Everything is Fine? Exercising Control and Authenticity in this “New Normal”


Perhaps you have seen some version of 2020’s unofficial meme featuring a peacefully oblivious cartoon dog sipping coffee and affirming that everything is fine as he is slowly engulfed by flames. Technically the dog says “this is fine” because unlike humans in 2020, the dog is dealing with only a single, localized fire. To be clear, this meme is not intended to be hopeful.

For many people, the COVID pandemic tops this year’s list of stressors. Indeed, nearly 7 in 10 U.S. workers say this has been the most stressful time of their entire professional careers. In addition to the obvious health risks and economic threats, the pandemic has dealt a severe blow to our autonomy as individuals. Having autonomy means that you can behave authentically and exercise at least some personal control over your behavior and your environment.

People care deeply about autonomy. Decades of research have demonstrated that autonomy is associated with higher motivation and well-being among employees. Many psychologists even consider autonomy to be an innate psychological need. But it’s obviously hard to feel autonomous when taking a conference call while changing a toddler’s diaper, when interviewing for a new job over Zoom, or when trying hard to avoid the guy without a mask in the supermarket. 

Yet, our recent research suggests that when it comes to autonomy, people may be more resilient and adaptable than we realize. In March, as the pandemic was quickly escalating in the United States, my collaborators and I surveyed employees from 41 organizations three times a day for 10 consecutive workdays. Many employees completed our surveys during their first two weeks of working from home, providing us with insights into employees’ initial reactions to their new work arrangements and the pandemic more broadly. We found that employees reported a steep rebound in their sense of authenticity and personal power—both of which are indicators of autonomy—even as the pandemic was objectively worsening. These findings were surprising because most research on people’s responses to stress and trauma suggests that restoring a sense of autonomy or control can often take months, if not years. But we found meaningful increases in reported autonomy over just 10 workdays.

We also found that people who scored higher in the personality trait of neuroticism—that is, people who frequently experience negative emotions such as anxiety—recovered their sense of autonomy faster than less neurotic people. This may seem counterintuitive. Neuroticism is often viewed as a personality flaw or weakness. However, in contexts where vigilance and worrying are prudent, such as during a global pandemic, neuroticism can be highly functional. For these reasons, some researchers have suggested that neuroticism can even be “healthy”, especially when paired with a high level of conscientiousness. So, neurotic people may feel right at home during an anxiety-producing pandemic, while other, less neurotic people may struggle to navigate a constantly changing world.

As reassuring as our findings might seem, they should not be taken as a recommendation that people should minimize the objective realities of the pandemic—or any other complex threat. Many people are suffering unprecedented medical and economic hardship. That reality is, and should remain, alarming despite the surprising progress some people have made in adapting to this “new normal.” After all, things don’t end well for the “this is fine” dog in the cartoon.


For Further Reading

Anicich, E. M., Foulk, T. A., Osborne, M. R., Gale, J., & Schaerer, M. (2020). Getting back to the “new normal”: Autonomy restoration during a global pandemic. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(9), 931-943.

Friedman, H. S. (2019). Neuroticism and health as individuals age. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment10(1), 25-32

Radel, R., Pelletier, L. G., Sarrazin, P., & Milyavskaya, M. (2011). Res-toration process of the need for autonomy: The early alarm stage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101,919–934

 

Eric Anicich is an Assistant Professor in the Management and Organization Department at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

How to Have Open Conversations with Your Partner

Consider the following scenario: Something frustrating happened at work and you feel emotional. You come home and your partner asks, "Why are you so upset?"

You reassure your partner, "It's nothing. What should we eat?"

Your partner insists, "You really should tell me what's wrong. I tell you when something's bothering me."

How much do you want to tell them about what happened?

What if they had said, "I can feel that something is bothering you… If at some point you want to talk about it, I would be happy to listen."

Would you be more likely to confide in your partner?

To Open Up or Close Down? How You Communicate Matters Most

In romantic relationships, as with any close relationship, opening up or closing down during conversations can be risky. This is true whether you are the one asking for disclosure or the one deciding whether to disclose. Pressuring your partner to talk can backfire or lead to a fight. If you don't open up; your partner can feel hurt or might feel that you are not invested in the relationship. So how do you manage these day-to-day interactions with your partner without damaging your relationship? Better yet, how can you improve your relationship using open communication?

