I heartily disagree, good sir. That is exactly the line of thinking that leads to assuming that Sally is telling you this because she’s a douchebag and also what the hell does she know, she has body odor.
Maybe Sally is trying to be helpful by giving him information that would genuinely help him. Maybe she’s being passive aggressive. Unless Bob forestalls his initial reaction, he’s going to automatically act as though the latter is true, and thereby miss out on helpfully meant criticism.
The first step needs to be a pattern-interrupt, in any case.
Bob shouldn’t concern himself with the question “Why the hell is she saying this, who the fuck the bitch thinks she is?” He should concern himself with the question “Such a direct comment about personal hygiene is unusual, is there a deeper meaning behind these words?”
The first step needs to be for Bob to understand the message.
That’s where knowing Sally and knowing the context become crucial. Maybe Sally is always direct and doesn’t bother with such things as politeness. Maybe Sally looks pissed but Bob doesn’t know why. Maybe Bob knows he’s in the doghouse and that’s just aftershocks from the fight they had in morning. Maybe Sally is highly stressed and is getting a bit ragged at the edges.
Until Bob understands what Sally is trying to communicate, trying to formulate a correct response is pointless.
I see. I think we are both right. Understanding the motives of the speaker is indeed crucial to actually accepting the criticism. My assertion is that objectively considering motives is practically impossible when you haven’t installed the habit of recognizing criticism and pressing “pause” on your response.
If Bob isn’t really bothered by the criticism that his breath smells, then he’ll have no trouble stepping back and considering why Sally said that. Maybe the bad breath example is too specific—replace it with something that it would genuinely upset you to hear. Or maybe you’re more sanguine than me, and criticism doesn’t bother you much in general. Criticism does get under my skin. When I’m caught off guard by it, it’s already too late for me to analyze the speaker’s motives, because my analysis is really just a hasty search for reasons why they’re wrong. I think this is the general phenomenon that is the topic of this post.
Or maybe you’re more sanguine than me, and criticism doesn’t bother you much in general.
I don’t know about sanguine, but I’m probably more thick-skinned than you. I’m not bothered much by criticism.
Maybe I’m fighting the hypothetical, but in your example my first instinct would be not to get defensive, but try to figure out what is going on. Usually there are many ways to express the same idea and the way chosen matters. I could be assuming a too Guess culture, but such a bald statement by Sally looks like a breach of etiquette and those usually have reasons. It all depends on the context, of course, but my default inclination would be to suspect that Sally is bothered by something other than my dental hygiene.
But maybe I’m a bad example—I don’t react to criticism by going into a fight-or-flight mode.
Bob shouldn’t assume anything; he should check whether the criticism is true with an independent third party. People do lie about things like that sometimes.
Quite true, but this doesn’t affect moridinamael’s point: getting over one’s initial offended reaction is a prerequisite for answering that question as much as it is for taking the criticism at face value and learning from it.
Moridinamael’s point is valid, I’m not contesting it. If you treat criticism as an attack and react to it by dumping adrenaline into your bloodstream, that’s a problem to be fixed. My observation was just that what looks like criticism might not actually be one. It could be an insult, for example, or an awkward attempt to communicate something else.
Basically, before gearing up to take criticism literally, make sure it is meant to be taken literally.
I think a good five-second skill to be cultivated would be to try to identify criticism as such and buffer one’s reaction to it.
The typical progression goes like this:
Sally: “Bob, your breath smells.”
Bob: (automatically, pre-consciously offended and insulted before having a chance to process the information)
Bob: (tries to frame a response, not aware that he is already on the defensive and thus searching for justifications)
Bob: “I just brushed my teeth, what the hell do you want me to do about it? Also, that’s a really rude thing to say to somebody.”
The family of rationalist skills related to meditation might help turn this into:
Sally: “Bob, your breath smells.”
Bob: (identifies this as criticism, concurrently with becoming automatically insulted and offended)
Bob: (sits with the criticism for a few seconds, attempting to view it objectively and to give time for the sense of offense to dissipate)
Bob: (proceeds with the awareness that he is probably still unconsciously on the defensive)
Bob: “Thank you for the information, Sally. I will try to figure out why that might be.”
Bob doesn’t sound very smart. The first question he should concern himself with is “Why is Sally telling me this?”.
It might be that Sally just wants fresher air, but it might be that Bob forgot that yesterday was their anniversary...
I heartily disagree, good sir. That is exactly the line of thinking that leads to assuming that Sally is telling you this because she’s a douchebag and also what the hell does she know, she has body odor.
Maybe Sally is trying to be helpful by giving him information that would genuinely help him. Maybe she’s being passive aggressive. Unless Bob forestalls his initial reaction, he’s going to automatically act as though the latter is true, and thereby miss out on helpfully meant criticism.
The first step needs to be a pattern-interrupt, in any case.
You misunderstand me.
Bob shouldn’t concern himself with the question “Why the hell is she saying this, who the fuck the bitch thinks she is?” He should concern himself with the question “Such a direct comment about personal hygiene is unusual, is there a deeper meaning behind these words?”
The first step needs to be for Bob to understand the message.
That’s where knowing Sally and knowing the context become crucial. Maybe Sally is always direct and doesn’t bother with such things as politeness. Maybe Sally looks pissed but Bob doesn’t know why. Maybe Bob knows he’s in the doghouse and that’s just aftershocks from the fight they had in morning. Maybe Sally is highly stressed and is getting a bit ragged at the edges.
Until Bob understands what Sally is trying to communicate, trying to formulate a correct response is pointless.
I see. I think we are both right. Understanding the motives of the speaker is indeed crucial to actually accepting the criticism. My assertion is that objectively considering motives is practically impossible when you haven’t installed the habit of recognizing criticism and pressing “pause” on your response.
If Bob isn’t really bothered by the criticism that his breath smells, then he’ll have no trouble stepping back and considering why Sally said that. Maybe the bad breath example is too specific—replace it with something that it would genuinely upset you to hear. Or maybe you’re more sanguine than me, and criticism doesn’t bother you much in general. Criticism does get under my skin. When I’m caught off guard by it, it’s already too late for me to analyze the speaker’s motives, because my analysis is really just a hasty search for reasons why they’re wrong. I think this is the general phenomenon that is the topic of this post.
I don’t know about sanguine, but I’m probably more thick-skinned than you. I’m not bothered much by criticism.
Maybe I’m fighting the hypothetical, but in your example my first instinct would be not to get defensive, but try to figure out what is going on. Usually there are many ways to express the same idea and the way chosen matters. I could be assuming a too Guess culture, but such a bald statement by Sally looks like a breach of etiquette and those usually have reasons. It all depends on the context, of course, but my default inclination would be to suspect that Sally is bothered by something other than my dental hygiene.
But maybe I’m a bad example—I don’t react to criticism by going into a fight-or-flight mode.
Bob shouldn’t assume anything; he should check whether the criticism is true with an independent third party. People do lie about things like that sometimes.
Quite true, but this doesn’t affect moridinamael’s point: getting over one’s initial offended reaction is a prerequisite for answering that question as much as it is for taking the criticism at face value and learning from it.
Moridinamael’s point is valid, I’m not contesting it. If you treat criticism as an attack and react to it by dumping adrenaline into your bloodstream, that’s a problem to be fixed. My observation was just that what looks like criticism might not actually be one. It could be an insult, for example, or an awkward attempt to communicate something else.
Basically, before gearing up to take criticism literally, make sure it is meant to be taken literally.