206/psychopathy-and-the-mask-sanity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/about-thinking/201907/how-keep-fake-news-out-your-head
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201708/the-blame-game-we-love-blame-others-why
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/toxic-relationships/201801/how-secrets-and-lies-destroy-relationships
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/relationships
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202207/one-possible-reason-why-your-ex-wont-leave-you-alone
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/surviving-the-female-psychopath/202207/are-psychopaths-truly-reptilian
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/outliars/202207/which-types-people-are-the-most-deceptive
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202207/how-do-dark-personalities-use-humor
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/202206/how-master-manipulators-hide-their-dark-intentions
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dating-toxic-or-tender/202206/how-manipulative-lovers-exploit-their-partners
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/202206/where-does-narcissistic-person-s-sense-entitlement-come
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-love/202206/psychopathy-and-the-mask-sanity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-love/202206/what-do-heroes-and-psychopaths-have-in-common
Big 5 Personality Traits
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/big-5-personality-traits
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202207/how-do-dark-personalities-use-humor
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202207/when-does-sense-humor-become-unhealthy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/jerkology/202206/what-makes-someone-jerk
White Lies: Kind or Cruel?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-kind/201808/white-lies-kind-or-cruel
On Deception: Understanding Lies in One Simple Step
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201806/deception-understanding-lies-in-one-simple-step
Law and Crime
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/law-and-crime
The question of why people choose to commit crimes—often in the face of severe consequences—is at the root of criminal psychology, a branch of study that focuses on the intentions and behaviors of those who plan and carry out criminal acts. On the other hand, psychology itself has, over the years, engendered significant changes in how legal experts think about the crime and the law, as well as changes in how the mentally ill are treated by the criminal justice system.
Contents
--Understanding Criminal Psychology
--The Psychology of Crime
--Psychology and the Law
Understanding Criminal Psychology
Criminal psychology does more than provide a glimpse into a criminal's psyche. It also plays a role in how the law is applied. In the courtroom, legal practitioners require a grasp of defendants' motivations and actions in order to render fair judgment. Forensic psychologists, as well as other mental health professionals, are often called upon to help clinically evaluate the mental states of people who break the law.
Psychology plays a role in police work as well. Criminal profilers—who aim to determine likely suspects through a mix of crime-scene analysis, investigative psychology, and other behavioral sciences—are often forensic psychologists or criminal anthropologists. Law enforcement agencies often rely on these experts to get inside the head of a potential culprit by identifying the perpetrator's likely personality type, lifestyle habits, and quirks.
What does a criminal psychologist do?
Criminal psychologists study the behaviors and motivations of criminals. As such, they may conduct research to determine why crimes occur, consult with police departments to identify suspects, or provide expert testimony in court cases. Criminal psychologists may also engage in criminal profiling.
Why is criminal psychology important?
Criminal psychology findings may help identify suspects, potentially allowing authorities to prevent future crime or catch a serial criminal. On a larger scale, understanding what motivates criminals to break the law—whether poverty, personality, or otherwise—is necessary for creating the societal conditions that may allow them to stop.
How do the police use psychology to identify suspects?
For many routine crimes, police primarily rely on physical evidence and witness interviews to identify suspects. For more severe crimes or when evidence is lacking, they may use criminal profiling, a tool that incorporates research on personality, motivation, antisocial behavior, and other factors to create a “profile” of the offender to aid in the search.
The Psychology of Crime
Exactly why people commit crimes, and what could deter them from doing so in the future, is of great interest to psychologists and law enforcement officers alike. So far, extensive research points to a complex mix of genetics, personality, life circumstances, and environmental factors.
Psychologists also undertake research—often working with individuals who have committed crimes or are the victims of crimes—to understand how criminals choose victims, whether it’s possible to protect oneself from certain types of crime, and what legal professionals and policymakers can do to stop crimes before they occur. But though great progress has been made in understanding the criminal psyche, there’s much that remains unknown about certain criminals’ motivations, as well as an element of randomness in who is victimized and who isn’t.
What causes a person to commit crimes?
Some individuals commit crimes out of necessity; others are driven by anger, rejection of authority, a manipulative personality, or psychopathic tendencies. While stereotypes that all mentally ill people are prone to crime is not accurate, there are instances where mental illness—such as psychosis, substance abuse, or severe bipolar disorder—could influence someone to break the law.
How do criminals choose victims?
There is some evidence suggesting that criminals choose victims, at least in part, based on how they look or move. One study, for instance, found that criminals were more likely to label someone a potential victim if they appeared noticeably different from those around them or was moving in distracted, unusual ways.
How can you prevent being the victim of a violent crime?
Basic safety tips—like paying attention to one’s surroundings and staying in well-lit areas whenever possible—can help someone avoid being the victim of a crime. On a psychological level, working to project calm assuredness, moving with purpose, or blending into a larger crowd may help someone reduce their chances of being victimized.
How Psychology Influences the Law
Psychological and psychiatric findings have had a significant influence on the legal system, particularly since the beginning of the 20th century. Among significant changes include the push towards deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, which coincided with the development of more advanced psychiatric medications and a greater understanding of the causes and potential treatments for mental disorders. In addition, the decriminalization of homosexuality in the U.S. was likely significantly influenced by the growing psychological acceptance that homosexuality—and more recently, being transgender—are not mental disorders.
In addition, legal professionals—including lawyers, police officers, and judges—now regularly consult with psychologists to assess defendants’ state of mind and provide treatment if necessary. This branch of psychology, known as forensic psychology, has grown exponentially in recent years.
How are psychology and the law related?
Psychology and the law both examine human behavior—the first seeks to understand it, and the second seeks to regulate it where necessary. Psychologists study people’s needs and desires, why they follow laws, and how they understand fairness and justice—and these findings, in turn, can help policymakers write laws that are in the public interest.
Why do most people obey the law?
They may be deterred by possible consequences, see the law as a legitimate authority, obey the law so as to better coordinate with others around them and society at large, or they may do it to signal their beliefs or morality. For most law-abiding people, their reasoning is likely a combination of the above factors.
Can psychological research cause laws to be changed?
Yes, though such changes rarely happen quickly. One recent example is California’s law mandating later school start times. This law was directly tied to psychological and neurological research on the developing brain that highlighted the need for children—and teenagers in particular—to get more sleep.
Can laws change people’s beliefs and attitudes?
It does appear that changes to the law can precede larger shifts in societal attitudes, though the direction of cause-and-effect is not entirely understood. One study, for instance, found that antigay attitudes reduced much more rapidly after marriage equality laws were passed than they had before.
How do lawyers make use of psychology?
Lawyers may use psychological findings to aid in jury selection, selecting jurors whose personalities or backgrounds make them well suited to assess the case in favor of the lawyer’s client. Lawyers may also seek psychological assessments to argue that a client is legally insane. To learn more, visit the Forensic Psychology page.
Can eyewitness recollection always be trusted?
Though eyewitness testimony is often a key element of criminal trials, psychology has consistently demonstrated that it cannot always be relied on. Eyewitnesses may misremember key details—or even invent new ones. Despite this, a seemingly credible witness can be highly persuasive; thus, legal professionals continue to use them, particularly when other evidence is lacking.
Why might a witness remember something that didn’t happen?
Memory is imperfect even in the best of circumstances. Eyewitness memories, like other memories, tend to become shorter, less detailed, and biased toward what the witness thought they saw, rather than what they actually saw. While some eyewitness memories are merely inaccurate, others may be altogether false, as psychological researchers like Elizabeth Loftus have convincingly shown that false memories can be implanted.
How do so-called “repressed memories” affect the judicial system?
Once-forgotten memories that are “recovered” play a complicated role in the legal system. Repressed memories may be submitted as evidence in certain locations. However, because false memories can be implanted and it’s often difficult to distinguish true memories from false ones without corroborating evidence, it’s rare for charges to be filed based on them alone.
How is mental illness treated in the legal system?
The legal system generally grants those with mental illness the right to object to treatment (with some exceptions, such as when the individual has committed a violent act). It also limits involuntary hospitalization only to cases where the patient is in immediate danger of harming themselves or others. But though great strides have been made since the days of institutions and demonization of the mentally ill, the legal system still has a ways to go.
How can the families of the mentally ill seek help from the legal system?
Families of the mentally ill can seek involuntary hospitalizations if they can show that there is immediate danger to the individual or others. Barring that, however, there may be little they can do to legally intervene in their care. Family members may wish to connect with a mental health-focused legal expert for guidance and assistance.
