Criticism and the Desire to Maintain Freedom
by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. In my last blog post, we discussed how criticism often leads to an angry conflict related to the desire to be liked. We now turn to another reason why criticism often leads to a conflict — the desire to maintain freedom.
Back in 1966, psychologist Jack W. Brehm published a remarkable book entitled, A Theory of Psychological Reactance. In a nutshell, it states that people become motivationally aroused by a threat to or elimination of a behavioral freedom. This motivational state is what is called psychological reactance.
Psychological reactance impels the individual to restore the freedom that was threatened or taken away. There may be two manifestations of the occurrence of reactance: actual attempts to restore freedom and increased perceived attractiveness of the lost or threatened option.
Dr. Brehm argued that people tend to ask themselves, “If he does this to me, what can’t he do?” That is, when one freedom is threatened or taken away, many freedoms logically could be in danger, and they presumably will be perceived as threatened unless there is an explicit and convincingly stated limit.
Dr. Brehm has provided the following example:
Two or three years ago when services at the Library of Congress were reduced because of the budget squeeze, users of the library screamed bloody murder. My guess is that while some users may have been inconvenienced, the real strength of their response came from the implied threat to all their uses of the library. After all, if certain services could be reduced, then what was to prevent those services from being eliminated altogether or other services from being reduced or eliminated?[1]
Now let’s apply this theory of reactance to the frequent observation that criticism often leads to defensiveness.
In this comic strip, we see Lucy is mighty upset because her mother criticized her for being bad and then paired this with a punishment — cancelling her birthday party. This pairing of criticism and punishment is so common when kids are growing up that it may be the reason why many folks have a difficult time dealing with criticism even when it is unlikely to lead in a particular situation to punishment.
The association of punishment and criticism perhaps has become so ingrained from early childhood, that without even realizing it, many become defensive and resist criticism.
We see, in this comic, Lucy trying to resist her mother’s punishment, and when Linus criticizes Lucy’s response to her mother, Lucy cries out that she would rather die than go along with it.
The threat to both desires, being liked and doing whatever the hell we like, apparently are major reasons why criticism is so hard to bear. The tough feelings that come about has led to a philosophy of many folks that they should discourage anyone from providing criticism to them by their righteous defensiveness.
John Stuart Mill published a brilliant book back in 1859, titled On Liberty, and it is still revered by millions. He presents a very different philosophy. According to Mr. Mill, if people criticize us, even for holding an opinion we are very sure of, “let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice…” Mr. Mill does not just declare that this is so; rather, he spends many pages explaining the reasons for his position. He points to many people who were quite certain of a position and after hearing counterarguments came to realize they had been mistaken. Many people, for example, once believed with complete certainty that the Earth is flat but came to change their minds when they met up with people who criticized their belief using sound evidence.
Although it would distract us for too long to review all of Mr. Mill’s examples and arguments, I would like you to consider carefully one of his finest paragraphs.
John Stewart Mill
“In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognizant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter—fie has a right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.”
In my view, some people, when they criticize us, sometimes do provide us with information and ideas that we had not been previously aware of. And even when some people criticize us and provide us with information and ideas that strike us as false, we are still likely to be better off in the end. The very process we go through of putting some ideas together so that we can articulate why we hold their information and ideas as false has a way of organizing and deepening our understanding in a helpful manner.
For me, personally, having been quite defensive in my earlier years, taking up this aspect of Mill’s philosophy has led to far more pleasant exchanges. In fact, I often find it fun. And I like that it moves me more to an authoritative approach in contrast to an authoritarian approach. There are times when I do get a hit of angst, but it is received with confidence that I can use the angst to deepen my search to find a better response.
What would a response to criticism look like that is consistent with this type of philosophy? Here’s my take on this.
