Damon Ashworth Psychology

Tag: strategies

  • Why 18 is the New 15: The Negative Consequences of Always Wanting Our Children to Feel Special and Safe

    Why 18 is the New 15: The Negative Consequences of Always Wanting Our Children to Feel Special and Safe

    In 1970, children were “ready” to enter Grade One at Primary or Elementary School if they travelled independently around their neighbourhood (four to eight blocks from their house).

    Six-year-olds could go to the shops and buy things by themselves or walk or ride to school if close enough. Children also knew how to explain to a police officer where they lived if asked.

    These days, the police officer would probably arrest the parents for neglect if a six-year-old child was found four blocks from home by themselves.

    Times have changed, but is this always a good thing for our children?

    I remember having a lot of freedom growing up. My mother would let me and my siblings play down at the park by ourselves two blocks away from our house. My brother was 7 or 8, I was 5, and my sister was 2 or 3. We weren’t entirely alone. According to my mother, we had a pet Rottweiler watch over us too, and “she would never have let anyone hurt you kids!”.

    We rode or walked ourselves to and from school when my brother was in grade 5, I was in grade 3, and my sister was in grade 1. It wasn’t just a bike path either. We had to ride on roads, cross over a river and railway tracks, and not even at a designated crossing. My parents had to work, so we travelled by ourselves.

    After school, we’d come home, open the door, make a snack, and play some games or watch TV until our parents came back from work. We were “latch key kids”, and I don’t think we minded too much at all.

    Growing up, we played outside unsupervised by adults all the time. We were running around with the other kids on the street, playing a sport or making up games, having water bomb fights during the day or playing spotlight at night. We’d ride to the milkbar whenever we felt like ice cream or a snack and even did a paper round in the neighbourhood with my brother a few times well before we were old enough to work legally.

    There were a few scraped knees, and maybe some storm drains that we shouldn’t have gone down. But I knew how to bike ride all over town to my friend’s places by my 10th birthday. Exploring places with my friends and without any parents were some of the best memories of my childhood.

    Fast forward to 2024, and most children will have to wait until they leave their family home to get the same amount of unsupervised time outside that I had before I was a teenager. They spend less time hanging out with their friends in person, and any time they spend is likely to be supervised by their parents or done alongside them, even when they go to the local shopping mall.

    In her excellent book, ‘iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood’, the author Jean Twenge says that as a result of the reduced freedom for our youth, the typical 18-year-old in 2022 is similar in maturity levels to what a 15-year-old was back in 1970.

    These days, children and adolescents are less capable of living, socialising, or working independently than the previous generations and are suffering more psychologically.

    Depression, anxiety, narcissism and deliberate self-harm have all been increasing, and dramatically so since 2012. Unfortunately, this also coincides with the widespread proliferation of smartphones into our society.

    Parents should give their children more freedom in the real world while also being more concerned about the safety of their children online. Adolescent girls appear to be particularly impacted by the introduction of the smartphone and the increased usage of social media that comes with this. As a result, suicide rates among teenage girls have risen to the point where they are now similar to suicide rates in boys of the same age.

    What would you prefer to build in a child?

    A. A conviction that they are amazing, just the way they are?

    or

    B. A belief that they can face and overcome most of the challenges they face in life if they learn from setbacks and feedback and apply themselves?

    You may answer both, but what would it be if you had to choose one?

    Self-esteem (A), defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

    “a confidence and satisfaction in oneself”

    or

    Self-efficacy (B), which Psychologist Albert Bandura defined as:

    “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations.”

    After decades of research, we now know that focusing on building a child’s sense of self-worth and self-esteem (A) at the expense of improving their capacity and self-efficacy (B) in learning and doing things by themselves can have some adverse side effects.

    Research on Self-Esteem:

    LOW SELF-ESTEEM IS NOT GREAT

    • Low self-esteem correlates with increased violence, teenage pregnancy, suicide, low academic achievement and increased rates of school dropout (Misetich & Delis-Abrams, 2003)
    • Living alone, being unemployed, having low socioeconomic status or having a disability is linked to lower self-esteem (von Soest, Wagner, Hansen & Gerstorf, 2018)
    • 70% of girls believe that they are not good enough or don’t measure up in some way (Dove Self-Esteem Fund, 2008)
    • Teenagers with low self-esteem have less resilience and a greater sense of hopelessness (Karatas, 2011)

    HEALTHY LEVELS OF SELF-ESTEEM IS BENEFICIAL

    • People with healthy self-esteem are more resilient and able to respond helpfully and adaptively to disappointment, failure and obstacles (Allegiance Health, 2015)
    • In China, self-esteem significantly predicted life satisfaction (Chen, Cheung, Bond & Leung, 2006)
    • School programs that build self-esteem in primary school children also reduce problem behaviours and strengthen connections between the students (Park & Park, 2014)

    HIGH SELF-ESTEEM ISN’T ALWAYS A POSITIVE

    • Abraham Maslow put self-esteem as a need in his hierarchy of needs pyramid. However, he later noted that individuals with high self-esteem are more apt to come late to appointments, be less respectful, more casual, more condescending, and much more willing to make themselves comfortable without bidding or invitation.
    • Carl Rogers, another Humanistic Psychologist, got so sick of new staff coming into his Western Behavioural Sciences Institute with no desire or ability to work that he once sent out a letter that said, “less self-esteem please; more self-discipline!”
    • People with fragile or shallow high self-esteem are no better off than individuals with low self-esteem. They engage in exaggerated tendencies to protect, defend and enhance their feelings of self-worth (Kernis, 2008)
    • Academic performance is weakly related to self-esteem, with some students doing worse academically after their self-esteem increased (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger & Vohs, 2005)

    Baumeister has looked extensively into the issues with some types of high self-esteem. He found that:

    • Students with high self-esteem tend to overestimate their abilities. They also like to boast to others about what they can do.
    • High self-esteem doesn’t make people more attractive to others; it just makes the individual think they are more attractive
    • Bullies at school and work tend to have higher reported levels of self-esteem
    • People with high self-esteem are more likely to take risks and engage in unprotected sex. They tend to be impulsive and not think through the consequences of a decision before acting
    • People with high self-esteem are more likely to be prejudiced against others. They tend to be smug and superior when interacting with others
    • People with high self-esteem are less likely to work through and overcome relationship conflicts. They can be abusive in relationships and assume their needs come first no matter what situation they are in
    • People with high self-esteem seem blind to their faults and are less likely to learn from experience, change or improve themselves

    Research on Self-Efficacy:

    SELF-EFFICACY HELPS PEOPLE AT WORK

    • A meta-analysis of over 100 studies found a moderately strong correlation (.38) between self-efficacy and job performance (Stakjovic & Luthans, 1998)
    • Another meta-analysis found that high self-efficacy is related to better emotional stability and greater job satisfaction (Judge & Bono, 2001)
    • Greater self-efficacy leads to less burnout for teachers (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007)
    • Increased self-efficacy in nurses can improve their work performance, reduce turnover rates and protect them from exhaustion (Fida, Laschinger & Leiter, 2018)

    SELF-EFFICACY HELPS STUDENTS AT SCHOOL

    • High optimism and self-efficacy in students lead to better academic performance, greater coping with stress, better health, and more satisfaction with school (Chemers, Ju & Garcia, 2001)
    • Increased self-efficacy leads to more enthusiasm and commitment to learning in students who had previously been struggling to read (Margolis & McCabe, 2006)

    SELF-EFFICACY CAN IMPROVE HEALTH OUTCOMES

    • Patients with cancer with high self-efficacy adjust to their diagnosis better and are more likely to adhere to their recommended treatment (Lev, 1997)
    • Patients with high self-efficacy who have joint replacement surgery exercise more frequently and improve their performance more after the surgery (Moon & Backer, 2000)
    • Improving self-efficacy can increase how much previously sedentary adults exercise, which then enhances their overall health (McAuley, 1992)
    • Parental self-efficacy can reduce the risk of postpartum depression in new mothers (Cutrona & Troutman, 1986)
    • Low self-efficacy is related to anxiety (including social anxiety and panic attacks) and depressive symptoms (Muris, 2002)

    What Can We Do?

    I’d rather have my children go to a school where teachers are more like Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Here’s an excerpt from his excellent commencement address to his son’s year nine graduating class in 2017:

    “From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”

    Chief Justice John Roberts

    I want our kids to learn life lessons that help them gain the skills and knowledge required to function as independent adults in the world.