Being Supportive (Rather than Controlling) Helps with Open Communication

We decided to find out whether respecting one another 's individuality—what we call autonomy support—during conversations would make one more accepting of their partner's wishes, even when these wishes went against their own. Autonomy-supportive strategies starkly contrast with controlling strategies, which include talk that is pressuring, commanding, or threatening.

Autonomy-supportive strategies seem like an obvious key to fostering good communication and relationship satisfaction. However, more often than not, people use controlling strategies when their desires come into conflict with their partners' desires. So how do these two communication strategies help or hinder couples' relationships?

We conducted two studies that measured autonomy-supportive and controlling strategies in couples' conversations. In one study, we asked couples to consider two hypothetical situations in which (a) their partner wanted them to talk about something that worried them, and (b) their partner didn't want to talk and wanted them to drop the topic. We then asked how acceptable the two strategies seemed and whether the partner would be effective in getting their wishes using those strategies. 

In the second study, we examined what happened in real-life couple conversations. Here, we put each partner of a couple into the 'asker' or ' talker' role. Askers were told to try to get their partner to open up about topics they hadn't previously discussed as a couple (such as whether they should have kids). Meanwhile, talkers decided whether to share their thoughts and feelings on these topics. We then analyzed these discussions for askers ' and talkers' use of supportive and controlling strategies in getting their partners to open up (askers) or deciding whether to disclose (talkers).

We learned that having autonomy-supportive communication with your partner involves:

  • Acknowledging the feelings and perspectives of the other person
  • Expressing genuine interest and concern for them
  • Offering flexibility regarding timing, content, or depth of conversations

Partners in both studies perceived that, compared to controlling strategies, autonomy-supportive strategies…

  • Were more acceptable and effective in getting the talkers to open up
  • Were more acceptable to askers when talkers wanted to close down the conversation (Study 1)
  • Related to better relationship satisfaction (Study 2)

And, as one might expect, controlling strategies like criticizing, ordering, or invalidating the partner to force them to open up is less effective for getting them to talk and may even make them feel worse about the relationship. However, despite the advantages of autonomy-supportive strategies, controlling strategies were more often used in real-life discussions among couples.

These results highlight the importance of autonomy-supportive talk in couples' communication, but unfortunately such talk is not frequently used by couples in real life.

Want to Have More Open, Willing Conversations with Your Partner?

Here are some examples of how you could start your conversation:

  • I'm available if you want to talk about what happened.
  • Why don't we take a moment and sit down together to talk?
  • Something seems to be bothering you. How was your day?

Similarly, you could successfully help your relationship even if you don't want to talk by saying things like:

  • I love how much you care for me, but I would prefer not talking about it for now.
  • It hasn't been a good day, and at this moment I'd really prefer to think about something else.

For Further Reading

Kil, H., Allen, M. P., Taing, J., & Mageau, G. A. (2022). Autonomy support in disclosure and privacy maintenance regulation within romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 29(2), 305-331. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12419


Hali Kil is Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University (BC, Canada) and studies how parents can help children flourish, with a focus on mindfulness, emotion regulation, and immigrant and ethnoracial minority family well-being.

Geneviève A. Mageau is Full Professor at the Université de Montréal (QC, Canada) and studies the nature, determinants, and outcomes of autonomy support. She has a particular interest in how parental structure and autonomy support can coexist within relationships.

Marie-Pier Allen is a Clinical Psychologist at an outpatient psychiatric clinic at the Institut en Santé Mentale de Montréal (QC, Canada) and specializes in adults suffering from severe mood and anxiety disorders with comorbidity. She also works in private practice with adults presenting a variety of mental conditions.

Feeling Lonely?

What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think about social rejection? For some, it could be not being asked by anyone to the high school prom. For others, it might be a recollection of being dumped by a romantic partner. And still others may recall being chosen last for a football team. Regardless of the specific experience, most people have felt rejected at least once in their lives. Feeling rejected is painful and leaves wounds that linger for years. Moreover, remembering these painful experiences leaves a person feeling lonely and isolated.

