Dr. Heidi Grant

Rejection in 3 Minutes or Less

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Why some of us really shouldn’t try speed dating

Most of us get a little nervous approaching an attractive stranger, hoping to make a connection.  Even if you are usually brimming with confidence, the obvious potential for rejection in these situations can rarely be ignored.  But for some of us, trying to find love in the singles scene presents a particularly terrifying challenge, illustrated nicely by a recent study of speed dating.

As you are probably aware, speed dating is designed to introduce people who are looking for love to as many other love-seekers as possible in a single evening.  Gone is the awkwardness of having to approach a stranger, because everyone has to meet with every potential partner for a short time – usually about three minutes.  A bell rings or a whistle blows when the three minutes are up, and off you go to another table to meet the next Mr. or Ms. Potentially Right.  Everyone keeps scorecards to indicate who they would be interested in dating, and when there is a match, the event’s organizers give both parties the contact information they’ll need to pursue the relationship outside of speed dating.

It’s not easy to present yourself in your best light in three minutes, nor is it easy to make an accurate assessment of someone else in so short a time.   Also critical is your ability to sense whether the other person seemed to like you – even in the somewhat odd and artificial world of speed dating, rejection still stings.

Then there is the question of strategy – should you cast a wide net, giving the green light to lots of potential partners in order to avoid missing that love connection, or should you be highly selective, choosing only those you liked most and who clearly liked you? Is it more important to seize any opportunity for love, or to protect yourself and avoid the pain of unnecessary rejection?

This is a hard question to answer, but it’s particularly difficult for those among us who are what psychologists call anxiously-attached. In a nutshell, anxiously-attached people have a somewhat hyperactive need to feel close to and form relationships with others, while simultaneously suffering from a heightened fear of, and tendency to over-perceive rejection.  In other words, they are both really needy and really touchy.  (Attachment styles are often the product of early childhood experiences with caregivers – for more information, see here.)

Think about that for a second, and you’ll realize that it is a really killer combination – you desperately want love, but you are terrified of rejection, and you see rejection everywhere.  Some estimates suggest that about one in four adults are anxiously-attached, so chances are good that if you aren’t anxiously-attached yourself, you know someone well who is, so you’ve seen the damage this combo can do first-hand.

When anxiously-attached people speed date, which strategy do you think they use?  Do they cast a wide net, in order to grasp any chance at love, or do they make fewer selections, in order to avoid the dreaded rejection?  Recent research shows that the answer is the former – anxious speed daters give their stamp of approval to significantly more potential mates than non-anxious daters.  They are less picky, hoping that by setting the bar lower they will be more likely to make a match.

The bad news is, it doesn’t really work.  Anxious daters (particularly male anxious daters) were significantly less popular than non-anxious daters, and less likely to make a match.   In as little as three minutes, these individuals rub Mr. or Ms. Potentially Right the wrong way.

This isn’t really surprising – past research shows that anxiously–attached people often have a variety of social handicaps.  They are more likely to monopolize conversations, disclose too much about themselves too soon, and get defensive way too fast.  They are long on obvious insecurity and short on charm.

Lowering the bar really doesn’t help them in the long run – anxiously-attached people are unlikely to find lasting love without directly addressing their anxiousness.  If you think that you yourself might be anxiously-attached, the good news is that you really aren’t stuck that way.  People can and do change their attachment style over the course of their lives, as they become aware of their behavior, and as new experiences shape their understanding of how relationships work.  Your early experiences of rejection need not haunt you forever – but until you can learn to leave them behind, speed dating is probably not such a terrific idea.

Stop Being So Defensive!

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A simple way to learn to take criticism gracefully

I rarely admit this (and frankly, I wonder why I’m doing it now), but I am a very defensive person.  I can be quick to feel challenged or threatened by perceived criticism.  When that happens, my typical responses range from somewhat testy to downright hostile.  It’s not an attractive quality.  I’m not proud.