What are some concerns about the ways mentally ill individuals may be treated by law enforcement?
U.S. police officers are regularly called in response to mental health crises. However, they often lack proper training and may respond in inappropriate or dangerous ways that result in mentally ill individuals being imprisoned or even killed—sometimes when no crime was committed. Today, many activists are seeking to shift this responsibility to psychological professionals.
Does anti-bias training for police officers work?
Anti-bias training has received significant attention in recent years, especially as concerns about racial biases in policing have grown. However, there is little evidence that implicit bias training reliably reduces bias; indeed, some researchers have found that certain kinds of bias training may actually increase bias in daily life.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-forensic-view/202208/perception-and-interpretation-in-criminal-justice
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-the-criminal-mind/202208/the-criminal-victim-the-tide-flows-backward
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-desk-the-mental-health-lawyer/202207/red-flag-laws-show-the-limits-the-legal-system
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-equation/202207/what-kind-son-would-murder-his-mother
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sound-science-sound-policy/202207/behavioral-ethics-and-corporate-culture
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/outside-the-box/202207/getting-honest-about-mental-health-and-gun-violence
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/202207/3-key-takeaways-listening-killers
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/202207/mass-killings-hurt-hate-and-rage-rampage
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/injustice-system/202207/how-post-dobbs-world-affects-us-all
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-nature-deception/202001/do-lie-detector-tests-really-work
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/202207/the-presence-pet-dogs-makes-entire-neighborhood-safer
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-shameless-psychiatrist/202208/how-address-heavy-topics-kids
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/therapy-it-s-more-just-talk/202207/sextortion-the-dangers-online-activity-teens
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/202003/some-simple-ways-spot-the-language-liar
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201512/um-little-words-can-signal-big-lies-you-know
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201807/the-end-detecting-deception
The End of Detecting Deception
Body-language can help us detect when there are issues — not deception
Since biblical times, humans have sought to detect deception if not for personal reasons, certainly for business. Knowing if someone was lying mattered six thousand years ago every bit as much as it matters today. And for thousands of years, all sorts of efforts were invented to either detect deception or to entrap liars. Everything from closely gazing into the eyes for shiftiness, to hot blades drawn across the tongue (believing that the liar would have a dry mouth), to consulting oracles (who usually gave ambiguous answers), to the pulling of the tail of a camel in a darkened tent (the tails were dusted with charcoal, and thus it was expected liars would not touch the tail and their hands would come out clean), to the more modern use of the polygraph exam; mankind has devoted much effort to discovering lies.
Since 1974, I have been a student of the various techniques being taught to detect deception. After forty-four years of reading the scientific literature, following the work of David Givens, Desmond Morris, Mark Frank, David Matsumoto, Judee Burgoon, Aldert Vrij, Bella De Paulo, Paul Ekman, and others, all people I respect for their research and work, I can only come to one conclusion: there is no single behavior indicative of deception.
Dr. Mark Frank, professor and Department Chair at the University of Buffalo, who is so generous with his knowledge said it best in a conversation with me years ago, “Joe, there is no Pinocchio effect.” And there isn’t and there has never been. There is no single behavior indicative of deception, not one. Even to those who say, "well we look for clusters of behaviors," they would also be wrong. There are no clusters of behaviors indicative of deception. Not really, not if we are honest.
In 2016, I wrote an article for readers of Psychology Today, looking at over two-hundred DNA exonerations. People on death row exonerated after definitive DNA tests confirmed they were not the culprits; it was not their saliva, blood, sweat, or semen found at the crime scene. What was startling when I burrowed deep into all these cases, in each and every instance, the law enforcement officers were sure the suspect was lying, but not one officer could detect the truth. Not one officer believed the suspect when they claimed they did not do it. In other words, and I repeat, they could not detect the truth, but they were certain they could detect deception. This wasn’t just embarrassing—lives were at stake—it was shameful. Shameful that anyone should be falsely accused, but also shameful that not one officer in those 261 cases could differentiate the truthful from the deceptive. Why? Because for decades into the present, law enforcement officers have been taught that they can detect deception through nonverbals, when in fact, we humans are no better than a coin toss at detecting deception—a mere fifty/fifty chance. And that is one way you wind up with the innocent on death row.
But it is not just law enforcement, after the popular TV show Lie to Me came out (premiered on the Fox network), all of a sudden there were hundreds of aficionados teaching others how to detect deception; ignoring or twisting what science actually supported and unfortunately further mucking-up the field with simplistic assertions. Too often a veneer of science was wrapped around one or two examples for general public consumption giving the misleading assumption that detecting deception is not just easy, but that it is assured. That is fallacious and wrong.
If detecting deception were just a parlor game, it would not be an issue, but claiming to detect deception and teaching as much has real life consequences. Those men on death row I spoke of earlier, they were going to executed, because of the false beliefs of law enforcement officers that they could detect deception. People have been fired from their jobs because when questioned they showed signs of nervousness or stress. Relationships have been strained or ruined for similar false assumptions. The public and law enforcement has been fed a lot of nonsense about detecting deception and it’s time to stop. I don’t say this lightly. I come at this from my researching and authoring more than a dozen books on human behavior plus my twenty-five years as an FBI Special Agent — thirteen of which I spent in the Bureau’s elite Behavioral Analysis Program.
For many years, post-trial, I would ask jurors in federal cases, what made them think a particular witness was lying? They would reply that they knew the witness was lying because the witness touched their nose, looked away or up to the right, their skin flushed, touched their lips before answering, rubbed their thumbs together, licked their lips, scratched their ears, or shifted their jaw. Incredible, right? Imagine if that were your life on the line?
If you have been following my writings here in Psychology Today for the last nine years, you know that these behaviors described by jurors above are behaviors that both the honest and the dishonest utilize to pacify themselves when there is stress, when they are anxious, or when confronted with something they are not accustomed to—like a trial for instance or being in front of a group or being questioned in public. What the jurors were seeing were all signs of psychological discomfort, but unfortunately, at some point in their lives someone told them, they saw on television, or they read that these pacifying behaviors (for a complete list of pacifying behaviors see The Dictionary of Body Language, Harper Collins 2018) were indicative of deception. Both the public and law enforcement have been seriously misled.
I think it is time to be honest. I think it is time for those who do research and those who have experience conducting forensic interviews and who teach nonverbal communications to be forthright about this topic and speak the truth. And the truth is that we humans are no better than chance at detecting deception. We have known this since Paul Ekman’s best-seller, “Telling Lies:Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage” came out in 1985. That we need to stop associating behaviors indicative of psychological discomfort with deception and acknowledge them purely for what they are: signs of stress, anxiety, apprehension, despair, suspicion, tension, concern, nervousness, etc., but not deception.
After conducting more than thirteen-thousand interviews in my law enforcement career, I can attest that both the innocent and guilty will, at various times, display all those behaviors researchers, law enforcement, and the public associates with deception depending on circumstances. Why? Because humans are sensitive to their environment, to the presence of others, to questioning by authorities, to environmental circumstances, to nuance in voice, body language, ethnicity, educational factors, social intelligence, among many other factors. Everything that upsets a daily routine, from being called in by a manager about the missing money from the break room, to being confronted on the street by two police officers their weapons on display, is enough to cause most people to display psychological discomfort. And if the questioning is in any way intimidating, or if the person is shamed in public, you can anticipate pacifying behavior and displays of psychological discomfort from the most innocent. Remember: abnormal displays during abnormal circumstances are normal.
In scores of presentations from Europe to Asia, I have demonstrated that I can take the most honest person and within seconds make them do all those behaviors so often falsely associated with deception, just by sitting closer to them, intensifying my look, blinking less while staring at them, changing the tone of voice, asking personal questions, or merely asking simple questions with ardent suspicion. Confronted with any number of techniques too often found in the law enforcement interview literature, I can turn anyone into a self-pacifying, lip licking, ear and neck flushing, high blink rate mess, if I want to. And that is the problem. What we are witnessing is psychological discomfort and that is all and that is all we should say whether it is induced intentionally, by accident, or through circumstances. To claim that we are seeing indicators of deception when we see these behaviors is frankly dishonest and if the definition of ethics is “that which is befitting another human being” then we are also being unethical.