    I want children to be physically and mentally healthy and suffer less from emotional and psychological disorders.

    I want them to develop high self-efficacy and a belief that they can do something by trial-and-error and effort rather than assuming that they are great no matter what they can do.

    How Do We Build Self-Efficacy?

    According to Bandura and Akhtar (2008), there are four main ways to build self-efficacy in our children’s lives:

    1. Mastery experiences: Ensure that your child has regular opportunities to take on and tackle new and challenging tasks that are just outside their current level of comfort and competence. By pushing themselves with these tasks, they will gain more self-efficacy than repeating something they already know how to do.
    2. Vicarious experiences: Ensure that your children have positive role models or mentors that they can observe doing the things you want them to know how to do. It could be you, another family member, a friend of yours or a coach. Because you are likely to spend more time with them than other people, it is essential to model the behaviours, mindset and skills you want them to learn. If you do this, they can learn from you, emulate what you do, and then get feedback on how they are going and keep improving these skills.
    3. Verbal persuasion: The type of words used in self-talk and with others can significantly affect how much self-efficacy one feels. Like Dr Carol Dweck says, in promoting a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, we need to praise effort and what children do (their actions and intentions) rather than who they are as a person or what the outcome was. It builds up a greater desire to take on more challenging tasks in the future instead of the fear of being wrong, not succeeding, or not being “smart enough”.
    4. Emotional and physiological states: We need to focus on children’s overall mental and physical health and well-being. If they are sick, tired, sleepy, hungry, stressed, depressed or anxious, it will be more challenging for them to maintain a high level of self-efficacy, and belief in their ability to successfully tackle a challenge will decrease. By helping children look after the other areas of their health, they are more likely to have the energy and confidence to take on whatever is in front of them, overcome setbacks, and persist until they have achieved their goals.

    For more information and ideas on how to help kids to build resilience and self-efficacy, please visit the Let Grow website or learn more about the Free Range Kids’ Movement.

    Crime rates are now at their lowest point since 1963. Thanks to many societal changes, your children are physically safer growing up, yet they have way less freedom. Would you be willing to supervise your children a bit less and let them do more in the real world by themselves or with their friends if it helped them grow into independent, resilient and capable adults?

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • To Trust or Not to Trust?

    To Trust or Not to Trust?

    Recently, some things have come to light that I find disappointing. A person has behaved in a self-centred way, and it puts me in an awkward situation.

    I always try to be kind, open, honest, respectful, and cooperative if given a choice. However, sometimes some people don’t play by these same rules, and the more direct you are, the more they can use this information against you.

    These experiences have led to me doubting myself. Some friends tell me that I am too trusting. Other friends tell me that the only way to respond is by playing the game and putting my own needs first.

    What should we do if someone is being unkind and only considering their needs irrespective of the consequences these actions have on us?

    Game Theory

    Game theory looks for the best rational approach in a strategic interaction between two people or groups of people. There are many different games, including cooperative games, where an official can enforce the rules and consequences, and zero-sum games, where one person’s gain is another person’s loss.

    One of the most famous examples of a game is the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’:

    Imagine that you are a criminal gang member and arrested alongside one of your gang associates. You are in separate rooms at the police station, and you have no way of communicating with your associate. Finally, after some time, the Police tell you that they have insufficient evidence to get either of you on a hefty charge, but enough to get both of you on a minor offence. So the Police give you and the other prisoner one of two options:

    1. You can betray your associate by testifying that they were the one who committed the crime, or
    2. You can cooperate with your associate by remaining silent and refusing to testify.

    The possible outcomes are:

    A. If you both remain silent and cooperate with each other against the Police, you both only get one year in prison.

    B. If you both try to betray each other by agreeing to testify, you both get two years in prison.

    C. If they betray you, but you’ve tried to cooperate, they get to walk free, and you get three years in prison.

    D. If they try to cooperate by remaining silent, but you betray them and agree to testify, you get to walk free while they have to go to prison for three years.

    The best rational approach is not to cooperate with your associate, because at worst, you will get two years in prison (B), and at best, you will serve no time (D). Compare this to the worst outcome of three years in jail (C) if you remain silent, and the best result is one year in prison (A). Therefore, not betraying your associate and cooperating will only lead to a worse outcome, even if you know that your associate will cooperate with 100% certainty.

    Consequently, it is not always rational to try to cooperate with someone who could potentially take advantage of you. Furthermore, it is not sound to try to cooperate with someone trying to take advantage of you.

    What About Long-term Strategies?

    Suppose two people play multiple games of Prisoner’s Dilemma and remember what the other player did previously. Does it make it more desirable to cooperate rather than betray the other person? Similar to how most relationships are in real life, crossing your associates may not be wise if you have to keep dealing with them or the rest of the gang.

    We may win more in one situation, but at what cost? This iterated version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is sometimes known as the ‘Peace-War game’.

    In 1984, Robert Axelrod organised a tournament where participants chose their strategies in an extended version of the Peace-War game, with 2000 trials. He found that greedy approaches to the game didn’t fare too well and resulted in more years spent in prison by the end of the game.

    One of the most straightforward strategies was also the most effective — tit-for-tat. The tit-for-tat strategy aims to always cooperate in the first trial and then do what your opponent did on the previous trial for your next move. This way, you punish a betrayal with a quick betrayal back and reward cooperation with ongoing cooperation. Sometimes (in 1–5% of the trials), it is good to cooperate once even after your opponent betrays you, but generally, the most effective method is still tit-for-tat, which is interesting to know.

    After the tournament ended, Axelrod studied the data and identified four main conditions for a successful strategy when negotiating with other people:

    1. We must be nice. We should never defect or cheat before the other person does, even if we only want the best for ourselves.
    2. We must retaliate quickly and at least 95% of the time if people try to defect against or cheat us. It’s not good to be a blind optimist or always cooperate no matter what the other person does. It only leads to us being taken advantage of by greedy people.
    3. We must be forgiving and get back to trying to cooperate once we see that the other person is trying to cooperate again.
    4. We must not be envious and try to beat our opponent or score more than them. Creating a win-win scenario is ideal if possible, even if it means giving up some points by cooperating when you could defect.

    What Relevance Does This Have For Real Life?

    It may be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that screwing others over is the best way to get ahead in life. Or to not put ourselves out there so that others don’t take advantage of us. In reality, this would only be the best approach in a world where every other person tries to take advantage of everyone else every chance they can. It is not the case in any society on our planet, as far as I know. So never trusting people and always assuming the worst from others is not the way to go.

    By looking at the table above, the best outcome is to try and trust reliable individuals (and co-operate with them) and not rely on or co-operate with individuals who are not. The worst results are being hurt by putting our trust in those we shouldn’t or not letting in or co-operating with others that we really could have.

    Maybe I am a little too trusting. I assume that other people are kind and good people who have good intentions unless I am proven otherwise. It is the position that I will continue to take, even if it means that sometimes I get hurt once I realise that someone is a bit more self-centred or dishonest than I had hoped.

    Looking at the four elements of a successful negotiating strategy, I know that I am nice, forgiving and non-envious. However, the lesson that I need to learn is that of swift and appropriate retaliation or enforcing a particular consequence shortly after someone is nasty towards me. It would help deter the other person from trying any more selfish tactics in the future and could put them back on the path towards co-operating and trying to achieve a win-win situation for both of us.

    I have previously thought that if I always co-operate, I can be happy with the person I am. However, sometimes being firm and assertive and standing up for myself in the face of unkind and selfish behaviour is the far better and more self-respecting approach to take.

    I hope this article has encouraged you to not give up on trying to trust or cooperate with others. I also hope it will enable you to stand up for yourself if someone tries to take advantage of you.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • Why Bother Overcoming Fears?

    Why Bother Overcoming Fears?

     Last weekend I managed to complete my PADI Open Water SCUBA Diver Course:

    PADI Temporary Card — Open Water Diver

    Name: Damon Ashworth
    Instructor Number: 305944

    This person has satisfactorily met the standards for this certification level as set forth by PADI.

    It was a pretty big challenge for me since I don’t really like being on boats and find it scary just swimming out in the middle of the ocean. But, I did it because a close friend asked me if I would be her dive buddy for the course, and I thought there would be no better opportunity than when I am already living in Vanuatu, home to some of the best dive sites in the world.

    To get your Open Water Card, you need to pass many theory tests about diving, and you need to complete 24 skills in a pool and then replicate these skills out in the open water across four dives. We saw a shipwreck, some amazing coral and sea life, and even a few small reef sharks during the open water dives.