I have wanted to do something about it for a long time, but I figured that in order to stop being so defensive, I’d have to do something drastic, like stop caring about what other people think.  That sounds great, but it’s an awfully tall order for most of us, and not a realistic option for me.

Thanks to a recent set of studies of defensiveness, I now have a far more practical strategy for dealing with my defensive tendencies.   When I suspect criticism may be coming my way (for instance, when I send my editor a new chapter for feedback, or when my husband comes home from work to find that I’ve redecorated the bedroom), I take a moment to reflect on something I really like about myself.

I remind myself that I am exceptionally well-organized, that I am a sympathetic listener, that I make a killer baguette, or that I’m fun to have around at parties.  This is called self-affirmation, and it can take many forms. Usually, we self-affirm through thinking, talking, or writing about our most important values, skills or characteristics.  We do it when we reflect on our past successes, and the lessons we have learned.  And when we do, we provide a boost to our sense of self-esteem, and a buffer against any incoming threats.

It turns out that these simple reminders of our own self-worth and integrity significantly reduce our tendency to respond to negative feedback with defensiveness.   Instead, we are able to see what may be valuable in the criticism we receive, without feeling the need to prove ourselves right at all costs.

One important drawback to using this strategy, though, is that it is effective only when you self-affirm before you start responding to the criticism – in other words, before you start feeling and acting defensive.   If someone criticizes you and you start feeling hot under your collar, stopping to think about your own good qualities is unlikely to help calm you down.  The trick is to self-affirm before the feedback, and that isn’t always possible, especially when criticism comes as a surprise.

On the other hand, if you know someone who tends to get defensive, this is a great technique to use to make sure your criticism is well received.  Before you criticize, start out with an affirmation, as in “You really have an eye for color, and I like what you did with the furniture.  Though I’m not really crazy about the new bedspread.”  By starting with an acknowledgment of what you do like, you are far more likely to avoid getting anyone’s defenses up, and increase your chances of having a reasonable, hostility-free discussion.  Either way, though, you are probably stuck with the bedspread.

No Thanks

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Does your kindness leave your partner feeling grateful or indebted?

For reasons that, until very recently, I’d never really understood, my husband is rarely made happy by my spontaneous gifts or generous gestures.   When I bring home a favorite dessert from the supermarket to surprise him, or when I offer to get up early with the kids Saturday and Sunday so that he can sleep in after a hard work week, the response is usually lukewarm.  He says “thank you” (something he’s learned the hard way to do to keep from hurting my feelings), but I can tell that he’s a little uncomfortable, too.

This has been hard for me to wrap my head around, because I love it when he does those sorts of things for me.  It’s not the pampering so much as the thought behind it that brings me joy.  Knowing that he’s thinking about how he can bring a little happiness to my day, or ease my burden just a little, makes me feel terrific – and makes me love him just a little more.  Why in the world doesn’t he feel the same way?

The answer may lie in how our reactions to acts of kindness differ.  When someone goes out of their way to help you, you typically feel either gratitude or indebtedness (and sometimes a bit of both).

Gratitude is a great feeling.   It’s a pleasant, warm state – a sensation of being cared for and valued.  In a nutshell, experiencing gratitude makes you happy.  Research shows that we tend to feel grateful to our benefactors as a function of things like how costly the gift or gesture was to give, and how thoughtful it was (the extent to which is was tailored to our particular needs.) When we feel grateful to someone, we feel as if they have grown closer to us, we view them more positively, and as a result we genuinely want to be nice to them in return.

Indebtedness, on the other hand, is more of a focus on repayment.  It’s a sense of obligation – he gave me this, so I need to give him something in return to even things out.  Indebtedness has been shown in some studies to actually reduce gratitude, and to even be associated with negative feelings toward the benefactor, like guilt and resentment.  Feeling indebted does not make you happy.

In a recent study, couples who responded to their partner’s simple, every day acts of caring with gratitude reported feeling more connected to their partner, and more satisfied with their relationship.  But that’s not where the benefits of gratitude end – on days where one person felt gratitude toward their partner, the partner reported feeling significantly more connected and satisfied too!   Reacting to kindness with gratitude brings happiness to everyone involved.

