A psychologist who’s studied couples for decades says this is the best way to argue with your partner | Love & Sex | Lifestyle. Flickr/Anders Lejczak When's the last time you really got into it with your significant other? After the yelling was done, did your mind swirl with ideas about what you should have said? Or perhaps about what you should not have said? Here's the good news: Not only can you most likely rectify the situation, but also knowing how to approach the argument next time can mean you and your partner have a more productive — and perhaps less volatile — "discussion.
" Productive arguments, in fact, are one of the things that appear to distinguish couples who stay together from those who split, according to research from several psychologists, including University of Washington psychology professor John Gottman, founder of the Gottman Institute, an organization dedicated to studying and improving relationships. Together with University of California at Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson, Gottman conducted a 14-year study of 79 married couples living across the US Midwest. 1. Flickr / Robbie Sproule. How to Disagree: Amin Maalouf on the Key to Intelligent Dissent and Effective Criticism.
Long before philosopher Daniel Dennett laid out his four rules for criticizing with kindness, the great Lebanese-born French writer Amin Maalouf addressed the key to intelligent dissent and effective criticism in a passage from In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (public library) — his altogether magnificent exploration of conflict and how we inhabit our selves. Maalouf, translated here by Barbara Bray, reflects on what his unusual composite identity — born in Lebanon to Christian parents and raised with Arabic as his mother tongue, he emigrated to France in his twenties — taught him about the right to criticize the Other: The key word is reciprocity. If I try to belong to my country of adoption, if I now regard it as my own country and consider it part of me and myself part of it, and if I act accordingly, then I have the right to criticize every aspect of it. The right to criticize someone else has to be won, deserved.
How to Disagree. By Paul Graham / paulgraham.com The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts. Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expected. The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. DH0. This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. U r a fag!!!!!!!!!! But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight.
The author is a self-important dilettante. is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag. " DH1. An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. Of course he would say that. This wouldn't refute the author's argument, but it may at least be relevant to the case. DH2. DH3. DH4. DH5. DH6. Make the Other Side Negotiate Against Themselves to Strike Good Deals. Conflict Strategies for Nice People. Do you value friendly relations with your colleagues? Are you proud of being a nice person who would never pick a fight? Unfortunately, you might be just as responsible for group dysfunction as your more combative team members. That’s because it’s a problem when you shy away from open, healthy conflict about the issues. If you think you’re “taking one for the team” by not rocking the boat, you’re deluding yourself.
Teams need conflict to function effectively. Conflict allows the team to come to terms with difficult situations, to synthesize diverse perspectives, and to make sure solutions are well thought-out. Still, I meet people every day who admit that they aren’t comfortable with conflict. Sure, pulling your punches might help you maintain your self-image as a nice person, but you do so at the cost of getting your alternative perspective on the table; at the cost of challenging faulty assumptions; and at the cost of highlighting hidden risks. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. How to Be More Assertive for Better Communication. Why it is so difficult to resolve peacefully intractable conflicts. Why Lefties Need Conflict Resolution.
Reviewed by Media Co-op editors. copyeditedfact checked [?] Why Lefties Need Conflict Resolution Blog posts reflect the views of their authors, and are not subject to Media Co-op journalistic standards. love: better with practice. how'd they do that? The heart at the centre of the hard work while we're on the love theme: some gratuitous bacon hearts. because bacon. "Feminism taught me the difference between a conviction in the head and a change in the way you live. " From around 1996 to 2005 I worked at a summer camp in Western Massachusetts founded on principles of social justice. This place was by no means perfect. But it got some things right. I am thinking back to a summer I was running the farm and nature program, a small hobby farm where these city kids got to get into dirt and take responsibility for feeding, watering, and caring for animals. One girl was from a working class background in New York, being raised by a single mother.
The circle of kids all stopped weeding for a moment. Embrace a Little Controlled Hostility When Confronting Others. State Your Emotions Clearly in Work Emails to Avoid Misunderstandings. Don't Get Defensive: Communication Tips for the Vigilant. Malcolm Gladwell on Criticism, Tolerance, and Changing Your Mind. By Maria Popova “That’s your responsibility as a person, as a human being — to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don’t contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you’re not thinking.” At a recent event from the New York Public Library’s wonderful LIVE from the NYPL series, interviewer extraordinaire Paul Holdengräber sat down with Malcolm Gladwell — author of such bestselling books as The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (public library), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (public library), Outliers: The Story of Success (public library), and his most recent, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (public library) — to reflect on his career, discuss the aspects of culture that invigorate him with creative restlessness, and update his 7-word autobiography.
What we call tolerance in this country, and pat ourselves on the back for, is the lamest kind of tolerance. How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently. By Maria Popova / brainpickings.org “Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?” “In disputes upon moral or scientific points,” Arthur Martine counseled in his magnificent 1866 guide to the art of conversation, “let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.” Of course, this isn’t what happens most of the time when we argue, both online and off, but especially when we deploy the artillery of our righteousness from behind the comfortable shield of the keyboard. Daniel Dennett (b.
How to compose a successful critical commentary: You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way. If only the same code of conduct could be applied to critical commentary online, particularly to the indelible inferno of comments. Elizabeth Lesser: Take "the Other" to lunch. Margaret Heffernan: Dare to disagree.