    The scariest part to me was when I was up to 18 metres underwater, knowing that I’d need to stop for 3 minutes at 5 metres on the way up and ascend slowly to avoid decompression sickness. It meant that if I felt a bit anxious or panicky for whatever reason, I couldn’t just get out to the surface straight away and start gasping for air. Instead, I had to remain calm, breathe slowly and steadily using my regulator, put some confidence in my divemaster who was guiding us through the training and focus on whatever was in my control instead of worrying about things that were out of it.

    Fortunately, I successfully completed the dives and all the skills. Some moments were pretty cool, especially seeing the wreck and the sea life on the coral reef. In general, though, I didn’t love it and was utterly exhausted and a little bit relieved once I did it.

    So how do I know if it was worth it? Should I have bothered challenging myself to do something where I worried I could have died if something went badly wrong?

    When Is It Worth Facing Your Fears?

    The answer is it depends. It depends on:

    1. What scares you?
    2. How afraid you are (on a scale from 0 = no anxiety at all to 10 = completely overwhelmed and having a panic attack)?
    3. How safe or dangerous is the thing that you fear? and
    4. Will it impact your quality of life if you do not face up to your fear or try to overcome it?

    Suppose what you fear has a low risk of actually occurring. The activity is relatively safe even though it feels scary, and not doing it has a significant negative impact on your life. In that case, it is worth trying to challenge yourself and overcome your fears.

    For me:

    1. I think the fear of SCUBA diving was dying.
    2. The thought of actually going SCUBA diving increased my anxiety to a 7/10, which is high but not quite at the panic stage.
    3. The 2010 Diver’s Alert Network Workshop Report found that only one-in-211,864 dives end in a fatality. SCUBA diving is riskier than flying in an aeroplane or riding a bike but much less dangerous than driving a car, skydiving, or running a marathon. We’re even more likely to die from walking or falling on stairs than we are from SCUBA diving.

    4. If I never went SCUBA diving, I doubt that it would have reduced my quality of life in any way. I did it mainly because I wanted to spend time with my friend, and I wanted to challenge myself to face my fears, as not being able to overcome any fears would have a substantial negative impact on my quality of life.

    I am glad to get my PADI Open Water Certificate based on the above information. I’m not too sure if I will ever go again, though. I could enjoy it more and become less anxious about diving over time, and that did happen even across my four open water dives. If I went again, my anxiety might be a five or a six. In reality, though, I think I can enjoy snorkelling just as much without it lowering my quality of life in any way, and I’ll probably do that more than SCUBA diving in the future.

    What Are the Most Common Fears?

    The top ten most common specific phobias are:

    1. Arachnophobia — fear of spiders
    2. Ophidiophobia — fear of snakes
    3. Acrophobia — fear of heights
    4. Agoraphobia — fear of crowds or open spaces
    5. Cynophobia — fear of dogs
    6. Astraphobia — fear of thunder and lightning
    7. Claustrophobia — fear of small spaces
    8. Mysophobia — fear of germs
    9. Aerophobia — fear of flying
    10. Trypanophobia — fear of injections

    Looking at the above common phobias, they all have some basis for why we may become afraid of them. Some spiders and snakes can kill, as can dogs (especially if they have rabies). Planes can crash, and falling from high up can be fatal. People can become trapped and suffocate in a small space or crowds, and lightning strikes have killed people. Germs and bacteria spread disease too. Medical mishaps are the third most significant cause of death in the US, according to the latest figures from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Unfortunately, our brain is not very good at distinguishing dangerous things versus things that feel dangerous but are pretty safe.

    How Do We Overcome Fears?

    We overcome any fear through the dual process of gradual exposure and cognitive reappraisal after the exposure:

    1. We determine what fear it is we would like to master. Preferably, this is something that you are currently avoiding that is negatively impacting your life, such as not going to the doctor or dentist because you are afraid of needles.

    2. We develop an exposure hierarchy on this fear. It should have at least five tasks that you want to do ranked from least scary to most scary (scale from 0–10). For Arachnophobia, it may be a 2/10 for looking at pictures of spiders to a 4/10 for watching videos of spiders. Then a 6/10 for looking at spiders in an enclosure to a 10/10 for letting a spider crawl up your arm.

    3. We start with the least scary task first and stay in the situation for at least 10 minutes if possible. It should be long enough for the anxiety to peak and then reduce substantially during the exposure exercise. A psychologist can teach specific behavioural and thinking skills to help lower stress levels during exposure.

    4. We reflect on the exposure experience afterwards and try to change our previously held beliefs about what we fear. It is called cognitive reappraisal and is done by asking ourselves, “how did it go?” “was it as bad as I thought it would be?” and “how would I approach a similar situation in the future?”

    5. Once we are comfortable with that level of the exposure hierarchy, we repeat steps three and four with the next task on the exposure hierarchy. Then, once we become comfortable with the next step, we take each step until we are successful with all tasks on the hierarchy. By the end, you have overcome or mastered the fear.

    What if What I Fear is Dangerous?

    If you have Ophidiophobia and live in Australia, you’re probably not going to want to befriend a snake that you run into out in the bush. Australia is home to 21 out of the 25 most deadly snakes globally. If you want to overcome this fear, you might want to learn instead how to distinguish between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes and get more comfortable only with deadly ones from behind solid glass panels at your local zoo. Or you could visit someone who owned a harmless pet snake so that you could get used to being around it and touching it and realising that you are safe.

    If you’re afraid of heights, I wouldn’t suggest being like Alex Honnold and trying to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite. However, testing ‘The Edge’ experience at the Eureka tower in Melbourne or even riding ‘The Giant Drop’ on the Gold Coast might be a pretty safe way to challenge your fears.

    Facts can really help some people challenge their beliefs about their fears, but nothing beats putting ourselves in a feared situation first and then challenging our beliefs afterwards.

    For me, knowing that only 12 out of the 35,000 different varieties of spiders are harmful to humans makes me not worry every time I see a little one unless it is a whitetail or a redback spider.

    It helps to know that flying is one of the safest forms of travel, with a one-in-12 million chance of crashing. Likewise, although I don’t try to stand in an open field with a metal pole during a storm, it does help to know that being killed by lightning is nearly as rare, with a one-in-10.5 million chance.

    Even though I’m not particularly eager to watch it pierce my skin, needles don’t hurt nearly as much as I used to imagine, and the pain goes away almost immediately after the injection. Bacteria is everywhere, so I couldn’t avoid germs entirely even if I tried.

    If I ever feel a bit trapped or panicky the next time I dive, it will help to remind myself that I have done it before. I have my open water certificate and the skills from this, and what I’m doing is pretty safe as long as I don’t panic and follow my training.

    Just because we are afraid of something, it doesn’t mean we have to avoid it for the rest of our lives. But we don’t have to face our fears every time either, especially if it is not harming our quality of life. So if you determine it would be good to challenge yourself and try to overcome a fear, I hope the steps outlined above help, and I’d love to hear about any success stories in the comments.

  • Is it Better to be Completely Honest, a Strategic Truth-Teller or an Occasional Liar?

    Is it Better to be Completely Honest, a Strategic Truth-Teller or an Occasional Liar?

    I used to lie a lot growing up. Not quite as bad as Holden Caulfield in ‘The Catcher in the Rye’:

    “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.”
    ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

    I remember lying to my mum about cleaning my room to go outside to play. So instead, I would push all the mess under the bed or throw it in the wardrobe.

    I remember lying about doing my homework so that I didn’t have to do it and could play video games. I would then lie about being sick the next day to finish the assignment I needed to do the night before.

    I remember lying about how many points I scored in basketball to friends or how many alcoholic drinks I had to my parents whenever they picked me up from a high school party.

    I even remember lying to my brother’s friend about my surfing skills (I didn’t have any) and to a classmate about how many languages I spoke (I can say maybe 30 words in Indonesian, Spanish, and Italian, but not much more).

    I think back to these moments, and I’m not proud of saying these things, but I can also understand why I did it.

    I wish I could have been a less lazy, more confident and self-assured kid who was always honest with his friends and strangers and did the right thing by his parents and teachers. But how realistic is that scenario, and is it even ideal?

    “The truth is always an insult or a joke. Lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone’s comfort.”
    ― Katherine Dunn, Geek Love

    Why Do People Lie?