Indebtedness, on the other hand, did nothing to improve anyone’s happiness or bring people closer together.    Receivers’ sense of obligation interferes with their ability to focus on feeling cared for and cherished, and givers get no joy out of watching their kind and loving gestures fall flat.

Interestingly, the study also found that women tended to experience more gratitude in response to gestures from their romantic partners.  For men, gratitude and indebtedness are more likely to co-occur – their happiness in response to an act of kindness is often tinged with a sense of debt, and in some instances is overwhelmed by it.

So, what can you do if you suspect that your partner feels more indebted than grateful when you do something nice? (Or, if you yourself are the one struggling with feelings of obligation?)   Really, the best approach is honest conversation.  Do you (or does your partner) feel indebted because you believe that is what expected of you?  Are you making your partner feel indebted in the way you talk about your kind gestures?  Do you make them feel guilty when they don’t respond in kind?  Only by talking together about your feelings and expectations can you clear the air, and get to a place in your relationship where thoughtful, loving support can be seen for what it is, and where it can give you both the happiness you deserve.

I Told You I Would, But I Probably Won’t

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A surprising reason why some promise-makers are often promise-breakers

Recently, my friend Jane (not her real name, for reasons that will become obvious) sat with me over a long lunch, and listened patiently to tales of how my children were slowly driving me crazy.  “You know what,” said Jane, touching my hand and clearly filled with sympathy, “I’m going to come over sometime next week and take the kids off your hands for a few hours so you can go have some fun.”

“Thanks Jane,” I replied, with zero enthusiasm, and changed the subject.  You see, despite my fondness for Jane, I knew there was no way in hell she was going to do anything of the kind.  I’d heard it all before.  It’s not that she didn’t mean what she was saying, that the offer wasn’t genuine.  In her mind, she had every intention of coming over to watch the kids.   Jane is the kind of person who sees herself as a Good Friend, and would be outraged if I replied to her generous gesture with what I was really thinking:  “I won’t hold my breath.”

For some people, I’ve noticed, saying you are going to do something feels just as good as actually doing it.   Jane is one of those people – she had a visible aura of satisfaction about her after she made her offer to babysit.  You could practically hear her inner voice doling out the compliments. You are so generous, Jane.  What a wonderful friend you are.

Indeed, why actually follow through on the offer to watch the kids, with all the hassle that entails, when simply expressing your intention to do so feels so good in its own right?

How can we understand these promise-breakers like Jane, whose intentions start out both genuine and admirable, but who never seem to act on them?  And just as important, how can we keep from becoming one of them?

Most people assume, with good reason, that making your intention to do something public makes you more likely to actually follow through with it.   This should be true for (at least) two reasons. First, going public commits you to a view of yourself that you want to try to be consistent with.  If I tell my boss that I’ll have a project finished by the end of the week, then I’m thinking of myself as the Kind of Person Who Gets Things Done Quickly, and I want to live up to that image in my own mind.  Second, going public makes you feel accountable to someone else.  If I don’t have the project finished by Friday, then my boss will likely think I am the Kind of Person Who He Should Fire.

Telling others about your intention to do something does make you more likely to actually do it, but this is only true when the actual behavior you are committing to is desirable for its own sake.   For instance, telling your friends that you intend to watch less TV and read more is a good idea if you’re doing it because you want more time to read.

But Jane wasn’t offering to babysit because she wanted to spend time with my kids – she was doing it to be a Good Friend.   Much of the time, the actions we intend to take are desirable to us because they validate some important aspect of our identity, of how we like to think of ourselves.  And it turns out, that’s where the trouble lies.

According to Self-Completion Theory (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982), when we are committed to particular identity goals, like being a good parent, a talented artist, or a successful business person, we engage in a variety of activities in order to prove to ourselves (and to others) that we are in fact good parents, talented artists, or successful business people.