It is time to stop teaching and preaching that we can detect deception through nonverbals and teach what we can use nonverbals for. What is that? That we humans transmit through our body language, what we think, feel, desire, and fear; and that that we communicate this effectively in real time. That when we are stressed, bothered, disappointed, disturbed, anxious, worried, concerned, uncertain, exasperated, or mad, our bodies reveal that information nonverbally by any number of expressions throughout the body, including through the use of pacifiers or what Paul Ekman calls “adaptive behaviors.” In essence we, all of us, can be “issue detectors” as I often say in my lectures, but that is all. That’s all we can say, that something is wrong or not right—that there is an issue—but no more.
You may be asking, now what? We move forward, and we teach nonverbals but for what it really is: the study of everything that communicates but is not a word. That body language reflects our physiology, our mental state, our thoughts and emotions, which are fluid and reflexive, subject to both internal as well as external factors. But we also need to teach that we who ask questions can also adversely influence and cause stress on those we are questioning if we are not careful. Perhaps here is where schools should focus, how to ask questions without inducing additional stressors that mask honesty.
Where does that leave law enforcement or any other forensic setting? Where we should always have been—asking more and more questions as neutral collectors of facts. We ask questions and when we see a particular behavior as a result of that question, we come back to that topic and we ask more questions, or we try to determine why that question would cause the person to react that way. We use it to identify leads, or things that are troubling to the person being questioned, but not to accuse of deception.
In September of 1979, a young investigator asked the mother of a fugitive if she had seen her son recently. She answered “no.” When the investigator asked her if it was possible he was sneaking in to her house while she was at work, she covered her neck with her hand as she answered, “I don’t think so.” She was not asked if she was lying or being truthful, it didn’t matter. The fact that the words “son” and “house” made her cover her neck, was enough information to indicate psychological discomfort. The investigator asked other questions and circled back to that question again, the possibility that her son might be in the house and each time, she unwittingly covered her neck. Again, there was never an accusation that she might be lying, but because the investigator saw the same behavior (covering of the neck and in particular the supra sternal notch or neck dimple—something we tend to do when we are very worried or feel vulnerable) he asked if he could do a quick search of the premises. With her signed consent, the investigator found her son, the fugitive, hiding in the closet. That is how we use this information, to alert us to what bothers others so that we can explore why.
I’ve been at this for more than four decades, I’ve learned a lot about the study of nonverbal communications—both the positive and where it fails us. It is time for all of us who teach to pass on the knowledge that yes there are behaviors that get our attention that that are alerting, that we should pay attention to, but those should serve as a guide to what may be hidden or under suspicion, but nothing more. Psychological distress or discomfort in all its manifestations was never and is not indicative of deception.
References
Burgoon, Judee K., David B. Buller and W. Gill Woodall.1994. Nonverbal Communication: The Unspoken Dialogue. Columbus, Ohio: Greyden Press.
Ekman, Paul & M. O’Sullivan. 1991. Who can catch a liar? American Psychologist, 46 (9), 913-920.
Frank, M. G. & Ekman, P.1997. The ability to detect deceit generalizes across different types of high-stakes lies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72,1429-1439.
Is Honesty Always the Best Policy?
https://randomactsofleadership.com/is-honesty-always-the-best-policy/
Few would argue with the importance of open and honest communication in healthy relationships. Have you ever been in a situation to ponder: is honesty always the best policy?
Of course, it’s easy to be honest when you have something nice or positive to say. Yet when honesty involves a potentially hard-to-hear communication, many of us experience some degree of stress when either delivering or receiving tough feedback.
You may avoid these tough conversations altogether, hoping the issue just goes away. You might avoid giving tough feedback because because you fear your honesty might be hurtful or elicit a negative reaction that you would rather not confront. Your reasons for avoiding delivering tough feedback, however, may have as much to do with how uncomfortable you may feel, as it does with how uncomfortable you might make the receiver feel.
Or you may be someone who prefers to hit the issue head-on and simply call it like you see it. Sometimes you will have a positive impact — and sometimes you will just cause distress. Yet keep in mind that if your focus is solely on being honest your results will be unpredictable.
“Honesty is the cruelest game of all, because not only can you hurt someone – and hurt them to the bone – you can feel self-righteous about it at the same time.” Dave Van Ronk
An Honesty Policy for Whom and To What Ends?
Honesty can indeed be a good policy. It’s just that honesty alone is not enough to ensure honesty is always the best policy.
The problem with honesty is that what is honest for you as an individual is merely a personal truth. While something may be true for you, it is not necessarily THE absolute truth about a person or situation. But when you communicate in that way, believing you are right, there is only one thing the listener will hear — that someone or something is wrong or has done wrong. Once that happens, the conversation is over, even if the exchange of words continues.
Honesty is NOT always the best policy, when the purpose of your communication is to speak your truth without a conscious intention to actually make a difference for the receiver.
Also consider that to communicate difficult feedback effectively, you must also consider that your version of the truth may not match what the listener believes to be true about themselves or a situation.
Unless you stand in the world of the listener, your personal honesty policy all too often occurs like an assault. You may know this intuitively, which is why many people experience an internal struggle as they refrain from being completely honest.
3 C’s of Straight Communication
Two women having a straight communication
Photographer: Amy Hirschi | Source: Unsplash
A complement to your personal honesty policy, consider this perspective. A key to ensure honesty is the best policy is to focus on being straight rather than just being honest. By that, I mean speaking honestly for the purpose of making a difference.
1. Are you CLEAR?
Do you know the specific point you want to make? If you can’t articulate the point in one simple sentence, you are probably not clear enough to be heard.
2. Is your communication CLEAN?
There is a big difference between speaking up to make a difference and speaking out to be heard. When the purpose of communicating is all about you, chances are it is not going to be clean – despite your honesty policy that you strive to live up to. Also, consider if what you are going to say is authentic for you. Be mindful of the temptation to say things you don’t really think are true just to make the other person feel comfortable. Trying to “soften the blow” usually ends up diluting the difference the communication could make.
3. Is your intention to CONTRIBUTE?
When you feel the need to demonstrate your personal honesty policy, it is important to consider the purpose. Do you want to be right or prove a point — or do you genuinely want to make a difference for the other person, a group, a situation, etc.? Do you want to improve a relationship or elevate someone’s performance? Your authentic intention matters more in ensuring a positive outcome than the elegance of your words.
Those who deliver difficult messages consistently in a way that earns respect, rather than fosters fear, are focused on something other than honesty: their primary focus is on making a difference.
The bottom line is this: if you want to communicate honestly as an act of leadership, focus on being straight first. You will not always succeed in making the intended difference. It can take a lot of courage and takes practice to master. So remember to appreciate yourself and others for every attempt, whether you succeed or fail.
I’d love to hear from you. How do you respond to this question: Is honesty always the best policy?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201903/two-useful-behaviors-the-feet
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201405/how-do-i-know-when-i-am-lying-myself
How Do I Know When I Am Lying To Myself?
Detecting self-deception
Humans are masters of self-deception. We fool ourselves into believing things that are false—and—we refuse to believe things that are true (TEDx Honest Liars: The Psychology of Self-Deception). In fact, we lie to ourselves about everything from why we like wearing designer clothing instead of non-name brand fashion to how our childhood influenced our choice of romantic partners. And, most of the time, we are completely unaware of the rampant lying going on in our own minds.
The Dilemma of Self-Deception
Given the unconscious nature of self-deception, becoming honest presents us with a serious dilemma: How do we know when we are lying to ourselves? As articulated in a question recently posed to Dr. Neel Burton in his blog, Hide and Seek, many people are left wondering how to detect self-deception. How can you tell when you are lying to yourself? Clearly, you can’t directly ask yourself whether you are lying because that would require you to tell the truth! So, how do you know when you are deceiving yourself?
In addition to the many questions posed by Dr. Burton to help you on your journey towards self-honesty, I offer some specific suggestions taken from my new book, Lies We Tell Ourselves: The Psychology of Self-Deception. I use self-deception in the context of romantic relationships as an example because it is rampant and has profoundly destructive consequences.
Detecting Your Self-Deception
The most important way to determine whether you are lying or not is to observe yourself, without judgment or evaluation. Just notice and start asking questions that can reveal your internal motivations. As you do this, focus on three areas:
1. Notice Your Emotion. Generally, if we are emotionally reactive to something or someone, it is because we are being reminded of something painful, raw, or unresolved in our lives. In these areas, we are going to struggle to admit the truth. For example, if you struggle with trust issues in your romantic relationships, you may feel anxious, angry, or scared when falling in love with a new mate. As this occurs, you may find yourself reactive to your mate in ways that are not warranted based on who this person is! In fact, your reaction is fundamentally based on who you are and unresolved issues from your past that you are bringing into your new relationship.
