I read a great article in the April 2011 Psychology Today titled, "Zoom". http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ambigamy/201008/zoom-the-art-multi-level-headed-thinking I suggested my husband read it too, which he did and also liked it. I think it is particularly a male-female pattern although I've seen and heard it at business meetings, Board meetings, and friendly everyday conversation.
Today my husband and I did exactly what the article told readers was a bad pattern: starting with one topic of conversation, and ending up with 12, none of which was resolved while we sat, parked in the car at the grocery store on Mother's Day.
• Should we go to Bremerton this afternoon?
• Are you feeling OK to drive?
• Have we decided about getting a new loveseat?
• Are you changing your mind?
• Do we have very different decision-making processes?
• Do we have to have all the information now or can we do this step-by-step?
• Is there enough time to make the trip?
• Are you sure what you want? Are we in agreement?
• We've long ago left the initial topic.
• We can't make a decision about the initial topic until we have more information and we can't have more information until we go to Bremerton.
• ARGH!
• Look at us. We're doing exactly what the article in Psychology Today was talking about. Let's go to Bremerton anyway. OK.
Fortunately we recovered quickly from this time-consuming run-around discussion, but it was still a time-waster and mutual morale busterer.
The author of the article, Jeremy Sherman Ph.D. suggests "going meta", which is staying a level above the argument. This is much easier to do as an external person (e.g. with your kids) than it is when you're part of the problem. He has two other suggestions which I didn't find very helpful, but you might. Check the link. I think the best thing is to notice the pattern and return to the initial topic, without resolving the intervening ones. That's what we did — eventually!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Dr. Tingley’s Belief #1: Intelligent Girls and Women Limit Themselves
Handbook #1 for Intelligent Women: Break the Negative Self-Talk Habit is the book I'm working on — and plan to have published. As part of the Introduction to the book and included in the book proposal, I explain my mission, beliefs, and supportive facts and research for the beliefs. Here's a bite. The other four beliefs will be showing up here as May moves along.
"My mission and the purpose of this book is to:
• Motivate and encourage women to break the NST habit – now.
• Tell and show readers specific techniques for eliminating negative thinking and feelings.
• Guide and support readers in attaining and sustaining no-negative-self-talk practices.
If you’re wondering, “Who’s this person who thinks she knows what’s going on in my mind, what I should do about it, and what’s best for me?” I’m glad you asked. I’m a psychologist who, like many women over 60, no longer spends much inner time or energy dealing with negative self-talk. The realistic thinking that prevails produces a sense of relaxation and acceptance, comfort and confidence, energy and efficiency. I’m writing this book to teach, motivate, and invigorate women in their teens, twenties and thirties, forties and fifties to dump the ugly NST habit now instead of waiting until the wisdom of older age convinces you to finally let it go. Lynn Redgrave, the late actress, noted that she was in her sixties and coping with breast cancer before she chose to abandon what she labeled her ”inner critic and fearmonger.” Don’t wait. Use your time and smarts in pursuit of outcomes more profitable than lowering your self-esteem, increasing your stress, and decreasing your productivity – the harvest of negative self-talk.
I have a firm infrastructure of beliefs, grounded in science, related to what I write, advise, suggest and, yes, push at you in this book. Here they are. I’d like you to read them and understand.
Dr. Tingley’s Belief #1: Intelligent girls and women are more likely than intelligent boys and men to limit themselves because of their self-talk.
In a presentation to a 2009 conference, “Nurturing Gifted Girls into Gifted Women,” Lori Comallie-Caplan identified barriers to the achievement of a successful transition from gifted girl to gifted woman: fear of success syndrome, the Cinderella complex, the imposter phenomena, and the pre-adolescent self-esteem plunge. All are variations on the same theme. All are products of critical self-evaluation, manifested in negative self-talk, which leads to a scarcity of self-confidence, self-regard, and self-esteem. Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who identified the imposter syndrome in 1978 noted, “Women who experienced the imposter phenomenon maintained a strong belief that they were not intelligent; in fact, they were convinced that they had fooled everyone.”
The imposter syndrome illustrates attribution theory: how individuals interpret events and how they relate their interpretation to their thinking and behavior. Women, in contrast to men, generally believe any success they experience is due to luck or other factors outside of their control. We hear it from each other all the time. “I never would have gotten anybody to read my proposal if my mentor hadn’t strong-armed her agent.” “There was nobody left in the division to promote but me. They’d all left because it’s such a lousy place to work.” Rarely do women say, in answer to a compliment, “Thank you. I think I’ve done a good job of parenting too.” And when that kind of response happens, the conversation ends because that’s not how women are accustomed to playing the game. It’s usually compliment, denial, increased reassurance, increased denial until one side or the other tires.
Although attribution theory research results have been mixed, a recent study of women in engineering concluded, “Women are more likely than men to attribute success in engineering to hard work or outside help and failure to their own lack of ability.” Wow! No wonder we have problems.
Bottom Line #1: Women’s negative self-talk restricts their potential achievements. Limited achievement causes further negative self-talk, which keeps women stuck."
~
"My mission and the purpose of this book is to:
• Motivate and encourage women to break the NST habit – now.
• Tell and show readers specific techniques for eliminating negative thinking and feelings.
• Guide and support readers in attaining and sustaining no-negative-self-talk practices.