Some of these activities are essential to the identity – an artist isn’t really an artist if she doesn’t at least occasionally create some art.  Other activities are purely symbolic – like self-praise (“Look at that brushwork. I am so good!”), or dressing the part by walking around in a paint-spattered smock.  When we fail at some task that is relevant to our identity (a rejection from an art gallery, a bad review from an art critic), we feel a sense of incompleteness – saddened and anxious that we aren’t living up to our mental image of who and what we are supposed to be.

To restore our sense of completeness, we try to engage in activities or show off status symbols related to the damaged identity.  A doctor who loses a patient may put in extra hours at the office, reflect on some of the patients he has healed, or spend a little extra time in his white lab coat and stethoscope.

Completeness is also enhanced by an audience.  When other people notice our symbols – like an intention to do something a doctor, and artist, or a Good Friend would do – it gives you the same completeness-boost you’d get from actually doing it.  In other words, when other people hear us talk about our identity-related intentions, we get a sense of completeness from just talking about it.  And since talking is usually easier than doing, why bother with the latter?

Recent research shows that when our identity-based intentions are noticed by other people, we are indeed less likely to translate them into action.  Ironically, the more important the aspect of your identity is to you, the less likely you are to go through with it.  In a sense, Jane may be such a lousy friend precisely because it’s so important to her to see herself as a good one.

In one study, undergraduates who were on the path to one day become psychologists were asked to write down their two most important study intentions for the coming week (e.g., “I intend to study more statistics” or “I will take my reading assignments more seriously.”)  Half of the participants watched as their intentions were read by an experimenter– the other half were told that the intention questions weren’t supposed to be in the experiment at all and would just be discarded, unread.

One week later, the students were asked whether or not they had acted on their intentions.  Just having their intentions read by the experimenter actually decreased their likelihood of acting by 30%!

In a second study, groups of second-year law students wrote about their three most important intentions with respect to becoming a lawyer (e.g., “I will read law periodicals regularly.”)   Half of the law students then made their intentions known to the rest of the group, while the others kept them privately to themselves.  Later, to measure their sense of completeness, each student was asked how much they felt like a lawyer right now, on a scale from 1 to 5.   Sharing their intention to do lawyerly things bumped completeness scores up a full point, from an average of 3 to 4.  So just telling people you are going to do some lawyer stuff makes you feel almost like an actual lawyer!

At this point, you might be wondering what you can do to keep yourself from falling into this trap.  How can you stop being a promise-breaker, someone who talks plenty but rarely bothers with the walking part?

Well, one obvious solution is to keep your intentions to yourself.   Without an audience, intentions alone won’t give you the sense of identity-completeness you’re looking for.

If you can’t do that, the next best thing would be to make sure that you think about and express your intentions in ways that emphasize how what you’re going to do is valuable in its own right, not just as a way to bolster your identity.  The father who vows in front of his pals to spend more quality time with his kids has probably just made himself feel like a Good Dad, but just reduced his chances of actually being one.  If instead, he vows “to spend more time with my kids, because they really need me right now,” or “because I love being with them,” he’s made it clear to everyone, including himself, that it’s not just about being a Good Dad – it’s about time with the kids, for its own sake.   You will get beyond the talk when you make a point of remembering why it’s worth taking the trouble to walk.

Gollwitzer, P., Sheeran, P., Michalski, V., & Seifert, A. (2009) When intentions go public: Does social reality widen the intention-behavior gap?  Psychological Science, 20, 612-618.

Wicklund, R. A., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1982) Symbolic self-completion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Battling It Out

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The best way to fight with your spouse

Having a satisfying, healthy relationship with your partner doesn’t mean never fighting – it means learning to fight well. Like me, you’ve probably often heard that little piece of wisdom, and wondered what in the world it means.  How exactly do you fight well?  What is the best way for two people to cope with their anger, frustration, and hurt, without undermining their mutual happiness?