Given this reality, when you have a strong emotional reaction to something or someone, pause. Ask yourself: What is this emotion? What is my emotion in reaction to? Is my emotion really related to the present situation or is the present situation triggering something in me that is unresolved baggage from my past?
2. Notice Your Thoughts. We all want to believe that our thoughts are accurate reflections of reality. In fact, most of us believe that we are right about everything: we think our thoughts are true. Unfortunately, our thoughts are incredibly inaccurate in characteristic ways. Often, our inaccurate thinking reflects painful realities that we don't want to admit. When entering into a new romantic relationship, for example, people often think things that are incredibly irrational. These thoughts can be very negative, such as “I am sure my new partner is cheating on me because my ex cheated” and “I am scared to fall in love because I am going to get hurt.” Or they can be overly positive, like “This is the most amazing person in the world.”
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Given this reality, when you notice your thinking is extreme or irrational, pause. Ask yourself: What words am I using to describe my partner? Are my thoughts accurate? Am I using my past to justify my current thinking? How are my thoughts biased?
3. Notice Your Behavior. We desperately want our behavior to be separate from our identity. We don't want to believe that the way we act reflects who we are. For example, you don't want to admit that you are jealous even though you check your partners' phone messages; you don't want to have intimacy issues even though you sabotage your relationships by breaking up with people when they get too close. Yet, the truth is that our behavior is a reflection of who we are in some way.
When your behavior isn’t consistent with who you want to be or claim to be, pause. As yourself: Why am I acting this way? What is motivating my behavior? What do I not want to admit to myself about my behavior? Why?
Choosing Honesty
We cannot be honest with others until we are first honest with ourselves. When we deceive ourselves, we often burden and damage our romantic relationships. Being honest requires deliberate effort on a daily basis and tolerating some painful realizations. Yet, by observing our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, we can learn about who we really are and give ourselves the opportunity to change.
Can You Tell When You're Fooling Yourself?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201403/can-you-tell-when-youre-fooling-yourself
Unconscious
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/unconscious
Some Lie a Lot
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-nature-deception/201910/some-lie-lot
Essential Secrets of Psychotherapy_ Truth, Lies and Self-Deception
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evil-deeds/200811/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-truth-lies-and-self-deception
11 Red Flags of Gaslighting
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-red-flags-gaslighting-in-relationship
Gaslighting is a manipulation tactic used to gain power. And it works too well.
KEY POINTS
The term "gaslighting" comes from the the movie "Gaslight," in which a man manipulates his wife into thinking she is losing her mind.
Gaslighting is a slow form of brainwashing that makes a victim question their reality.
Typical gaslighting techniques include denying something when there's proof, projecting onto others, and telling blatant lies.
Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.
In my book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People — and Break Free I detail how gaslighters typically use the following techniques:
1. They tell blatant lies. You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.
2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof. You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.
3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition. They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.
4. They wear you down over time. This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.
5. Their actions do not match their words. When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.
6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you. This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don't have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, "Well maybe they aren't so bad." Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.
7. They know confusion weakens people. Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.
8. They project. They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter's own behavior.
9. They try to align people against you. Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, "This person knows that you're not right," or "This person knows you're useless too." Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.
10. They tell you or others that you are crazy. This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it's dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It's a master technique.
11. They tell you everyone else is a liar. By telling you that everyone else (your family, the media) is a liar, it again makes you question your reality. You've never known someone with the audacity to do this, so they must be telling the truth, right? No. It's a manipulation technique. It makes people turn to the gaslighter for the "correct" information—which isn't correct information at all.
The more you are aware of these techniques, the quicker you can identify them and avoid falling into the gaslighter's trap. (For more, see Are Gaslighters Aware of What They Do?)
Are Gaslighters Aware of What They Do?)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/are-gaslighters-aware-what-they-do
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. Over time, a gaslighter’s manipulations can grow more complex and potent, making it increasingly difficult for the victim to see the truth.
Contents
--How Gaslighting Works
--How to Recognize a Gaslighter
--Leaving a Gaslighter
How Gaslighting Works
The term gaslighting comes from a 1938 play, Gas Light, and its film adaptation. Gaslighting can occur in personal or professional relationships, and victims are targeted at the core of their being: their sense of identity and self-worth. Manipulative people who engage in gaslighting do so to attain power over their victims, either because they simply derive warped enjoyment from the act or because they wish to emotionally, physically or financially control their victim.
How does gaslighting begin?
A relationship with a gaslighter may seem to start out quite well. They may praise the victim on a first date and immediately confide in them. Such disclosure, before any intimacy has been established, establishes trust quickly; it’s part of a tactic known as love bombing. The more quickly a victim becomes enamored, the more quickly the next phase of manipulation can begin.
What are a gaslighter’s tactics?
A gaslighter will initially lie about simple things, but the volume of misinformation soon grows, and the gaslighter may accuse the victim of lying if he or she questions the narrative. They typically deploy occasional positive reinforcement to confuse the victim, but at the same time, they may attempt to turns others against the victim, even their own friends and family, by telling them that the victim is lying or delusional.
How do you know that you're being gaslighted?
A victim experiences increased self-doubt as the gaslighter insists that what he or she remembers, thinks, and feels is wrong. The manipulative individual will introduce lies in more sensitive arenas, aiming to disrupt and distort foundational aspects of the victim’s being, wearing them down, establishing confusion, and forcing them to rely on the gaslighter’s version of reality.
Is gaslighting ever unintentional?
It is possible for an individual to manipulate someone without realizing they are doing so. Importantly, though, the gaslighter still enjoys wielding control over the mind and behavior of the victim, even if they cannot articulate or acknowledge this fact. Some people engage in manipulative behavior because they witnessed it frequently as a child, most often in their parents. Regardless of a gaslighter's level of self-awareness, the behavior is never acceptable, and ignorance of the phenomenon should not be accepted as an excuse for manipulative actions.
How to Recognize a Gaslighter
Gaslighting can be more effective and successful than many people imagine. Almost anyone can be susceptible to gaslighting tactics, which have been deployed throughout history, and continue to be used today, by domestic abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. The most effective gaslighters are often the hardest to detect; they may be better recognized by their victims' actions and mental state.
Who becomes a gaslighter?
Those who employ this tactic often have a personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy chief among them. Manipulators have a tendency to present one face to their prey and another to the rest of the world, leading victims to assume that if they ask for help or speak out, no one will believe that they have been manipulated and emotionally abused. Gaslighters typically repeat the tactics across several relationships.
What’s the difference between gaslighting and manipulation?
Manipulation is a key part of gaslighting, but manipulation is a fairly common tactic, and almost anyone is capable of employing it while gaslighting, and gaslighters, are more rare. Children try to manipulate parents at an early age, and marketers aim to manipulate consumers, but gaslighting involves a pattern of abusive behaviors with the intent not just to influence someone, but to control them.
What’s the difference between gaslighting and narcissism?
Gaslighting can be part of a narcissistic personality, but it is not a core trait of narcissistic personality disorder. A narcissist may be self-promoting and feel superior to others; a gaslighter aims to make another person question their own self-value.
Leaving a Gaslighter
A primary goal of gaslighters is to keep the victim hooked. If a victim disagrees with or questions their abuser, he or she may try to make themselves seem as if they themselves are being victimized by their targets. Alternately, they may try to lure a partner back with positive reinforcement. Many people eventually find a way to escape a gaslighter’s influence, leaving the manipulator to search for a new target; often, they already have another victim in mind.
What is “hoovering”?
When someone tries to leave a gaslighter, they may employ the tactic of "hoovering," which takes its name from the vacuum brand. They will tell the victim how much they love him or her, and praise all of their positive qualities. They may also explain how things are going to change between them. But soon after the victims agrees to stay, things tend to go back to the way they were.
How does gaslighting change a victim?
