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.
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.