Why does NVC work? From the way it is described, it seems to short circuit the conflict machinery in humans. Why is there this loophole? Note that I’m note talking about just using observations vs interpretations. For instance, if we looked at your example
For example, “You’re always late” and “You don’t care about my time” are interpretations, “On the last three times when we agreed to meet, you showedd up 15 minutes after the agreed-upon time” is an observation.
and noted that “you’re late” is an observation. To me, this observation is associated with crossed arms, tapping feet, a frowning face. All conflict laden things.
Clearly, NVC has more going for it than just interpretation vs observation. As far as I can tell, it seems to work by removing blame from the equation, and other verbal actions which can be thought of as an “attack”. But I don’t get why we don’t view an observation of events we caused, which another person doesn’t like, as an attack. And I mean “I don’t understand” in the sense that I wouldn’t have predicted NVC would work for another intelligent social species.
Good question, and good observation. My answer, in short, is that NVC is about credibly removing (or diminishing) threat of conflict.
If you step on my toes it very well might be an accident. If it’s an accident, and I know it’s an accident, there’s no reason for me to attack you for it because as soon as you see that I don’t like what you’re doing you’ll stop on your own. In that case, “Hey man, you’re on my toes” isn’t an attack, and there’s no reason to treat it like it must be an attack just because I didn’t like my toes getting stepped on.
However, if you start adding additional pieces to the picture, then the story changes. If I’m “stating an observation” through clenched teeth and with clenched fists, it’s starting to seem a lot more likely that I’m adding a layer of interpretation that is calling for conflict—even if I don’t verbalize the interpretation explicitly.
In the latter case, “nonviolent language” isn’t gonna work because people are generally smart enough to see the incongruence and prefer to trust the body language over the words which are easier to fake. But it’s also not easy to simultaneously hold onto that sense of righteous anger while saying the words that point out the facts which show the anger to not fit.
So if you were to hold yourself to saying “I know you don’t mean to hurt me and aren’t doing it on purpose, but it is very physically painful when you step on my toes, and I worry that bearing so much concentrated weight might even damage them. Can you please gently step back?”, and you know that “you don’t mean to hurt me and aren’t doing it on purpose” is true, then it’s a lot harder to keep doing anger at that person, and even if you’re a bit clenched it’s going to come off more like “this person is overwhelmed and trying to keep it together because they recognize we’re on the same side” than “this person is threatening me”.
But I don’t get why we don’t view an observation of events we caused, which another person doesn’t like, as an attack.
I think for an individual who is skilled enough about what stuff is theirs (what stuff they (and only they) can observe; what stuff they (and only they) can control), and what stuff isn’t theirs, then they would not register this as an attack.
In practice, though, I think many people are bad at this skill, and so when they hear someone say “(You’re doing a bad thing!)”, they interpret this not as just a remark that is coming from somewhere outside of themselves, but more as something coming from inside of them— as a statement already has merit.
Meanwhile, if you were to instead say “(You’ve been late : objective fact)”, you haven’t tried to make their judgement for them (as you would’ve in the previous example). Then they can step through the logic themselves and be like “Have I been late? Yes. Ok, what does that mean? …”.
(Praise can be harmful for the same reason.)
I’m writing a post about what I think is the generator and compressed representation of things like NVC, subscribe to my posts on my profile to get notified when i post it.
Why does NVC work? From the way it is described, it seems to short circuit the conflict machinery in humans. Why is there this loophole? Note that I’m note talking about just using observations vs interpretations. For instance, if we looked at your example
Clearly, NVC has more going for it than just interpretation vs observation. As far as I can tell, it seems to work by removing blame from the equation, and other verbal actions which can be thought of as an “attack”. But I don’t get why we don’t view an observation of events we caused, which another person doesn’t like, as an attack. And I mean “I don’t understand” in the sense that I wouldn’t have predicted NVC would work for another intelligent social species.
I have a principled explanation for this! Post upcoming :)
Completed as A Principled Cartoon Guide to NVC :)
I look forward to it.
Good question, and good observation. My answer, in short, is that NVC is about credibly removing (or diminishing) threat of conflict.
If you step on my toes it very well might be an accident. If it’s an accident, and I know it’s an accident, there’s no reason for me to attack you for it because as soon as you see that I don’t like what you’re doing you’ll stop on your own. In that case, “Hey man, you’re on my toes” isn’t an attack, and there’s no reason to treat it like it must be an attack just because I didn’t like my toes getting stepped on.
However, if you start adding additional pieces to the picture, then the story changes. If I’m “stating an observation” through clenched teeth and with clenched fists, it’s starting to seem a lot more likely that I’m adding a layer of interpretation that is calling for conflict—even if I don’t verbalize the interpretation explicitly.
In the latter case, “nonviolent language” isn’t gonna work because people are generally smart enough to see the incongruence and prefer to trust the body language over the words which are easier to fake. But it’s also not easy to simultaneously hold onto that sense of righteous anger while saying the words that point out the facts which show the anger to not fit.
So if you were to hold yourself to saying “I know you don’t mean to hurt me and aren’t doing it on purpose, but it is very physically painful when you step on my toes, and I worry that bearing so much concentrated weight might even damage them. Can you please gently step back?”, and you know that “you don’t mean to hurt me and aren’t doing it on purpose” is true, then it’s a lot harder to keep doing anger at that person, and even if you’re a bit clenched it’s going to come off more like “this person is overwhelmed and trying to keep it together because they recognize we’re on the same side” than “this person is threatening me”.
I think for an individual who is skilled enough about what stuff is theirs (what stuff they (and only they) can observe; what stuff they (and only they) can control), and what stuff isn’t theirs, then they would not register this as an attack.
In practice, though, I think many people are bad at this skill, and so when they hear someone say “(You’re doing a bad thing!)”, they interpret this not as just a remark that is coming from somewhere outside of themselves, but more as something coming from inside of them— as a statement already has merit.
Meanwhile, if you were to instead say “(You’ve been late : objective fact)”, you haven’t tried to make their judgement for them (as you would’ve in the previous example). Then they can step through the logic themselves and be like “Have I been late? Yes. Ok, what does that mean? …”.
(Praise can be harmful for the same reason.)
I’m writing a post about what I think is the generator and compressed representation of things like NVC, subscribe to my posts on my profile to get notified when i post it.