Gaslighting can be psychologically devastating. It violates trust, upends a person’s view that people are generally good, and can make them suspicious of everyone who is close to them. Falling victim to a gaslighter also erodes a person’s trust in themselves and makes them forget what they once valued about themselves; after all, it’s easy to blame themselves for having been too trusting, vulnerable, or dependent. The experience may make a victim never want to be part of a relationship again.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pura-vida/201803/gaslighting-dummies
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-esteem
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/identity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/201712/5-things-psychopaths-and-narcissists-will-do-in-conversation
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/201811/when-is-it-gaslighting-and-when-is-it-not
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/are-gaslighters-aware-what-they-do
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/personality-disorders
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/psychopathy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201907/why-relationships-narcissists-or-gaslighters-can-be-so
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/power-in-relationships/202206/when-its-gaslighting-and-when-it-really-isnt
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/widows-guide-healing/202206/7-things-everyone-should-understand-about-gaslighting
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stress-fracture/202205/4-core-tactics-psychological-manipulators
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-stories-we-tell/202204/how-women-suffer-medical-gaslighting
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-identity/202207/the-importance-recognizing-racial-essentialism-in-psychotherapy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-venn-diagram-life/202207/why-does-everyone-think-they-married-narcissist
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/love-lies-and-conflict/202206/stronger-relationships-stop-the-excuses
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-emotional-intensity/202206/why-highly-sensitive-and-empathic-people-may-be-more
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/202206/dont-get-hoovered-toxic-people
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/202206/the-3-stages-toxic-relationship
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-cultural-competence/202206/how-healthy-self-esteem-and-clinical-narcissism-differ
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/live-life-creatively/201908/putting-self-actualization-first
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shyness-is-nice/201809/13-things-the-most-confident-people-dont-do
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-philosophers-diaries/202207/lovers-who-lower-our-self-esteem
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-esteem-in-autistic-children/202207/how-nourish-self-esteem-in-autistic-children
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/emotion-information/202208/4-deep-and-lasting-ways-alleviate-imposter-syndrome
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/invisible-bruises/202208/8-elements-healthy-relationship
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-speaking/202207/helping-teens-feel-good-about-their-racial-identity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/when-kids-call-the-shots/202207/5-essential-steps-be-happier-and-achieve-your-dreams
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-emotional-intensity/202207/do-you-let-yourself-take-space
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/202207/how-stop-being-so-needy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/strategies-living/202207/how-be-your-true-self
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/widows-guide-healing/202207/7-things-everyone-should-know-about-writing-book
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brothers-sisters-strangers/202207/the-stigma-sibling-estrangement
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/202202/6-ways-build-self-esteem
The What, How and Why of Cultural Intelligence
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/202206/the-what-how-and-why-cultural-intelligence
The Power of Believing in Yourself
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/202207/the-power-believing-in-yourself
The Power of Believing in Yourself
8 insights on the psychology of self-efficacy.
THE BASICS
What Is Self-Esteem?
Find a therapist near me
KEY POINTS
Self-efficacy is the confidence we have in our abilities in specific life domains.
Finely-grained self-efficacy beliefs are more useful in predicting outcomes than global self-confidence measures.
Self-efficacy is a key ingredient of self-regulation and achieving our goals.
Years ago, right before starting on a big new project, I bought a framed note that spelled with golden letters:
She believed she could so she did.
I didn’t know who she was and what she did, but somehow, the words offered encouragement for my own undertaking.
The contract that humans draft with their loftiest dreams is surprisingly straightforward. Yes, we need skills to accomplish our goals. Yes, we need effort, strategy, resources, creativity, character, and even luck. But before we set the world in motion, we need the blessing of an inner ally, who, whether with a coy wink or a full-blown orchestra, makes us believe that we can.
This confidence in our abilities in specific life domains is known as self-efficacy. After studying self-efficacy for decades, psychologist James Maddux concluded that believing that we can accomplish what we want to accomplish is one of the most important ingredients for success. Indeed, countless research studies have shown that having high self-efficacy can help us pursue our goals, cope effectively with stress, engage in health-promoting behaviors, and have better psychological well-being.
Why do our thoughts and convictions have such a consequential hold on us? Is it the courage they impart to dream in the first place? Is it the resolve they extend when we stumble? Or is it because when we believe in ourselves, we can “risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit,” as poet E.E. Cummings writes.
Here are 8 insights from Maddux on the key role self-efficacy plays in our lives.
Self-efficacy can be more adaptive than self-confidence
Traditionally, psychologists have defined and measured self-confidence as a global construct that is consistent over time and across situations. It’s almost like a personality trait that people tend to have to varying degrees. The trouble with thinking of ourselves in global terms, such as having high or low self-confidence, is that it’s very easy to mis-predict outcomes.
Research shows that when it comes to our ability to predict behavior, situation-specific measures (i.e., self-efficacy beliefs) outperform global measures such as self-confidence. Thus, if you are considering setting a new goal, you’ll be better off breaking down your general self-confidence into components and thinking about your abilities in various specific situations. This is particularly important for people with low self-confidence, which can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, in cognitive behavioral therapy, the client who complains of low self-confidence is invited to explore some areas in life where they actually do well. This exercise can help individuals think about their particular competencies in various situations that they feel good about and move away from self-defeating thinking patterns.
Self-efficacy is a key ingredient of self-regulation
Self-regulation refers to the way we guide our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in the pursuit of our goals, desired outcomes, and values. It involves using our past experiences and knowledge about our skills as reference points to develop expectancies about future events and states. Consider self-regulation as a circular process where complex networks, factors, and predictions interact with each other and unfold over time.
Being a good self-regulator is an acquirable skill that includes learning how to generate better self-efficacy beliefs, setting and pursuing effective goals, incorporating feedback, and having adaptive self-evaluations of performance. Self-regulatory skills (as well as the belief that one is a good self-regulator) is fundamental for psychological well-being because they can usher a sense of agency over one’s life.
Self-efficacy is not wishful thinking or a fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude
Self-efficacy is best viewed in terms of having confidence in your ability to apply your skills in particular situations. It is a much more nuanced concept than a blind belief of “I believe I can do it, and therefore I will succeed.” Notably, it entails having a clear understanding of your skills. Skills and beliefs about skills usually go hand-in-hand. This is why overconfidence without actual preparation (or lack of skills) can set people up for failure.
Self-efficacy can help in challenging and uncertain times
A powerful source of self-efficacy is actual performance—things you’ve done well in life. Often, when people encounter what appears to be a new problem, they see it as being entirely different from what they have experienced before. That’s rarely the case. Any challenge, if you live long enough, will have some similarity to other challenges you’ve faced and overcome before. If you stop and think about the ways in which a current challenge is similar to other challenges you successfully dealt with in the past, you can draw upon your experience and boost your sense of self-efficacy for managing this “unprecedented” circumstance. It can also attenuate the fear of uncertainty and of encountering something you have never encountered before.
Even the pandemic had elements that were not entirely new to us. Everyone, for example, has had times in their life when they felt isolated—perhaps they were separated from loved ones or felt alone in a foreign place. When we break things down to their components, most things can be considered a matter of degree of variance, as opposed to being a whole different kind of experience. This insight can help us deal with our circumstances more effectively, however uncertain and ambiguous they may appear.
Self-efficacy is important for resiliency
Resilience is often defined as the ability to bounce back from adversity and recover our equilibrium when we’ve been caught off balance. Resilience comes into play when we encounter barriers in our pursuit of desired goals. Research suggests that when facing a challenge, low-efficacy individuals might self-reflect in negative ways (“I knew I couldn’t do this…”) or disengage, while high-efficacy individuals will have more confidence in their abilities to find solutions to their problems, and thus be more resilient. A growth mindset (as opposed to a fixed mindset) promotes resilience and an acquirable view of skills, thus providing a better foundation for developing self-efficacy beliefs.
Experience fosters self-efficacy
What helps most in gaining self-efficacy is experience—trying something new and working at it, usually by breaking down goals and skills into manageable pieces and practicing them separately, again and again. When we think of a big goal simply as a series of small goals one after the other, it can give us the courage to dive in. Over time, as people acquire a sense of mastery over various skills, they will also accumulate self-efficacy beliefs. Once you realize the principle of these learnable self-regulatory skills, you can apply them to different situations.
Believe in yourself, but let your actions speak for you
It’s difficult to accomplish great things without believing in oneself. However, watch out for people who are constantly telling others how good they are at things. I would argue that a person who truly believes they are good at something is not going to feel the need to broadcast it. They will let their actions speak for them. In fact, someone who is constantly boasting about their greatness is probably trying to give themselves a pep talk, because their self-efficacy is not high after all.