    We lie to:

    • fit in and pretend we are like others
    • stand out and pretend we are different to or better than others
    • seek approval from others
    • be seen as more loveable/desirable/acceptable
    • feel better about ourselves
    • avoid getting into trouble
    • protect other people’s feelings or avoid hurting them
    • be polite
    • avoid feeling hurt, sad, disappointed, guilty or ashamed
    • keep a secret
    • maintain confidentiality
    • be consistent with societal norms

    “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
    ― Friedrich Nietzsche

    What Happens if We Are 100% Honest?

    Jim Carrey plays the main character in the 1997 comedy ‘Liar Liar’. He’s a high flying lawyer who keeps disappointing his son Max by making promises to him that he doesn’t keep by putting work first. Finally, after his dad doesn’t turn up to his birthday celebration, Max wishes for his dad not to be able to tell a lie, and the magic of movies makes this wish come true.

    What results is some hilarious situations in which Jim Carrey’s character gets himself into trouble for telling the whole truth when it would be more polite to lie. It includes telling his secretary why he didn’t give her a pay rise, telling his boss that he has had better than her, and confessing to everyone in a crowded elevator that he was the one who did the smelly fart.

    The moral of the story was two-fold:

    1. Sometimes it is necessary to lie, or at least not always be brutally honest and say everything that comes to your mind, and
    2. By being tactful and as honest as possible, you may become a better person who upsets people less and has more authentic relationships.

    “One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths.“
    ― Al David

    Radical Honesty

    In 2007, A.J. Jacobs wrote an article for Esquire magazine about a month-long experiment on a movement called Radical Honesty. It was titled ‘I Think You’re Fat’ and is worth reading. Much more than the 1995 book called ‘Radical Honesty’ by Brad Blanton that initially inspired the article:

    Blanton had worked as a psychotherapist for 35 years in Washington D.C. and ran 8-day workshops on Radical Honesty that retailed for $2,800 back in 2007. Blanton says his method works, although he may distort some of the positive benefits for personal and financial gain. He’s been married five times and claims to have slept with more than 500 women and six men, including a “whole bunch of threesomes.” He also admits to lying sometimes.

    “She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying.“
    ― Holly Black, Black Heart

    I Think You’re Fat

    In Jacobs article, he wasn’t overly optimistic about Blanton’s version of Radical Honesty either. If we didn’t have a filter between what we say and what we notice in the world, in our body and our thoughts like Blanton advocates, the results would probably be less funny and more consequential than what happened to Jim Carrey in ‘Liar Liar’. He declares:

    “Without lies, marriages would crumble, workers would be fired, egos would be shattered, governments would collapse.” — A.J. Jacobs

    Jacobs found it impossible not to tell a lie during his month-long experiment but did cut down his lying by at least 40%. But unfortunately, he also scared a five-year-old girl, offended numerous people, and spoke about sex and attraction to the point where he felt creepy.

    On the positive, being radically honest did save Jacobs time, resulting in him having to talk less to the people he didn’t want to talk to and do less of the things he didn’t want to do. In addition, it saved him mental energy by not having to choose how much he would lie or massage the truth. It also meant that people were usually more honest with him in return, and he found out that his relationships could withstand more truth-telling than he expected. So, similar to the ‘Liar Liar’ take-away message, Jacobs concluded:

    1. Being radically honest all the time and never having a filter is likely to be inappropriate in many settings and lead to more confrontations with others, and
    2. We could probably benefit by being more authentic, honest and truthful with others, especially in intimate relationships, as secrets tend to weigh us down.

    “There is beauty in truth, even if it’s painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don’t teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one’s character, one’s mind, one’s heart or one’s soul.”
    ― José N. Harris

    What is a Lie?

    In his interesting small book ‘Lying’, Sam Harris defines a lie as:

    “Anything that is done to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication.” — Sam Harris

    Omission vs Commission

    In ‘Lying’, Sam Harris distinguishes between lies of commission, where the person is active in their intent to deceive, and the more passive act of omission, where the person fails to do something or say something they probably should. Both are deceptive and misleading to the audience who is the target of the action or lack of action.

    Harris believes that lies of commission are a more serious violation of ethics and likely to be more harmful. It is similar to how pushing someone in front of a train is a more serious ethical violation than not saving someone who was hit by a train when you had a chance to do so.

    Harris argues for people to stop all forms of commission and says that we can enhance our world, build trust and improve relationships by always being honest in our communication. While he believes that omission is also lying, he does not think that we can or should eliminate all forms of omission. Instead, he says that “skilful truth-telling” is sometimes required to be both honest and tactful in our words and avoid causing unnecessary harm.

    Let’s look at the following three examples to see the difference between radical honesty, lying and skilful truth-telling.

    SCENARIO ONE: Your husband asks if he looks fat in an outfit that you honestly believe isn’t flattering for him. You could say:

    A) “Yeah. You do look fat. I’d say about 10 pounds overweight. Maybe you should skip dessert for a while.”

    B) “Not at all, sweety. You look amazing!”

    C) “You look nice, but I think I prefer the black jumper and blue jeans I bought you a few weeks ago. Want to try that one and see which one you feel better in?“

    SCENARIO TWO: Your sister and her family are in town for the week and have decided to stay at your place for the whole time because they want to save money. You don’t dislike them, but you’d prefer to be catching up on your work that you are behind on. On night four, she notices you are a little tense and asks if you mind them staying there. You could say:

    A) “I do. I wish you weren’t so tight and could have paid for a hotel if you planned to stay more than three nights. A week is pushing it, and I’d prefer you left.”

    B) “Mind? Are you kidding? I love it. The more, the merrier, I always say! Stay for as long as you’d like.”

    C) “It’s a busy week for me in terms of work, so it wasn’t ideal timing for me. If I seem a bit tense, I’m sorry. I do want to be able to help you guys out because family means a lot to me.“

    SCENARIO THREE: You’ve been unemployed for six months and get a job interview to wait tables at a restaurant in town. You’d ideally prefer an acting job. The restaurant boss asks what your career plans are, as they want to hire someone who will stick around. You could say:

    A) “Well, acting has always been my passion, so this is just a stop-gap job to pay the bills and put food on the table. I couldn’t care less about the job or your restaurant. I want a regular paycheck so that I can pay my rent and bills until I get a real job.”

    B) “I’d love to become a professional waiter. I’ve always thought that providing great service to people is my calling in life, and I plan to stick around for at least five years and show everyone just how amazing your restaurant is. So I’m in it for the long haul.”

    C) “I’m not too sure about what will happen with my career, but at this stage, I’d like to be able to work here. I am available seven days a week and will put in 100% effort whenever I am on shift. I am also willing to learn whatever skills are required, and I can promise that I will give you as much notice as possible if my plans ever do change in the future.“

    In each scenario, A is the radically honest response, B is the active lying or commission response, and C is the skilful truth-telling response. Some truths are unsaid in the C responses, which is technically a lie of omission.

    Many people still believe that omissions are a big no-no:

    “When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.”
    ― Yevgeny Yevtushenko

    “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.”
    ― Alfred Tennyson

    “At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right.”
    ― Miguel de Unamuno

    “People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
    ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

    Is it Ever Helpful to Lie to Ourselves?

    The short answer is yes. It is psychologically healthier to be slightly optimistic rather than entirely realistic. Research indicates that people with depression are often more realistic in their appraisals of situations and other people’s judgments than people without depression. Most “healthy people” believe that they are better drivers, more intelligent, better workers, better parents, and better lovers compared to the average person.

    People lie to themselves because they like to feel that they are important and maybe more unique or special than they are. To prove this point, how would you feel if someone told you that you were just “average”? People also like to see themselves as good people who behave in particular ways for sound reasons. Even people that consistently cause harm to themselves or others.

    Anyone with an unhealthy addiction becomes an expert at lying to themselves and others. This secrecy and dishonesty only further fuel the sense of depression, shame and guilt that people with addiction feel. As long as they are in touch with the truth of the situation and the consequences of their actions. Most addicts are not, however, thanks to in-built defence mechanisms.

    Defence mechanisms are mostly subconscious or unconscious methods that we engage in to protect our ego or positive sense of self. Some of the more famous ones are denial, humour, repression, suppression, rationalisation, intellectualisation, projection, displacement and regression. My personal favourite is reaction formation (click here for a full description of these defence mechanisms and how to identify yours). Most people will deny engaging in defence mechanisms if you ask them directly about it, but they’ll tell you that others do. The reality is we all lie to ourselves at times, and maybe we need to lie to maintain a “healthy” outlook on ourselves, others, the world and our future.