In an era of advanced physical and mental health care, loneliness is still one of society's most significant ongoing problems. For example, according to a survey of 1,000 North Irish adults commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation in 2022, 28% of adults had felt lonely in the month before the study. Of these, 37% reported that feeling lonely made them worried or anxious, 33% felt ashamed about being lonely, and 45% said they would never admit to feeling this way. In short, more than a quarter of adults had felt lonely in the brief time before the study. Many felt ashamed or unable to talk about it.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to loneliness is feeling accepted, loved, and valued, feelings that can arise when someone genuinely listens to us. This view is not new. In 1951, Carl Rogers, one of the noted fathers of modern psychology, described the process that speakers experience when being listened to in an attentive, empathic, and non-judgmental manner. According to Rogers, such listening creates an atmosphere of safety, protection, and acceptance for the speaker. This safe atmosphere frees speakers to express their genuine selves, fostering autonomy and connection with the listener.

We conducted five experiments to test whether feeling listened to when disclosing an experience of social rejection can reduce speakers' loneliness by increasing their autonomy and relatedness. For example, one study took place at a University in the UK with 102 undergraduate students. The study included two parts. In the first part, we asked participants to write about an experience of social rejection. For example, one participant wrote:

...When I was younger and was new to the class, it was very hard to fit in, and the classmates rejected me, made me feel very lonely. I tried to pretend to be someone I wasn't just to try and fit in. I was rejected by a boy I really liked, and he chose my best friend…

After writing about the experience, participants conversed about it for ten minutes with a listener who provided them with either good or moderate-quality listening according to our developed protocol.

 "Good Listening" Behaviors in Our Studies

Good listening included behaviors such as these:

  • constant eye contact
  • facial expressions that convey curiosity and concern
  • an open-body posture
  • head-nodding
  • asking open-ended questions to encourage elaboration, and
  • paraphrasing speakers' content.

In the moderate listening condition, the listeners mostly stayed silent.

The findings supported our expectation that good listeners, indeed, can help to alleviate loneliness. Speakers who conversed with a good listener reported higher autonomy—the sense that they could be true to who they are and express themselves honestly, and they felt more related—close and connected—to the listener. These experiences, in turn, accounted for the beneficial effects that good listening had on reducing loneliness. Our findings suggested that both autonomy and relatedness played unique roles in the process of loneliness reduction due to being listened to well.  

We replicated those findings in a follow-up study with 205 Israeli students from two different institutions. This study included a 12-minute conversation via the Zoom platform, and we found that listening could play a beneficial role even in this virtual context.

We believe this project sheds light on the positive power of listening in helping people explore complex emotions. When we listen well, we let our speakers feel that they are accepted and important to us. As a result, they feel safe sharing and exploring in a non-defensive manner their inner world, which ultimately contributes to well-being.


For Further Reading

Itzchakov, G., Weinstein, N., Saluk, D., & Amar, M. (2022). Connection heals wounds: Feeling listened to reduces speakers' loneliness following a social rejection disclosure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 01461672221100369. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221100369

Itzchakov, G., Weinstein, N., Legate, N., & Amar, M. (2020). Can high-quality listening predict lower speakers' prejudiced attitudes? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 91, 104022. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103120303620

Rave, R., Itzchakov, G., Weinstein, N. et al. How to get through hard times: Principals' listening buffers teachers' stress on turnover intention and promotes organizational citizenship behavior. Current Psychology (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03529-6

Weinstein, N., Itzchakov, G., & Legate, N. (2022). The motivational value of listening during intimate and difficult conversations. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12651


Dvori Saluk is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Haifa, Department of Human Services. Her research focuses on the effects of high-quality listening during disagreements on speakers' basic psychological needs, subjective well-being, intellectual humility, and willingness to help the listener.

Guy Itzchakov is an Associate Professor at the University of Haifa, Department of Human Services. His research focuses on the effects of high-quality listening (attentive, empathic, and non-judgmental) on facilitating a change in emotions, cognitions, and behavior.

Netta Weinstein is a Full Professor in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading. Her research explores the links between interpersonal interactions, motivation, well-being, and behavior.

Moty Amar is an Associate Professor at the Ono Academic College, Israel School of Business. His research focuses on consumer psychology, Marketing, and Listening.