Advice from a self-efficacy researcher for leading a happier life
For me, it goes back to trying not to think of ourselves in global, all-or-nothing terms or even fixed personality traits and aptitudes (“I’m not good at math—that’s just the way I am.”) Instead, it could be more helpful to see ourselves as complex individuals, with different skills and abilities that are not fixed and pre-determined, but rather are subject to change and growth.
Success, whichever way you define it, includes becoming better self-regulators by continuously honing our skills and engaging them in the right way. If people pay attention to the anatomy of their successes, they will likely realize that the skills they use to accomplish their goals can be generalized to accomplishing other goals. This is how self-efficacy beliefs are formed and a growth mindset is established.
Many thanks to James Maddux for his time and insights. Maddux is University Professor Emeritus at George Mason University and Senior Scholar at GMU’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being.
References
Maddux, J.E., & Kleiman, E.M. (2020). Self-Efficacy. The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 443.
Maddux, J.E., Kleiman, E.M., & Gosselin, J.T. (2018). Self-efficacy. In D. S. Dunn (Ed.), Oxford bibliographies online: Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Maddux, J.E., & Gosselin, J.T. (2003). Self-efficacy. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 218–238). The Guilford Press.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meaningfull/202207/poor-self-esteem-try-self-acceptance
Poor Self-Esteem? Try Self-Acceptance
Having low self-esteem doesn't mean one can't lead a fulfilling life.
KEY POINTS
--Moving away from high versus low self-esteem and toward self-acceptance can benefit your well-being.
--The self-assuredness that often comes with high self-esteem can get in the way of curiosity and openness to others' views.
--Self-acceptance is analogous to body neutrality—accepting your body, perceived flaws and all, and appreciating all that it does for you.
https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-inline-half-caption/public/field_blog_entry_images/2022-07/flower.jpg?itok=PWFjpK7T
The media and even science imply that healthy self-esteem is vital for our mental health. So, what do we do when we think we're "meh" or not so great? Can we still live a fulfilling, contented life?
As a professional mental health therapist for 15 years now and a 51-year-old human being, I unequivocally believe yes. I’d take self-acceptance over self-esteem any day.
Self-Esteem
Trimming out nuanced definitions, self-esteem is basically one’s opinion of oneself. The American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology says it’s “the degree to which the qualities and characteristics contained in one’s self-concept are perceived to be positive....The more positive the cumulative perception of these qualities and characteristics, the higher one’s self-esteem.” Healthy and high self-esteem seem the desired statuses to attain.
Yet healthy self-esteem (let alone high or low) seems like a counterproductive rating to me. It’s scaling self-worth like a pass-or-fail test. Certainly, grading our levels of self-esteem may be thoughtful and insightful, but it can also leave us feeling worse about ourselves. It can cause us to think something similar to this: “Since I don’t like parts of me, I don’t have high self-esteem.” Then, “Since I didn’t reach that high status, I'm doomed." After all, various research links poor self-esteem to mental health issues such as depression, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and other problems.
High self-esteem can come off as confusing, which is also troublesome. Outwardly admitting to or portraying having high self-esteem can seem
--Performative, like someone showing us they are OK and didn’t fail the test;
--Disconnected from reality, similar to when someone says they are an excellent singer and then they can't match a pitch; or
--Even slightly (or majorly) narcissistic, a clinical and mainstream term that often pairs with an inflated view of self and entitled grandiosity.
Some who yearn to improve or stabilize their self-esteem will find a metaphorical self-concept gym where they can work out to strengthen their me-muscles. Many exercises are available online and in books: See research, check related nonprofits, or do an Internet search. A 2021 meta-analysis points out the plethora of interventions (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy, support groups, positive psychology approaches) that have been devised to increase self-esteem; some have demonstrated effectiveness. However, similar to the quick results we get from crash diets, a crash course approach to anything typically produces unsustainable, unreliable results long-term.
Self-Acceptance
Though self-acceptance is not a popularized term like self-esteem, I hope that someday it will be. To me, self-acceptance means the following:
--Greeting all the different parts of you with bravery and compassion.
--Contrary to popular belief, self-acceptance does not mean to stop growing.
--Knowing yourself + self-compassion + reality = self-acceptance.
Years ago, I started striving for self-acceptance over high self-esteem partly because I got tired of people expressing bewilderment that I didn't have better self-esteem than I did. That felt bad on top of an already uneasy view of self.
Seriously, so what if I don't think I'm the bee's knees? I’m pretty happy and satisfied in life. Besides, the self-assuredness that often comes with high self-esteem can get in the way of curiosity and openness to others' views.
Partly due to self-acceptance, I know who I am, what my values are, and what my moral boundaries are. But I don’t need to be “right,” and I’m not threatened by others' different ideas, beliefs, etc. I’ve met and accepted my many parts that correspond to lower and higher levels of self-esteem. All of these parts combined make a whole. So, I guess if I had to rank it, I might have “highly flexible” self-esteem and “steady, strong self-acceptance.”
When discussing the differences between self-esteem and acceptance with Dr. Charlotte Markey—my colleague, professor at Rutgers, body image researcher, and multiply published author—she said, "Self-esteem is feeling good about yourself, whereas self-acceptance is being at peace with yourself. The terms seem analogous to body positivity versus body neutrality." And I agree!
For those who aren’t familiar, in pop culture, the term “body positivity” has come to mean “loving your body—the shape, size, and just about everything about its physical state. Body neutrality is more of a space of accepting your body, perceived flaws and all, at any size, and appreciating all that it does for you. In body neutrality, "loving" your shape or size is not required, and in body positivity, it seems requisite. If you question our interpretations, look at social media and other sources where people consume information. I suspect you’ll see what we mean.
Bottom Line
https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-inline-half-caption/public/field_blog_entry_images/2022-07/self_0.jpg?itok=gnBArb__
High self-esteem is powerful and wonderful for any who genuinely has it. For the rest of us, self-acceptance may be the key to living contented lives. When we're striving to know, grow, and accept ourselves, there's space for feeling good about ourselves in the moment. Those moments of feeling purposeful, joyful, connected, appreciated, or whatever—each can happen sans positive self-esteem. Moments add up, helping us experience more contentedness and fulfillment.
I don’t know about you, but I’m “in” for more good-feels for anyone but especially for someone who thinks they don’t have healthy or high self-esteem.
This blog is provided for informational purposes and is not a substitute for professional advice or therapy.
References
American Psychological Association. (2022). APA Dictionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/self-esteem
Colmsee, I.-S. O., Hank, P., & Bošnjak, M. (2021). Low self-esteem as a risk factor for eating disorders: A meta-analysis. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 229(1), 48–69. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000433
Nguyen, D. T., Wright E. P., Dedding C., Pham, T. T., & Bunders J. (2019) Low self-esteem and its association with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in Vietnamese secondary school students: A cross-sectional study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10. doi.10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00698
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0028931
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00698
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1027%2F2151-2604%2Fa000433
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656621000684
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/widows-guide-healing/202207/7-things-everyone-should-know-about-writing-book
7 Things Everyone Should Know About Writing a Book
Here are seven things to know when it comes to writing and publishing a book.
KEY POINTS
--Pursuing a new project can enhance personal and professional growth.
--Resilience can supplant writing-related anxiety.
--The digital platforms allow access to influential people.
"We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live." –Joan Didion
https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-inline-half-caption/public/field_blog_entry_images/2022-07/pxl_20220724_160719568_2.jpg?itok=638Cdhga
As a social worker turned best-selling author, this quote by Joan Didion is one of the reasons I wrote my book. And one of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “How did you write a book?” People also want to know how I attracted more than one publisher, and how I garnered support from a literary agent, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, as well as best-selling authors and media personalities Katie Couric, Deepak Chopra, M.D., and Maria Shriver.
What follows next may surprise you, especially since the literary and publishing community may be a bit of an enigma. Nothing in my educational career or professional experiences prepared me for the publishing industry. It was a baptism by fire sort of thing. With my undergraduate training in psychology and then graduate work in the helping profession, I was taught how to be empathetic and display compassion. My initial experiences with the media and book world were anything but a warm welcome. I remember an initial gut punch with a public relations woman (who worked with several respectable authors). After reviewing some of my writing samples she said, “I knew you were on a learning curve, but I didn’t know you were at the bottom of it.”
The criticism stung. However, I knew persistence would win. And within days, I was exchanging emails directly with Dr. Deepak Chopra.