The person being criticized listens to the criticizer in a supportive, warm, friendly style, and then makes it clear that he or she fully understands what was said by summarizing it. The person, moreover, puts the criticizer at ease by indicating the wise learn from criticism. Some time is spent on showing that he or she is thinking about the criticism. If, after processing, the criticism is deemed to be correct, a statement is frankly made indicating, “I can see your ideas have merit and I intend to use them in the future.” If, after processing, the criticism is deemed to be incorrect, a statement is made designed to disagree without being disagreeable. More specifically, a sense of humor, some empathic listening, and a few smiles help to traverse rough terrain. As the episode winds down, the criticizer is encouraged to feel comfortable communicating suggestions in the future.
As it happens, I have found that people who respond to criticism in this way are more liked and respected than those who instead become defensive. Moreover, over the years of my teaching conflict resolution and counseling folks, I have found that most people can easily learn to respond to criticism in this more positive manner even if they had spent years responding defensively.
The training needed to make that change is simple and free. Over a two month period, once a week reserve fifteen minutes at a convenient time to imagine someone has criticized you. Write how you think you might respond. Not just the words you might say, but how you might feel, and also how defensive your words might be perceived. Then, reread the description of the type of response I described above in italics. Then, three times, out loud, provide a response to the criticism that is consistent with that description. After two months, make an appointment with a friend or family member to help you out. Show the helper the italicized response description, and then have the helper make up some criticism of you, and have her or him use it in a role-play in which you are criticized, and you respond. Use your phone camera to record it. Then, while watching the video recording, ask your helper to criticize how well your response matches the italicized paragraph. Do this exercise one more time about a week later, and you will be amazed at how easy you will be able to handle criticism in the future.
[1] J. W. Brehm [1989], “Psychological Reactance: Theory and Applications,” in Advances in Consumer Research, Volume 16, eds. Thomas K. Srull, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 72-75
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
In the context of this blog post, I thought this Ted talk (Margaret Heffernan, 2012) might interest you. Well, it’s an old one, so maybe you already knew about it. When I watched and listened to it years ago, I agreed with her 100%, and often act as such myself.
Btw 1: The Earth is certainly not flat, but it is not a sphere either 😉
Btw 2: In your previous blog post I asked you a question, but to my knowledge you did not answer it.
Forgot to post the link. Here it is:
https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree?language=en
Are you referring to the question you asked me about how diverse is my background?
Yes.
From my point of view, I’ve had a very diverse background. I grew up in Brooklyn. There I regularly interacted with Jewish, Black, Italian, and Chinese folks. I went to the University of Minnesota, interacting for 4 years with a quite variety of people, not just the graduate students in my PhD program, but I worked at the student counseling bureau. I’ve been to Europe four times, lived in the Washington D.C. Area, and Corning New York. In Corning, among the people I had not previously had much contact with, there I worked regularly with the rural poor as well as small town folks. I realize diverse is a relative term, and from your point of view, you might not see my experiences as diverse. In any case that’s a brief response to your question.
What you have now told me about your background has to do with what you did after your birth. In that respect, it also applies to me that after my birth I became involved with a multitude of people and things. In particular with people and things that often did not have much to do with mainstream society. But all that has nothing to do with what I have called ‘core personality’. The core personality is the personality with which a person is born and which is shaped by the previous generations from which that person emerged. I then tried to make it clear that the more diverse that background is, the more problems a person can encounter in the environment (‘culture’) into which he/she was born. My background in that sense? My parents/grandparents came from Romania, Austria, Germany, Russia, what was then called Czechoslovakia, France, and what is now called Israel. In addition, some of them were Jewish and members of the Roma.
Extra info: During operation Market Garden I was, after my mother was together with me in het uterus transported on a fishing cart to the hospital, born in the Netherlands. After that I mostly had to spend my first months, together with a lot of other people, in a bombshelter. Although I guess this had some influence on me, it has nothing to with my core personality.
Hi Roald,
Thanks. I understand more of what you mean by core personality from your last comments. Very thoughtful.