My husband and I have never completely seen eye-to-eye on this issue (that’s right, we even fight about fighting.)  Of course, we both agree about the obvious no-nos – name-calling, low blows, plate-throwing etc.  But having been raised in very different regions of the country, in families with very different habits of emotional expression, we approach our arguments with very different ideas about what constitutes “fighting well.”

My husband is from Minnesota, where niceness is the norm and feelings are for keeping to yourself, thank you very much.  When conflict arises, he vastly prefers to not talk about it, believing that if we just ignore it, the conflict will probably just go away.  Emoting makes him very uncomfortable.

I was born and raised a Catholic from New Jersey, where feelings are most definitely for sharing, with anyone who will listen, whether they want to or not.  When something upsets me and I try to keep it to myself, I feel like a ticking time-bomb.  My husband often jokes that in my universe, nothing “goes without saying” – and when I’m angry, that definitely goes with saying.

So which of us is right?  When conflicts arise, should you suppress the urge to express your anger, point out your partner’s flaws and shortcomings, assign blame, and demand change?  Or should you fully engage in battle, letting the accusations and emotions fly?  It’s hard to know which strategy will work best in the long run.  Arguments can be emotionally painful and exhausting, and they can often make mountains out of molehills.  Then again, tackling a problem head on, however unpleasant, can be constructive.  It can motivate both partners to bring about the changes that are necessary for lasting happiness.

Thankfully, recent research might just put an end to all the fighting about fighting.  The best way to deal with conflict in a marriage, it turns out, depends on how serious or severe the problem is.  Did your spouse drink too much at the party last night, or is he drinking too much every night?  Did she splurge a little too much on clothes last month, or are her spending habits edging you closer and closer to bankruptcy?  Did he invite his mother to dinner without discussing it with you first, or did he invite his mother to live with you without discussing it first?  Little problems and big problems require very different approaches if you want to have a lasting, happy marriage.

In two studies by James McNulty and Michelle Russell, newly-married couples were brought into the lab and videotaped discussing an area of difficulty in their marriage.  Six to eight months later, they were contacted again for a follow-up interview that included questions about their marital satisfaction.

The researchers found that in the context of relatively minor and insignificant problems, direct fighting strategies – like placing blame on your spouse for their actions or expressing your anger – predicted a loss of marital satisfaction over time.   Flying off the handle when he forgets to take out the garbage yet again, or when she spends a little too much money on a pricey pair of shoes, is going to take its toll on your happiness in the long run.  You really are better off letting the small stuff go.

On the other hand, in response to major problems, these same direct fighting strategies predicted increased marital satisfaction!   In other words, expressing your feelings, blaming your partner and demanding that they change their ways will lead to greater happiness when the conflict in question is something significant – something that if left unresolved could ultimately tear your relationship apart.  Issues involving addiction, financial stability, infidelity, child-rearing, and whether or not you live with your mother-in-law need to be addressed, even if it gets a little ugly.  Couples who battled it out over serious issues did a better job of tackling, and eventually resolving those issues, than those who swept big problems under the carpet.

So when you are deciding whether or not something is worth fighting over with your partner, ask yourself if, in the scheme of things, the problem is a 10 or a 2.  If it’s a 2, try letting it go.  But if it’s a 10, let the battle begin.  You’ll both be happier that way.

Incidentally, it’s worth pointing out that in these studies, indirect fighting strategies – like passive aggressiveness, moodiness, insinuation, sarcasm, and deflecting responsibility – were always negatively related to marital satisfaction.   So if you’re going to be unpleasant with your spouse, make sure you are clear, honest and constructive.   If you’re not going to really address the issue, there is nothing gained from being a cranky jerk.  The goal is to bring about change, not make your partner miserable (no matter how tempting that may seem when you find yourself staring, once again, at your neglected and overflowing trashcans.)

J. McNulty & V.M. Russell (2010) When “negative” behaviors are positive: A contextual analysis of the long-term effects of problem-solving behaviors on changes in relationship satisfaction.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 587-604.