I also focused on why I wanted to write a book. After my husband died in 2007, I read everything I could about loss and grief, and it didn’t have to pertain to that of a spouse or partner. I was curious how people coped. I noticed there were many women’s narratives within the grief/loss literature. And sharing the stories of resilient women mattered to me.
Here are seven things everyone should know about writing a book:
1. Chances are you’re already an expert in the category you wish to write.
My book’s category of grief/loss is full of well-known authors and experts with more degrees than I have; however, I knew that no one could tell my story the way I can. I also understood, by interviewing women who lost their spouse or partner, that I would be sharing never-before-told stories and this is new content. It isn’t uncommon to undercut your life experiences because you don’t see them as “professional” work or relatively small and yet, these are situations that make you relatable. Others can learn from them and from your insights.
2. Pursuing a new project can enhance personal and professional growth.
If your business follows a typical model, chances are you operate within a certain circle. You may feel value within your social or professional networks, but you’re seeing the same people. At the heart of a new project, like writing a book, you’re expanding your impact and seeking new resources. This means you’re attempting and learning new ways to enrich yourself and engaging in new communities.
3. The digital platforms allow access to influential people.
I was caught completely off guard when I found out I was responsible for obtaining blurbs and support for my book. Without any connections or professional PR experience, I knew my hope was online. Digital platforms, like the use of Twitter and other social media, allow for access to influencers. And as an introvert, it allowed me to carefully think through my word choices. By using Twitter and other social media, I made direct contact with Deepak Chopra, Katie Couric, Maria Shriver, and other media influencers. The good news is this means people involved with topics you care about are accessible. It must go a step further than just saying “hi” and not “asking” for something the moment you connect. When I teach people how to connect, I remind them many well-known people are in the service of well-being.
4. Non-traditional paths for publishing are possible.
As a book consultant and author coach, I worked with a Ph.D.-level psychologist who went directly to a book publisher and pitched her manuscript. Her non-fiction book is set to launch later this year. It is worth noting that a literary attorney did review her agreement before it was signed.
5. Transformation can occur without leaving a full-time job.
At the time of writing my manuscript, I was working full-time as a social worker. I set a rigorous schedule (two evenings a week and several weekends) to do my research and write. With the luxury of paid vacation time, I used it to do travel and in-person interviews. Few people I've known, except for those on sabbatical, were able to devote all their time to a book project.
6. The pursuit of profit doesn’t mean you need to spend buckets of money.
Things such as reaching out on social media or sending an email are free and effective. These things can influence more than you think. By leveraging my social media influencers and asking family and friends to rally behind me, my book was ranked No. 1 in numerous categories (i.e., grief/bereavement) before it even launched. I only did one paid ad. This was last year, not to support my book, but to help another caregiver’s non-profit organization.
7. Moonshot mindset matters.
Some may see becoming a first-time author or writing another book as a moonshot opportunity, but I knew focusing on my passion project and getting results (i.e., completing a chapter, getting an interview done) would bring fulfillment. Whenever I created an opportunity by reaching out to someone (i.e., cold call, email), I imagined success. This didn’t mean a favorable reply every time, but 90% of my efforts succeeded. Exploring new things affected me in positive ways that encouraged me to nurture more relationships.
Resilience can supplant writing-related anxiety. The reality is that most have doubts about pursuing anything new. Focusing on who you want to reach and why you desire to do so can transcend old fears.
References
Didion, J. (2006) We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live. New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday Group.
Meekhof, K., Windell J. (2015) A Widow's Guide to Healing: Gentle Support and Advice for the First 5 Years. Naperville: ILL: Sourcebooks.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/widows-guide-healing/202206/7-things-everyone-needs-understand-about-grief
7 Things Everyone Needs to Understand About Grief
7. Most people's experiences will linger more than a year.
KEY POINTS
--Seeking professional mental health services is a smart and compassionate way to cope with grief.
--The bereaved lament for unfulfilled desires and dreams.
--Secrets are often revealed and concealed after a loved one dies.
As someone who has experienced multiple losses and has interviewed more than 100 widows for my book about coping with loss, I know firsthand that grief can be multifaceted and can appear difficult to understand, even for the best-trained clinicians. Here are seven things (in no particular order of importance) to know and understand about grief:
1 Secrets are often revealed or concealed after a loved one dies. It isn’t unusual for a bereaved person to share a “secret” about their loved one after the loss. The secret may be something that happened decades ago or an incident that occurred during caregiving. It also isn’t uncommon for the bereaved to purposely conceal something about their loved one. The bereaved may feel, out of loyalty to their loved one, that certain things, such as a substance abuse problem, are better left covered up. Depending on the nature of the secret, this can impact the intensity of the grief.
2 Grief isn’t something to overcome. There are many things to overcome, such as thirst or hunger or stress. If one is thirsty, they can drink a glass of water, or they can eat a meal if they’re hungry. If one is unhappy with a job, they can consider changing jobs. However, with grief, one can’t simply overcome it with an action. There are distractions from grief, such as watching a movie or going for a walk, but as the bereaved know grief remains. Learning healthy coping mechanisms to deal with the loss is one of the best ways to manage the sorrow. And speaking with a trained mental health professional is a healthy option to cope with the pain.
3 Each person’s triggers are unique. While some triggers can be common, such as a rich holiday tradition like gathering around the family table to share a Thanksgiving meal, other things can be unique to the individual. These unique triggers can include a song, an article of clothing, or a certain place. Knowing what and understanding why certain things elicit an emotional response can help one to cope with intense emotions.
4 No two experiences with a loved one are the same. Even within the same family, a child’s experience with their mother as their parent is unique. For example, the mother may parent one child differently depending on their needs than the other children. These differences can impact the way one feels loss. And it can also account for why people within the same family who are grieving the same person vary in their expressions of sorrow.
5 Support often decreases days after someone dies, leaving the bereaved isolated physically and emotionally. Personally, I know after my husband died (in 2007, I was 33 at the time) the number of emails, texts, and telephone calls dramatically decreased. The wound of grief was wide open without any ability to heal on its own, and the silence forced the wound to grow deeper and wider.
6 The bereaved lament for unfulfilled desires and dreams. While many reflect over past memories, the bereaved also can see what won’t happen. The father isn’t able to walk a child down the wedding aisle, or a sister isn’t able to see her sibling graduate from college. A mother isn’t able to plan for her first grandchild. These types of laments aren’t uncommon, and they contribute to the grief experience.
7 Most grief experiences are complex, traumatic, and linger beyond one year. In this post, I explained why grief typically extends beyond 12 months. And it can cause more harm to one’s self to think something is wrong if their sadness goes beyond a year. Also, losing the person one loves and depends on is traumatic. The sense of safety and security may no longer exist, and this can contribute to the feelings of loneliness and emotional isolation.
Grief is complicated, and it is not a do-it-yourself project. This is a situation that often needs professional mental health services. And it is important to remember that one can experience tough emotions related to the loss years after a loved one dies. Reaching out for professional mental health help is the smart and compassionate thing to do for yourself.
References
Meekhof, K., Windell, J. (2015). A Widow's Guide to Healing: Gentle Support and Advice for the First Five Years. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/202205/how-overcome-self-consciousness
How to Overcome Self-Consciousness
What is self-consciousness, what causes it, and how do you overcome it?
KEY POINTS
--It's human nature to focus on ourselves sometimes and to focus on others at other times.
--Self-conscious emotions are not always fun to experience, but they help motivate our behavior in important ways.
--In some ways, mindfulness might just be the opposite of self-consciousness.
Do you find yourself thinking about how others see you? Do you often worry about offending or upsetting others? Do you get stressed out about having to perform in front of others? Then you might be self-conscious.
According to those who study self-consciousness, it's human nature to focus on ourselves sometimes and to focus on others at other times. We might reflect on our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors or the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of others. The extent to which we focus or self-reflect on ourselves is thought to indicate our level of self-consciousness. Given this broad definition of self-consciousness, researchers suggest that there are two types of self-consciousness:
1 Private self-consciousness: Habitual attendance to our thoughts, motives, and feelings.
2 Public self-consciousness: The awareness of oneself as a social object. Such a person might have concerns about how they appear to others (Turner, Carver, Scheier, and Ickes, 1978).
Private self-consciousness is sometimes divided into two types:
-- Internal state awareness: An awareness of feelings and physical responses.
-- Self-reflectiveness: A tendency to reflect on the past, ourselves, and our motivations (Takishima-Lacasa, 2014).