    “The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.”
    ― Friedrich Nietzsche

    “I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.”
    ― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

    “The best lies about me are the ones I told.”
    ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

    “Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they’re honest about everything.”
    ― Chuck Klosterman

    So What Can We Do?

    The most accurate recommendations that I could find on lying were also some of the simplest:

    “If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.”

    ― Bruce Lee

    “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.“

    Mark Twain

    I agree with Sam Harris that it is a worthwhile aim to never be actively dishonest. Furthermore, this approach is consistent with one of Jordan Peterson’s better rules from his ’12 Rules for Life’ book — Rule #8: “Tell the truth — or, at least, don’t lie“

    The philosopher Robin Devenport wouldn’t agree with either Harris or Peterson. He states:

    “it is impossible for anyone to be truly honest about many things, as long as he (or she) carries biased perspectives, hidden resentments, unresolved longings, unacknowledged insecurities, or a skewed view of self, to name just some inner human conditions… if absolute honesty is impossible, then we are all liars by nature, at least to a degree.”

    Dan Ariely concludes in his excellent book ‘The Honest Truth about Dishonesty’ that we all tend to lie to everyone, especially ourselves. We lie only as much as we know we can get away with, but not so much that it becomes hard to keep seeing ourselves as good people.

    Devenport continues:

    “Perhaps the best we can do, then, is only to lie in ways that are intended to promote another’s well-being or spare her unnecessary pain, and so further our integrity. The ‘noble liar’ is someone who tries to live by good intentions, even if that means intentionally lying to another person, if doing so is the lesser of two evils…Before we cast too harsh a judgment on the liar, let’s first understand what his motives are.”

    Robin Devenport

    We all need to be as honest as we can, especially with those we love and make sure that it is for a good reason when we lie. We also need to realise that it will never be possible to be 100% honest about everything to anyone, including ourselves, and that is okay. Other people won’t be 100% honest with you or themselves either, which doesn’t make them bad people. It’s what we lie about and why that matters.

  • Why Do Some People Cheat in Relationships and Others Remain Faithful?

    Why Do Some People Cheat in Relationships and Others Remain Faithful?

    With the development of the internet, dating websites, social media, smartphones and dating apps, it is now easier than ever for someone to cheat on their partner or spouse.

    This same technology can also make it easier to get caught due to the potential digital trail created by these unscrupulous liaisons.

    The Ashley Maddison hack and the scandal were examples of technology helping people have extramarital affairs and leading to them getting caught. The hackers tried to blackmail the company and many users and then released all their details in a massive data leak when users did not meet their demands. As a result, families broke up; and the scandal ruined reputations and even lives in the aftermath.

    The consequences of infidelity continue to have a devastating impact on individuals, partners, children and society. Yet, it remains a prevalent issue in every country and culture. Maybe even more so today with the advent of technology.

    Given the massive changes that we have gone through in the past 30 years, I am interested in finding out the prevalence rates of cheating, if our attitudes towards infidelity have changed, and if there is anything that we can do about it.

    What is Cheating?

    The definition of cheating depends on who you talk to and their expectations for their relationship. The stereotype is that males tend to perceive cheating as exclusive to physical encounters or actions. In contrast, females also see emotional infidelity as cheating. Emotional cheating is sharing something with someone you wouldn’t say to your partner. Many people also believe that relationships that exist purely over the internet or phone are also cheating, especially if you share explicit words, photos, or sexual acts on these devices.

    Weeks, Gambescia and Jenkins (2003) define infidelity as a violation of emotional or sexual exclusivity. The boundaries of exclusivity are different in each couple, and sometimes these boundaries are explicitly stated, but they are usually merely assumed. Because each partner can have different assumed limits, it is difficult for all exclusivity expectations to be met (Barta & Kiene, 2005).

    Leeker and Carlozzi (2012) believe that when someone has a subjective feeling that their partner has violated the rules around infidelity, sexual jealousy and rivalry naturally arise. If an act of adultery has occurred, the consequence is often psychological damage, including feelings of betrayal and anger, impaired self-image for the person cheated on, and a loss of personal and sexual confidence (Leeker & Carlozzi, 2012).

    Prevalence of Infidelity

    Most of the research presented in this post comes from the surprising and entertaining book ‘Modern Romance’ by Aziz Anzari (the actor and comedian) and Eric Klinenberg (a Sociologist).

    Unfortunately, people who are suspicious of infidelity sometimes have a reason to be. More than half of all men (60%) and women (53%) confess to having tried to mate-poach before. Mate-poaching means that they attempted to seduce a person out of a committed relationship to be with them instead. I can’t believe that these figures are so high.

    I also can’t believe that in “committed relationships”, where the partners are not married to each other, the incidence rate of cheating is as high as 70%.

    It gets a little bit better for married couples, with only 2–4% of married individuals admitting to having an extramarital affair over the past year in the USA. However, this increases to 30% of heterosexual men and 25% of heterosexual women who will have at least one extramarital affair at some point during their marriage. It’s scary to think that nearly one-third of all married individuals have affairs. However, it’s good to know that two-thirds of all married people stay faithful to their spouse.

    Attitudes Towards Extramarital Affairs

    In ‘Modern Romance’, an international study examines people’s views on extramarital affairs across 40 countries.

    84% of people strongly agreed that cheating was “morally unacceptable” in the USA. In Australia, 79% view extramarital affairs as morally unacceptable. Canada, the UK, South America and African countries all have similar rates of cheating disapproval as Australia. Areas with the highest disapproval rates are typically Islamic countries, with 93% of those surveyed in Turkey stating that marital infidelity is morally unacceptable, second only to Palestinian territories with 94%.

    France is the most tolerant country for extramarital affairs, with only 47% saying that cheating is unacceptable. Unsurprisingly, they also happen to be the country with the most extramarital affairs. The latest data indicates that 55% of men and 32% of French married women admit to having committed infidelity on their spouse at least once. The second most tolerant nation is Germany, with 60% finding extramarital affairs morally unacceptable. Italy and Spain are equal third, with 64% each.

    Expectations vs Reality

    When you compare the level of disapproval towards infidelity with the data on the actual prevalence of extramarital affairs, the numbers don’t quite add up. Furthermore, many people who cheat themselves still condemn the practice and would not be okay with being cheated on themselves.

    A Gallup poll on cheating found that disapproval of infidelity is higher than animal cloning, suicide and even polygamy. Although it is against the law, being married to two people is seen as less offensive than being married to one and breaching the honesty, trust and connection that you share with your partner.

    People also differ between their beliefs and practices regarding whether or not to confess infidelity.

    A Match.com US survey found that 80% of men and 76% of women would prefer their partner to “confess their mistake… and suffer the consequences” rather than “take their secret to the grave”. However, the excuse given by most people who have cheated and haven’t told their partner is that they didn’t want to hurt their partner. Interestingly, they only worry about their actions’ impact on their partner after the unfaithful act has already occurred and not beforehand.

    Unfortunately, most people try to keep their affairs to themselves and make excuses for their behaviour while demanding at the same time that their partners own up to their indiscretions if they stray. If their partner does own up, they are likely to treat them harshly for it, because, after all, cheating is considered morally unacceptable by most.

    Why Do People Cheat?

    Dr Selterman from the University of Maryland looked into why 562 adults cheated while in a “committed” romantic relationship. He found eight main reasons given for why the infidelity occurred:

    1. Anger: seeking revenge following a perceived betrayal
    2. Lack of love: falling “out of love” with a partner, or not enough passion or interest in the partner anymore
    3. Neglect: not receiving enough attention, respect or love (#1 reason for women)
    4. Esteem: seeking to boost one’s sense of self-worth by being desired by or having sex with multiple partners
    5. Sexual desire: not wanting sex with their partner or wanting to have sex more with others (a common reason for men)
    6. Low commitment: Not clearly defining the relationship as exclusive or not wanting a future with their partner or anything too serious
    7. Variety: Want to have more sexual partners or experiences in their lifetime (a common reason for men)
    8. Situation: Being in an unusual scenario, such as under high stress, under the influence of alcohol or a substance, or on vacation or a working holiday (a common reason for men)

    Interestingly, these factors suggest that infidelity doesn’t always reflect how happy or healthy a relationship is. Instead, it says more about the person who commits adultery and their personality rather than anything else.

    Ways to Reduce the Likelihood of Infidelity

    In ‘Modern Romance’, the authors explain that passionate love inevitably fades within every relationship. A loss of passionate love could lead to infidelity if people don’t realise that this may indicate how long they have been together, not an issue with their relationship.