If you’re wondering, “Who’s this person who thinks she knows what’s going on in my mind, what I should do about it, and what’s best for me?” I’m glad you asked. I’m a psychologist who, like many women over 60, no longer spends much inner time or energy dealing with negative self-talk. The realistic thinking that prevails produces a sense of relaxation and acceptance, comfort and confidence, energy and efficiency. I’m writing this book to teach, motivate, and invigorate women in their teens, twenties and thirties, forties and fifties to dump the ugly NST habit now instead of waiting until the wisdom of older age convinces you to finally let it go. Lynn Redgrave, the late actress, noted that she was in her sixties and coping with breast cancer before she chose to abandon what she labeled her ”inner critic and fearmonger.” Don’t wait. Use your time and smarts in pursuit of outcomes more profitable than lowering your self-esteem, increasing your stress, and decreasing your productivity – the harvest of negative self-talk.
I have a firm infrastructure of beliefs, grounded in science, related to what I write, advise, suggest and, yes, push at you in this book. Here they are. I’d like you to read them and understand.
Dr. Tingley’s Belief #1: Intelligent girls and women are more likely than intelligent boys and men to limit themselves because of their self-talk.
In a presentation to a 2009 conference, “Nurturing Gifted Girls into Gifted Women,” Lori Comallie-Caplan identified barriers to the achievement of a successful transition from gifted girl to gifted woman: fear of success syndrome, the Cinderella complex, the imposter phenomena, and the pre-adolescent self-esteem plunge. All are variations on the same theme. All are products of critical self-evaluation, manifested in negative self-talk, which leads to a scarcity of self-confidence, self-regard, and self-esteem. Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who identified the imposter syndrome in 1978 noted, “Women who experienced the imposter phenomenon maintained a strong belief that they were not intelligent; in fact, they were convinced that they had fooled everyone.”
The imposter syndrome illustrates attribution theory: how individuals interpret events and how they relate their interpretation to their thinking and behavior. Women, in contrast to men, generally believe any success they experience is due to luck or other factors outside of their control. We hear it from each other all the time. “I never would have gotten anybody to read my proposal if my mentor hadn’t strong-armed her agent.” “There was nobody left in the division to promote but me. They’d all left because it’s such a lousy place to work.” Rarely do women say, in answer to a compliment, “Thank you. I think I’ve done a good job of parenting too.” And when that kind of response happens, the conversation ends because that’s not how women are accustomed to playing the game. It’s usually compliment, denial, increased reassurance, increased denial until one side or the other tires.
Although attribution theory research results have been mixed, a recent study of women in engineering concluded, “Women are more likely than men to attribute success in engineering to hard work or outside help and failure to their own lack of ability.” Wow! No wonder we have problems.
Bottom Line #1: Women’s negative self-talk restricts their potential achievements. Limited achievement causes further negative self-talk, which keeps women stuck."
~
Monday, May 2, 2011
The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same — in Many Times and Places
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Wikipedia says the phrase was coined in 1839 by Alphonse Karr, a French writer and editor. "His epigrams are frequently quoted, for example — "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" which sounds more charming in French than the English translation, but is equally as valid in most cultures and subcultures.
An article about gains and drawbacks for female professors at M.I.T. over the last 12 years reminded me of unintended consequences of change. Initially MIT acknowledged that it had discriminated against female professors and committed to erasing the bias. Here are the improvements.
• An aggressive push to hire more women.
• Increased prizes and professional accolades for women faculty.
• Women included on all faculty committees.
• Family friendly faculty policies and facilities on campus.
• Disparities in salaries and resources between men and women have disappeared for the most part.
The primary unintended consequences.
• Perception that too much effort is made toward recruitment of women and acknowledgment of their accomplishments.
• Perception that work-life balance and parenthood are women's issues, not family issues.
• Persistent stereotyping that women still must walk a tightrope between too aggressive and too soft.
• Perception that correcting bias means lowering standards for women.
Two interesting comments:
"It's almost as if the baseline has changed, because things are better now," according to the associate dean of the School of Science.
"The more fundamental issues are societal and M.I.T. can't solve them on its own," according to the dean of the School of Science.
My comment about change isn't pro or con, or even directed at M.I.T's process or faculty., just an interesting reality of life in many spheres.
Here's the link if you want to read the whole article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/us/21mit.html
An article about gains and drawbacks for female professors at M.I.T. over the last 12 years reminded me of unintended consequences of change. Initially MIT acknowledged that it had discriminated against female professors and committed to erasing the bias. Here are the improvements.
• An aggressive push to hire more women.
• Increased prizes and professional accolades for women faculty.
• Women included on all faculty committees.
• Family friendly faculty policies and facilities on campus.
• Disparities in salaries and resources between men and women have disappeared for the most part.
The primary unintended consequences.
• Perception that too much effort is made toward recruitment of women and acknowledgment of their accomplishments.
• Perception that work-life balance and parenthood are women's issues, not family issues.
• Persistent stereotyping that women still must walk a tightrope between too aggressive and too soft.
• Perception that correcting bias means lowering standards for women.
Two interesting comments:
"It's almost as if the baseline has changed, because things are better now," according to the associate dean of the School of Science.
"The more fundamental issues are societal and M.I.T. can't solve them on its own," according to the dean of the School of Science.
My comment about change isn't pro or con, or even directed at M.I.T's process or faculty., just an interesting reality of life in many spheres.
Here's the link if you want to read the whole article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/us/21mit.html
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