How to Avoid Jerks When Jerks Are Around You
Working in retail, I still remember one of my worst clients. He handed me a quarter and what looked like a one dollar bill. I said, “Sorry, only two twenty-five.” He took apart two crunchy bills that I hadn’t noticed, stuck together, and slowly counted: “One … two. You speak English? Do you know math? “I was furious, but I didn’t say anything. However, that day I had few conversations with everyone until my friend asked, “What is your problem?” The problem was that I let this dash turn me into a dash.
This is what happens to me all the time, and I think it happens to many of us. You are a nice enough person, but you find yourself in an environment where everyone is rude, and the next thing you know, you are rude too. Maybe someone will just crawl under your skin, and you don’t even notice that this is happening. Or maybe all your friends are bastards, and you gradually start to become more and more like them.
Whatever the scenario, this is because being rude is contagious. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology , researchers asked subjects to respond to a neutral email. Some of the subjects watched videos of rude communication before responding, and their responses were much more hostile. This and two other experiments were enough for the researchers to conclude:
Specifically, we show that rudeness activates a semantic web of related concepts in people’s minds, and that this activation influences hostile human behavior. Thus, in these three studies, we show that, like the common cold, common negative behaviors can easily spread and have serious consequences for people in organizations.
Whether it’s rude coworkers, nasty internet trolls, or just the impolite strangers you run to errand, here’s how to avoid catching someone’s harsh behavior.
Probably not you
When a stranger sarcastically asks if you know how to count, it’s hard not to take it personally. However, this had nothing to do with me. Of course, I made a mistake, if you can even call it that, but it definitely did not entail such a strange reaction.
As Tiny Buddha points out , another person’s rude behavior rarely touches you. Maybe it’s a survival mechanism. Maybe they feel inadequate or defensive. Or hell, maybe someone else was rude and he rubbed off on them. Writer Avery Rogers explains the motive behind her rude behavior:
However, when I became depressed, my temperament subsided and I felt much more irritable … I started to get rude and unkind. I lashed out at people or, more often than not, gave them passive-aggressive excuses for distancing myself from them. I even started insulting people to protect myself if they don’t like me. I made no conscious decision to be evil. I didn’t wake up in the morning and think, “Today I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings.” It just happened at a time when I was feeling particularly depressed … When someone is rude for no reason, especially with a stranger, it is rarely a personal insult, even if you accidentally did something that made them angry.
Rogers explains what I’ve always known but didn’t take to heart until I started trying to change my own behavior: you cannot do anything about other people’s behavior, but you can choose how you react to it.
It sounds strange, but there is a lot of power in this idea.
Choose a different reaction
I live in a big city, which means I can face a hell of a lot of rudeness just by going grocery shopping. You get stuck in traffic. People steal your parking spaces. They bump into you with their shopping carts. The list goes on. A whole series of these things happened to me once, and on the way home, when another car turned on the turn signal to drive in my lane, I actually said out loud, “I won’t give you an inch.”
In other words, I was a complete asshole. At that moment, I realized that being around the jerks on a simple trip to the grocery store had turned me into a defensive and rude jerk. I also realized that I have a choice. I could choose how I would react to the series of rude conversations I had that day. It made me realize that their actions were completely separate from who I was as a person.
It’s hard to remember not to take things personally, but now I use my irritability as a trigger. When I notice that bad behavior is rubbing off on me, I try to do the opposite of what I want to do, which is defensive and rude. Instead, I try my best to be good, even if I’m in a bad mood and don’t feel like it. So instead of keeping someone out of my alley, I wave my hand to them. Instead of assuming that someone is trying to cut in front of me in line, I suggest letting them go in front of me if they have fewer items. I did this first to break the vicious circle of rudeness. But I noticed that it actually helps me a little to change my mood .
Psychologist Elana Miller would probably approve of this method. In the article “The Art of Not Being an Asshole, ” she suggests:
Expecting everyone else to abide by your rules is a losing battle. We constantly get frustrated and upset with other people. This sounds like an unnecessary disappointment to me.