    Companionate love, or that sense of building a life and a legacy with a partner, is different to passionate love. It can continue to grow across a relationship and a lifetime rather than decline with time. Couples in their 60s and 70s often rate their relationship satisfaction as much better than when they were younger and trying to raise children together and work full-time.

    One way to reduce the likelihood of committing infidelity is to build companionate love and a shared life and legacy together, rather than equating real love with passion.

    In his classic book ‘On Love’, philosopher Alain de Botton said that:

    “Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing…we fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent and witty as we are ugly, stupid and dull.”

    Alain de Botton

    It’s much easier to idealise or become infatuated with someone you don’t know well. Because you can imagine that they are perfect or have none of the flaws that your current partner (or you) possess.

    The quickest cure for infatuation is to get to know the person a bit more (without breaching the infidelity norms of your relationship) and realise that they are just as flawed as the rest of us. Once you understand this, leaving one flawed relationship for another and having to start all over again carries much less appeal.

    In another of his excellent books, ‘The Course of Love’, de Botton states:

    “When we run up against the reasonable limits of our lovers’ capacity for understanding, we musn’t blame them for dereliction. They were not tragically inept. They couldn’t fully fathom who we were — and we could do no better. No one properly gets, or can fully sympathize with anyone else… there cannot be better options out there. Everyone is always impossible.”

    Alain de Botton

    de Botton is not saying that we shouldn’t leave abusive and neglectful partners. He means that we need to avoid imagining that there is “a lover (out there) who will anticipate (all) our needs, read our hearts, act selflessly and (always) make everything better. (This) is a blueprint for disaster.” No one is perfect. Try to be grateful for what you have with your current relationship. Trying to make your current relationship as good as possible is much healthier than imagining that “the one” could be around the corner.

    We still have the issue of love and sexual desire typically being separated in our society. Esther Perel, couples therapist and author, points this out better than anyone in her groundbreaking book ‘Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic’:

    “Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling… our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness… (but) it’s hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned (their) sense of autonomy… Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?”

    Esther Perel

    A way to keep the spark of desire alive is to ensure that even though you do many things with your partner, you must also do some things individually.

    Perel also agrees that both love and desire can be maintained or grown over time with effort and a specific way of looking at things:

    “For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning. They know that they have years in which to deepen their connection, to experiment, to regress, and even to fail. They see their relationship as something alive and ongoing, not a fait accompli. It’s a story that they are writing together, one with many chapters, and neither partner knows how it will end. There’s always a place they haven’t gone yet, always something about the other still to be discovered.”

    Esther Perel

    What About If Infidelity Has Already Occurred?

    If cheating has already taken place, many people say that too much pain has occurred, trust has been breached and broken, and leaving is the best thing to do. However, breaking up may not be the most straightforward, practical, or best solution in other cases. For individuals in these cases, I would recommend reading Perel’s more recent book ‘The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity’.

    In this book, Perel says that:

    “Once divorce carried all the stigma. Now, choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame.”

    Perel warns against only judging the cheating, as this closes all further conversation about what happened and why. It also makes it hard to know where to go from there. Instead, Perel believes that it is much better to see an affair as a symptom of a troubled relationship or a troubled person.

    If the person is troubled, and they are remorseful for what they have done and willing to try to make amends and not cheat again, they must get help to address whatever issue led to the infidelity in the first place. But, on the other hand, be wary if they are unwilling to get help and work on themselves but merely say it won’t happen again.

    If it is the relationship that was in trouble, relationship counselling may help too. Perel says that:

    “Infidelity hurts. But when we grant it a special status in the hierarchy of marital misdemeanors, we risk allowing it to overshadow the egregious behaviors that may have preceded it or even led to it.”

    If both people in a relationship can take ownership of the behaviours they engaged in that caused pain and hurt to the other and are willing to start again to build a stronger relationship, they can have a healthy relationship in the future. It’s just never going to be the same as things were before the infidelity took place.

    My Personal Opinion

    Monogamy is sometimes challenging, but it is a choice. So is continuing to work at having a healthy relationship. We may not always have complete control over what we initially think or feel, but we do have the capacity to consider things properly before acting.

    Relationship researcher John Gottman found that couples who turn towards each other when there is an issue in their life are much more likely to stay together. Couples who turn away from each other or turn against each other when fighting are more likely to break up.

    One study found that newlyweds who remained married six years later turned towards each other 86% of the time when issues arose. Newlyweds who were divorced six years later only turned towards each other 33% of the time. Turning towards your partner when a problem occurs is the key to a close and connected relationship and is much less likely to result in infidelity or breaking up.

    For me, it comes down to personal values. I want to have a close and connected relationship with openness, honesty, and trust. I don’t want to feel like I have to hide anything, and I don’t want to do anything that I am not personally okay with or that I know would hurt those I care about the most.

    Anything that we hide from our partners tends to lead to greater distance and a feeling of disconnection. Especially with stuff we feel ashamed of or know is dishonest or disrespectful. Our body language, micro-expressions and tone of voice also tend to reveal how we genuinely feel over time if we hide something, even if we wouldn’t like to admit it.

    Existential philosophers believe that our biggest challenge in life is to come face-to-face with the true nature of who we are. Over time, our actions rather than our intentions become our character or who we are. I aim to be the best partner and person that I can be and learn from any mistakes that I make along the way so that I hopefully never repeat them. What about you?

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • Parenting is Tough, but Science Suggests Clear Strategies that Help You to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children

    Parenting is Tough, but Science Suggests Clear Strategies that Help You to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children

    In 2018, the American Psychiatric Association identified what they considered to be the three primary goals of parenting:

    “1. Ensuring children’s health and safety

    2. Preparing children for life as productive adults, and

    3. Transmitting cultural values”

    Many environmental and biological factors influence a parent’s and a child’s capacity to reach these ambitious goals. However, there are still a few simple changes in how we try to parent our children and manage emotions in ourselves and those closest to us that can make a significant difference.

    Parenting Styles

    In 1971, Baumrind identified and developed three main parenting styles. These parenting styles include parents’ attitudes and values about parenting, their beliefs about the nature of children, and the specific strategies they use to help socialise their child.

    The parenting styles are known as:

    1. Authoritative

    Includes being warm and involved in the child’s day-to-day life, helping the child with reasoning and inductive thought processes and reflective practices, democratic participation, letting the child have a say in what goes on, and being good-natured and generally easy-going with the child.

    2. Authoritarian

    Includes being verbally hostile towards the child, using corporal punishment, not reasoning things through with the child, using punitive control strategies or excessively harsh penalties, and being directive towards the child rather than discussing things with them.

    3. Permissive

    Includes high levels of warmth, but a relaxed and non-consistent discipline style, with minimal rules, expectations and guidance. It consists of a lack of follow-through on consequences, ignoring misbehaviour and boosting self-confidence rather than disciplining the child.

    The graph above highlights a fourth style known as uninvolved (Maccoby & Martin, 1983), including very little control or strictness and very little parental warmth.

    Subsequent reviews by Baumrind in 1989 and 1991 found a clear winner for parents who employed an authoritative parenting style over an authoritarian or a permissive parenting style, especially once children reach higher.

    An authoritative parenting style leads to the more significant development of child competence, including better maturity, assertiveness, responsible independence, self-control, better co-operation with peers and adults, and academic success (Baumrind, 1989; 1991). In addition, children of authoritative parenting also exhibit higher levels of moral conscience and prosocial behaviours (Krevans & Gibbs, 1996).

    Other research has found that non-authoritative parenting styles can lead to a higher risk of depression, anxiety, ADHD and conduct or behavioural problems (Akhter et al., 2011). For example, authoritarian parenting can lead to antisocial aggression, hostility and rebelliousness (Baumrind, 1991), and anxiety (Chorpita & Barlow, 1998).

    Indulging children too much and not setting appropriate boundaries can reduce the child’s academic performance and social competence (Chen et al., 2000). Permissive parenting can also lead to low self-control and impulsive, bossy or dependent behaviour in children (Baumrind, 1967).

    Uninvolved parenting leads to a greater risk of behavioural problems and depression (Downey & Coyne, 1990).