Public self-consciousness is also sometimes further divided into two types:
-- Style consciousness: An awareness of our behaviors as they are observed by others.
-- Appearance consciousness: An awareness of how we look, physically, to others (Takishima-Lacasa, 2014).
Self-Conscious Emotions
When we feel self-conscious, we might also experience emotions including:
-- Shame
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/shame.html
-- Guilt
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/guilt.html
-- Pride
-- Embarrassment
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/embarrassment
-- Jealousy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/jealousy
-- Empathy
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/empathy.html
We tend to experience self-conscious emotions when we feel we have lived up to—or failed to live up to—some expectation or ideal we have for ourselves (Tracy and Robins, 2004). For example, we might feel we have reached an ideal—yay! pride!—or we might feel that we have failed to reach an ideal—yuk, shame.
Although self-conscious emotions are not always fun to experience, they help motivate our behavior in important ways. They can drive us to achieve more, to behave in ways that help us win friends, and to engage in more kind behaviors. Overall, they help us achieve important social goals (Tracy and Robins, 2004).
--How to Overcome Self-Consciousness
Self-consciousness generally develops when we are young. Although it can ease in adulthood, it doesn't always. If we were worried about how others thought about us when we were young, we can sometimes carry these habits with us. That's why learning how to change these thought processes can be useful.
1. Build self-trust. When we're self-conscious, we constantly question ourselves—our thoughts, emotions, and actions. We need to learn to trust ourselves: Only we know who we are deep down, and it's up to us to decide how we want to live our lives. But that requires self-trust.
To begin trusting yourself, start by being honest with yourself. Are you working a job that's not the right fit for you? Do you hang out with friends you don't really like? Are you living a life that doesn’t feel authentically yours? It can be hard to trust yourself if you're making decisions that aren't in your own best interest. So work on being honest with yourself about who you really are and what you really want.
Next, act on your beliefs and personal values. The more you follow your own path and do what feels right to you, the less it matters what others think. When you know something is right for you, then it is right, for you.
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/your-personal-values.html
2. Cultivate mindfulness. In some ways, mindfulness might just be the opposite of self-consciousness. It involves staying present in the moment (vs. getting stuck in your head) and accepting situations and emotions as they are (vs. worrying about them or trying to control them). You can build your mindfulness skills by practicing mindfulness exercises—things like noticing the details of an object or doing mindful meditations.
Adapted from an article published by The Berkeley Well-Being Institute.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/mindfulness
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/self-consciousness.html
References
Takishima-Lacasa, J. Y., Higa-McMillan, C. K., Ebesutani, C., Smith, R. L., & Chorpita, B. F. (2014). Self-consciousness and social anxiety in youth: The Revised Self-Consciousness Scales for Children. Psychological assessment, 26(4), 1292.
Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). "Putting the Self Into Self-Conscious Emotions: A Theoretical Model". Psychological Inquiry, 15(2), 103-125.
Turner, R. G., Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Ickes, W. (1978). Correlates of self-consciousness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 42(3), 285-289.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/202205/how-overcome-self-doubt
How to Overcome Self-Doubt
What is self-doubt and what we can do to get rid of it?
KEY POINTS
--If you have self-doubt, you may have difficulty confidently stating your level of competence.
--Unconscious ways you might deal with self-doubt include self-handicapping, overachieving, and imposter syndrome.
--Strategies to help overcome self-doubt include cultivating self-worth, building on your strengths for growth, and using positive self-talk.
Do you struggle to feel sure of yourself? Do you often question your beliefs or attitudes? Or do you often feel indecisive and wonder if you've made the right decisions? Then you may be experiencing self-doubt.
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/indecisiveness.html
Self-doubt is a state of uncertainty about the truth of anything about ourselves. It could be about our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, opinions, decisions, self-views, or any "truth" we hold in our minds. Overall, we may feel that we’re not stable, and we may question our self-competence (Braslow et al., 2012).
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/list-of-emotions.html
If we are someone who has a lot of self-doubts, we may vacillate when judging our abilities. We may expect poor performance and sometimes expect excellent performance. In other words, we have difficulty confidently stating our level of competence (Braslow et al., 2012).
Do You Have Self-Doubt?
Here are some questions (Oleson et al., 2000) you can ask yourself to see if you’re experiencing self-doubt:
--Do you feel unsure about yourself?
--Do you lack confidence in the outcomes of your efforts?
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/self-confidence.html
--Are you uncertain about your level of competence?
How We Generally Deal With Self-Doubt
Because self-doubt is such an unpleasant experience, we often deal with it in automatic and unconscious ways—some of which can be good and others bad.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/unconscious
Here are a few of these ways:
-- Self-handicapping. Self-handicapping is a defensive strategy that helps us blur the reasons for our mistakes or failures. Using drugs, alcohol, and procrastination are examples of self-handicaps that enable us to blame our struggles on something other than our incompetence. Unfortunately, this strategy often leads to worsening self-doubt.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/alcohol
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/procrastination
-- Overachievement. Overachievement is a strategy that helps prevent mistakes and failures. If we are self-doubting, we might not believe that our regular efforts or competence alone will be enough to succeed. So we put in a tremendous amount of effort. Unfortunately, we still might struggle with self-doubt because we have no way of knowing whether the extra effort or our competence made us successful (Braslow et al., 2012).
-- Imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when we feel like the success we've experienced is not an accurate reflection of our underlying abilities. We've done well, but we're afraid we can't keep up or compete with other people at our level. We might credit our success to luck, timing, or good fortune (Braslow et al., 2012).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/imposter-syndrome
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/imposter-syndrome.html
How to Overcome Self Doubt
-- Unconditional self-worth. Try to cultivate a sense that your worth is neither increased nor decreased by external factors like how people treat you, your decisions, or the amount of money you make.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-esteem
-- Unconditional love. Have permanent love for yourself.
-- Growth. Develop desirable personal qualities and build your strengths.
-- Use positive self-talk. Say things to yourself that are kind, positive, or supportive.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-talk
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/be-kind.html
-- Use affirmations. For example, you might say, "I am strong and capable," "I am doing my best, and that is enough," or "I am capable of anything I put my mind to."
You may also want to ask yourself these questions:
-- How might you maintain confidence in yourself even when you make mistakes or experience failure?
-- How might you maintain self-confidence even when you are treated poorly or not given unconditional love from others?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/confidence
Thinking through these questions and developing a mindset that helps maintain your self-worth may help prevent self-doubts from taking over.
In Sum
Self-doubt can be an uncomfortable and problematic thought process. Luckily, there are some things we can do to start overcoming self-doubt and moving forward with more confidence.
The Berkeley Well-Being Institute published a similar version of this contribution.
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/self-doubt.html
References
Braslow, M. D., Guerrettaz, J., Arkin, R. M., & Oleson, K. C. (2012). Self‐doubt. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(6), 470-482.
Oleson, K. C., Poehlmann, K. M., Yost, J. H., Lynch, M. E., & Arkin, R. M. (2000). Subjective overachievement: Individual differences in self‐doubt and concern with performance. Journal of personality, 68(3), 491-524.
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https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/list-of-emotions.html
List of Emotions: 271 Emotion Words (+ PDF)
https://youtu.be/bny9YViO15o
Articles for Learning More About Emotions
Want to learn more about some of these emotions. Here are a few related articles:
Emotion: Definition, Theories, and List of Emotions
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/emotion.html
Emotional Unavailability: Definition, Causes, & Signs
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/emotional-unavailability.html
Positive Emotions: List, 90+ Examples, Theories, & Tips
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/positive-emotions.html
Emotional Detachment: Definition, Causes & Signs
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/emotional-detachment.html
Emotional Numbness: Definition, Causes & How to Deal With It
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/emotional-numbness.html
Emotional Dysregulation: Definition, Examples, And Tips
https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/emotional-dysregulation.html
References
Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1999). Affective norms for English words (ANEW): Instruction manual and affective ratings (Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 25-36). Technical report C-1, the center for research in psychophysiology, University of Florida.
Ekman, P. (1999). Basic emotions. Handbook of cognition and emotion, 98(45-60), 16.
Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of personality and social psychology, 39(6), 1161.
Trnka, R., Lačev, A., Balcar, K., Kuška, M., & Tavel, P. (2016). Modeling semantic emotion space using a 3D hypercube-projection: an innovative analytical approach for the psychology of emotions. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 522.
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