You can spend 100 pages writing down all the rules that people have to follow and still miss the point, because the concept is important, not all of these individual rules. Actually the concept is simple:
Be aware of yourself and your behavior and avoid doing asshole-like behavior. Goodbye when someone else is an asshole because they probably didn’t mean what you think.
This means spending less time on all the annoying things that everyone else does and more time on all the annoying things that YOU do.
Instead of reacting to other people’s actions, you take control of your own.
Be assertive without being assholes
Some rude behavior is more difficult not to take personally, especially when it affects you in a different way. For example, a colleague throws you under a bus. Now you are on the hook for their mistake. It may not have been personal, but it’s little consolation when your boss is unhappy with you and you’re planning to ask for a raise soon.
Rudeness can also greatly affect your performance .
In an article for the New York Times, researcher Christine Porat explained :
According to a survey of more than 4,500 doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, 71 percent associated destructive behaviors such as abusive, condescending, or offensive personal behavior with medical errors, and 27 percent associated such behavior with patient deaths. My research with Amir Erez, professor of management at the University of Florida, shows that people who work in a rude environment miss out on information that is right in front of them. They can no longer handle it as well and efficiently as they would otherwise.
In one study, the experimenter downplayed a group of participants’ peers, who then performed 33% worse on anagram word puzzles and offered 39% fewer creative ideas during a brainstorming session on how they might use a brick. In our second study, a stranger — a “busy professor” we met on the way to the experiment — was rude to participants, reproaching them for bothering her. Their productivity was 61 percent worse than solving puzzles, and they came up with 58 percent fewer ideas in a brick assignment than those who weren’t rude.
When dealing with problems like this, you still want to know how you react, but just being good may not work. In fact, ignoring the issue of kindness can make the situation worse further. At the same time, being rude can create an atmosphere of rudeness that is counterproductive. If you are dealing with a social disruptor or bully at work , there are several ways to be assertive without becoming a bully:
- Distance : keep your social media accounts private, ask your boss to move your desk, and / or don’t share any contacts or information with him.
- Counteract their behavior : Be honest about how you are feeling and be objective about their behavior. Most bullies will back down as soon as you summon them.
- Tell someone who can help if all else fails, you may need to talk with your human resources department.
All of these options are better than trying to get revenge on a colleague by turning into a jerk. Some argue that assholes are ahead, but as Porat explains, studies show the opposite, leading researchers to conclude that rude people win despite their rudeness, not because of it.
Try some mental exercises
If you find it difficult not to let other people’s rude behavior you hurt, you can try a few mental tricks :
- Hug them mentally: try to feel compassion for the rude person and understand why he might act like a jerk. By mentally hugging them, you can empathize with their actions.
- Acknowledge Your Emotions: When you feel angry or upset and react, sit for a moment with your feelings and define them. Think objectively about how you are feeling. For example, instead of “This angry client made me feel humiliated,” I would simply say, “I feel humiliated.” This will help you keep the situation under control by sharing emotions and staying in the present.
- Find your inner toddler : Try to “think big” and imagine that you are a toddler who throws a tantrum over ice cream in hysterics. As an adult, you realize that there are more important things in the world because you have a broader perspective. As I dealt with my own anger problems, a friend suggested that I calm this inner little one as well. In the case of my rude client, I would say to myself something like, “Why did this make you angry? Because sometimes you don’t feel smart? It’s okay, we all think so from time to time. ” This exercise will not only recognize why you are angry in the first place, but it will also make you realize that their rudeness is actually not as important to you as it is to an adult.
Sometimes it is difficult not to catch someone else’s rudeness. Sometimes we don’t even realize how much someone’s behavior is affecting us, and we don’t even realize that we have become rude. With a little awareness of the situation and some reflection, it’s easy enough not to become a jerk around them. And on really tough days, a few mental tricks can help you.
And in some cases, a short distance can work wonders. Especially if you are used to being around people who are rude all the time, you can get to the point where you don’t know anything. If all of your friends or coworkers are jerks, try hanging out with new friends. Find an employee who is not obsessed with office impoliteness. Leave the big city from time to time. By being around other people or in a less stressful environment, you can change your perspective.