    The chart below clearly highlights the consequences of each style of parenting:

    If you want to develop a more authoritative parenting style, be warned that it is the most time-consuming and energy-demanding of all the methods (Greenberger & Goldberg, 1989). However, try to see if any of the following strategies work for you:

    • “Learn the names of your children’s friends.
    • Ask about your child’s problems or concerns at school and communicate with their teachers about any issues that they may be having.
    • Encourage the child to talk about their troubles.
    • Give praise and acknowledgment when the child does something positive.
    • Tell your child that you appreciate what they try or accomplish.
    • Give emotional comfort and understanding when the child is upset.
    • Respond to the child’s feelings and emotional needs.
    • Show sympathy or empathy when the child is hurt or frustrated.
    • Express affection by hugging, kissing or holding your child when it is appropriate to do so.
    • Explain the consequences of your child’s behaviour.
    • Give your child the reasons for the rules you have.
    • Emphasise why they must follow the rules.
    • Help them understand the impact of their behaviour by encouraging them to talk about the consequences of their actions.
    • Explain how you feel about your child’s good and bad behaviour.
    • Take into account your child’s preferences when making family plans.
    • Allow your child to give input into family rules.
    • Take your child’s desires into account before asking them to do something.
    • Joke and play with your child.
    • Show patience with your child.
    • Try to be easy-going and relaxed around your child.”

    The Relationship Cure

    There isn’t an author out there who has conducted more in-depth and scientific research on interpersonal relationships than John Gottman. ‘The Relationship Cure: A Five-Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships’ is his 2002 book that offers a 5-step guide to improving the quality of your relationship with your partner or children.

    The five steps to improve your relationships are:

    1. Look at Your Bids for Connection

    We need to analyse how we bid for connections with others and respond to others bids.

    A bid is simply any form of expression, whether a verbal question, a visual look, or a physical gesture or touch that says, “I want to connect with you!”

    A response to a bid can be either an encouraging sign that shows that you also want to connect by turning towards them or a discouraging sign that indicates that you do not wish to connect through turning away from them or turning against them.

    Over time, turning towards responses lead to even more bidding and responding and a stronger, closer relationship. But, conversely, both turning away and turning against reactions leads to less bidding, hurt or suppressed feelings, and the breakdown of the connection you share in the long-term.

    2. Discover Your Brain’s Emotional Command Systems

    There are seven main areas in which people differ, influencing relationship needs. Once you have discovered if you and your family members are low, moderate or high on each system, it becomes easier to see how it affects the bidding process in the relationship.

    The systems are the following:

    • Commander-in-chief (dominance and control)
    • Explorer (exploration and discovery)
    • Sensualist (sensual gratification, pleasure)
    • Energy Czar (regulates the need for energy, rest, relaxation)
    • Jester (play, fun)
    • Sentry (safety, vigilance)
    • Nest-builder (affiliation, bonding, attachment)

    3. Examine Your Emotional Heritage

    People typically develop one of four emotional philosophy styles. These styles are learnt during childhood and can affect your method of bidding and your ability to connect with others.

    The four emotional styles are:

    • Emotion-dismissing (“You’ll get over it!“) = less bidding and turning away
    • Emotion-disapproving (“Don’t feel that way!“) = less bidding and turning against
    • Laissez-faire (“I understand how you feel.“) = bidding may or may not increase
    • Emotion-coaching (“I understand. Let’s figure out how we can help you.“) = more bidding, turning toward, with the bonus of guidance being offered for how to cope.

    Families that create emotion-coaching environments give their children a higher chance of having more successful and loving relationships with their parents, siblings and friends. They also tend to get along better with their co-workers and romantic partners when they are older.

    4. Sharpen Your Emotional Communication Skills

    By learning effective communication skills, we are more likely to say what we mean and feel without the other person becoming defensive. As a result, it can increase our chances of positive changes occurring and improve relationship satisfaction.

    The four steps of effective communication are as follows:

    D — Describe the situation, and stick to facts, not judgments

    (e.g., ”When you don’t clean up your room”, not “When you are disrespectful and don’t care about your things!”).

    E — Explain how you feel

    (Emotions — e.g., “I feel hurt and upset!”. Not opinions — e.g., “I feel like you don’t care about me or the house rules!”)

    A — Ask for what you need or would prefer

    (Behaviours — e.g., “I would prefer that you follow the rules we have established and clean up your room before going outside to play with friends”. Not feelings — e.g., “I would prefer if you actually cared about this family and your things like you say you do”).

    R — Reinforce the potential benefits to them, you and the relationship if they could do what you have asked

    (e.g., “Then your things won’t get wrecked, you can play, I can relax, and we can all have fun together later instead of me having to nag you all the time!”).

    You might be sceptical, but it really can work, and it does become more comfortable with practice.

    5. Find Shared Meaning with Others

    This can be done by sharing your dreams or visions, or it can be about developing consistent rituals together that, over time, can lead to more shared experiences and a stronger emotional bond.

    With the kids, this may be prioritising having dinner around the table with the whole family and chatting each night without technology. Or it could be:

    • a regular movie night every Friday,
    • church every Sunday morning,
    • games night once a week,
    • Christmas and Family Day with the extended family,
    • New Year at the beach every year, or
    • Anything else that you can repeat regularly

    Rituals provide great memories for the children and predictability and help them feel loved and secure. What you do does not matter too much; it is about what is meaningful to you and your family.

    So there we have it. Try to develop an authoritative parenting style, turn towards your child’s emotional bids, foster an emotion-coaching philosophy in the home, and try to communicate and find shared meaning with your children. Then, you will be well on your way to raising emotionally healthy children. I wish you all the best with the inevitable challenges along the way.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • 10 Bits of Advice I’d Give My 10-Year-Old Self

    10 Bits of Advice I’d Give My 10-Year-Old Self

    When I was ten, I was in grade four at primary school. I was one of the tallest kids in the class, skinny and uncoordinated.

    I loved sport and computer games. I enjoyed living where I did in the northeast suburbs of Melbourne and had some good friends who I saw regularly.

    I was not too fond of school, talking on the phone, doing chores around the house, and my little sister. I also tried to regularly take sick days from school with a sore tummy that I now know was anxiety. I’d had a horrible teacher the year before who didn’t seem to like me, and I had no idea how to cope.

    Here are ten thoughts that I would say to myself if I could go back in time and have a chat with my ten-year-old self:

    1. Before you do anything else, breathe

    I know you worry a lot and stress yourself out by overthinking, but you don’t have to have all the answers yet, or maybe ever. So before you do something you may regret, stop. Take ten slow and deep breaths, and try to breathe out all the air with each breath. Then see how you feel and what you can do.

    2. Focus on one thing at a time

    I know that you feel you have too many things to do and not enough time. But multitasking is a myth and will stress you out more. Instead, determine whatever is most important to you at any given moment, and then try to put all of your intention and effort into that until it is complete or you need to take a break.

    3. Don’t always believe what your thoughts tell you

    I know that you personalise things and catastrophise or imagine the worst. Some things are your fault, but many things are not. You are not “bad” or “evil”, but you can be mean if you want to be. You’re also probably not going to die over the homework assignment that you forgot to save on your computer. Start meditating 10 minutes a day before you go to bed, and you will eventually understand your thoughts and manage your emotions much better.

    4. Write things down

    I know you feel that your mum and dad don’t always understand you, but you can learn to understand yourself through reflection. First, write down three things that you are grateful for every day. Then, make a plan to address any concerns or worries before they all build up and become overwhelming for you. If you spend 5–10 minutes writing in a journal every day, you won’t regret it. Also, learn how to use a calendar or diary as soon as possible. Good organisational habits now will make life much easier for you later on.

    5. Don’t forget to have fun

    I know that you are super competitive and hate to lose, but basketball, swimming, tennis, baseball or any other sport is for fun. Practice isn’t always fun as that’s focused on helping you get better, but if you don’t enjoy competing or playing the games, find another sport that you think you will enjoy, and put more time into that. You will not become a professional athlete who gets paid, which is okay. Sport is a very healthy hobby to have, and if you can enjoy it, it’s even better.

    6. It’s okay to make mistakes, get rejected or fail

    I know that you struggle not being very good at something. Even though it doesn’t feel that good to be a novice or a beginner, the only way to become good at something is to be okay at sucking at it. If you persist through the sucking part, you will become a lot better over time, not suck so much, and eventually enjoy it. So keep playing and practising guitar and trombone, drawing and being creative, and paying attention in Italian class. It’s pretty cool to make art and speak multiple languages, and easier to learn when you are still young. Also, take French at high school, not Indonesian.

    7. Keep reading and learning outside of school

    I know you don’t like school much at the moment, but don’t just let your teachers dictate what you should learn. If something interests you, explore it further. If you have questions that you want to answer, see if you can find the answers in books or the internet once it gets faster. Many wise people have clarified their thoughts and written them down for you. Their words will help you a lot as you get older, and fostering curiosity and a love of learning at your age is fantastic. If mum wants to teach you how to cook, bake, clean, iron, sew, listen to her, watch what she does, try it and get feedback until you know what you are doing. The same goes with dad trying to teach you about sport, cars, gardening and making things with tools. You won’t regret having these skills once you move out on your own.

    8. Make time for friends and family

    I know that playing video games is fun, but technology shouldn’t replace face-to-face contact with other people. Be interested in people more than you are in things. You will learn a lot from them, and it will make you happier if you are yourself and they appreciate you for it. Your family won’t always be around as much as they are now, so try to enjoy the time you have with them even though they can all be annoying at times. And be nice to your sister. It’s not her fault that she is cuter and more extroverted than you. She’ll turn out to be a pretty cool person and a good friend to you one day.

    9. Invest in index funds

    I know that it is fun to spend money if you have it, but saving and investing doesn’t have to take much time and effort and is worth it. No matter how much money you earn, put 10% aside and stick it into an index fund. The power of compounding interest means that you will be setting yourself up for your financial future. You will have more freedom to do what you want to do when you are older without worrying about money as much. You probably won’t feel like you are sacrificing much, but the long-term benefit will be great.

    10. Try to be the best you that you can be

    You often compare yourself to others and don’t feel like you are as good or lovable as them. The truth is you will never be as good as your brother at being your brother, so don’t even try. Rather than comparing yourself to who others are today, try to compare yourself to who you were yesterday. As long as you strive to be a better person each day, that is all you can do. Be proud of yourself for who you are and for the effort you put in. Although you don’t see it all the time, know that mum and dad are proud of you and love you too. Unfortunately, they don’t always show it the way you want them to, but they do care. Your life will be pretty cool in the future, and it doesn’t keep getting harder, so try not to worry about the future too much. Instead, focus on what is healthy and in your control each day. The future will take care of itself.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • Positive Psychology – The Secret to Optimal Well-being

    Positive Psychology – The Secret to Optimal Well-being

    For many years, Psychologists focused exclusively on alleviating suffering. A worthy objective, but the treatments tried to reduce depression or anxiety, not increase happiness or life satisfaction. If someone is no longer feeling sad, will they suddenly feel happy? Perhaps, but not necessarily.

    The field of Positive Psychology tries to address these concerns.

    Martin Seligman has written three major Positive Psychology self-help books titled ‘Learned Optimism’, ‘Authentic Happiness’ and ‘Flourish’.

    Seligman was interested in studying depression and ran some experiments at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s to develop his theory of learned helplessness. Initially, the dogs were given electric shocks at random intervals and were not allowed to stop the shocks or escape the situation. After a while, even when Seligman provided the dogs with a chance to stop or exit the shocks, he found that they would not do anything about it. The relevance to people with depression is that an individual in an aversive environment who learns that they cannot change their outcome will continue to hold this belief even in situations where this isn’t the case. They won’t improve their position because they think it won’t make a difference anyway. But what if it does?

    ‘Learned Optimism’ was seen as the antidote to learned helplessness and focused on changing people’s outlooks and teaching them resiliency to better distinguish between things you can change and things that you can’t. By putting their energy into what they can do instead of blaming themselves for something out of their control, they became more motivated to develop knowledge and learn skills to make changes they desired in their lives. Regardless of what has happened in the past, having a slightly optimistic outlook on life leads to better emotional and physical health. It helps people persevere through the bad times, look after their health and put their best long-term interests first. Research has even shown that it can lead to a better survival rate following a heart attack.

    In ‘Authentic Happiness’, Martin Seligman extended these ideas and said that happiness was not just a matter of genes or good luck but could be sought out and created. You can do this by discovering your character strengths and virtues and putting these into action as much as possible.

    If you are interested in discovering what your natural character strengths are:

    1. Please go to www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu and fill out the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.

    2. The survey results will rank your Strengths from first to last. First, determine if your top 5 strengths are your key character strengths or virtues — you will know if the responses “feel right” to you. Then, if a lower-ranked item seems to better fit you than any of your top 5, write down your new top 5.

    3. Ask yourself, how much do you currently put these strengths into practice? In what ways do you apply them or live by them? For example, if love of learning or creativity is your highest ranked strength, do any changes need to be made in your life so that you can experience these more (e.g. study a new course or take on another creative pursuit)?

    4. If changes need to be made, set yourself some SMART (S — specific, M — measurable, A — attainable, R — realistic, T — timely) goals for how you can put these virtues into action. If these are your key character strengths and virtues, it is likely to lead to a higher overall sense of emotional well-being.

    In ‘Flourish’, Seligman proposed only five elements crucial for optimal psychological well-being or for someone to flourish. He called this his PERMA model of well-being:

    P — positive emotions — We all need love, joy, hope, compassion, gratitude, awe and excitement in our lives. What activities frequently bring about these emotions for you? Can they be sought out, or can you engage in these activities more regularly?

    E — engagement — Sometimes referred to as ‘flow’, engagement is the state when we are no longer in our heads or consumed with worries but completely immersed in whatever we are doing. By reading the book, ‘Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, I realised that we could create the conditions for these engagement experiences. Typically, you can achieve this with activities requiring some skill and challenge but not too much. So it is when I am playing a sport, in session with a client, or engaging in a creative pursuit. However, it is different for everyone and doesn’t always happen each time you do an activity. It is what athletes refer to when they are “in the zone” or what M. Scott Peck referred to when he spoke about how his best-selling book ‘The Road Less Traveled’ seemed to write itself. Mindfulness training, apart from its other benefits on stress, pain and prevention of depression relapse, can also lead to a higher likelihood of full engagement with a situation.

    R — positive relationships — Whether we are extroverted or introverted, humans are still social creatures who seek to be understood and accepted for who we are and have a sense of belonging with others. We also like to share experiences, as you will notice with any child who waits for their parents to look and see what they are doing before engaging in an action. It was the moral of the story in “Into the Wild”, the 2007 movie starring Emile Hirsch, where the main character wrote, “Happiness only real when shared”. But negative relationships also cause a lot of pain, so the secret may be in how to seek out and foster the right connections (e.g. friends, partners), as well as how to improve the ones that we already have or may not be able to choose (e.g. family, bosses). If you are having problems with this area of your life, the book ‘The Relationship Cure’ by John Gottman is an excellent place to start, as is seeking out a trained relationship therapist.

    M — meaning — Friedrich Nietzsche first said: “he who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Viktor Frankl also determined in ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ that purpose was required to withstand the daily atrocities he faced as a Jewish prisoner of a German concentration camp during World War II. Frankl, a Psychiatrist, believed so much about the importance of meaning that he developed a treatment called Logotherapy, which focused on helping others find meaning. He dedicated the second half of his book towards this goal and his subsequent psychotherapy. Depending on your beliefs, there may or may not be a universal meaning of life, but each individual must determine its importance. Where possible, it is then essential to try to live your life in that way, as long as it doesn’t break the laws of your society or cause harm to others. Values clarification exercises can assist with this.

    A — achievement — People like to achieve things, succeed, and win for their own sake. It is why there are so many cheats for video games and corruption in the corporate world, and drug cheats in athletic competition. So many people will do what they can to win. Achievement can be winning something, gaining knowledge, building skills, or completing a task. Having three achievable goals each day would go a long way towards improved well-being.

    Psychology is about more than the alleviation of suffering. It is about helping people understand, grow, develop mastery and self-efficacy, and live the best life they can!

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • How Can We Effectively Manage Guilt and Shame?

    How Can We Effectively Manage Guilt and Shame?

    What are shame and guilt?

    Neuropsychologist Dr Harvey Jones and I discuss shame and guilt and how to manage these tough emotions in our latest podcast.

    The fascinating and comprehensive book ‘Shame and Guilt’ by June Tangney and Ronda Dearing describe shame and guilt as universal human emotions that are functionally important at both an individual and a relationship level.

    Features shared by shame and guilt (Tangney & Dearing, 2002):

    Shame and guilt are both very private and personal emotions. They are predominantly internal experiences that are more difficult to observe or measure than other universal emotions, such as anger, sadness or joy.

    Yet, they are also social emotions, in that these emotions develop during interpersonal interactions with our family and those closest to us.

    Both shame and guilt can be classed as “moral” emotions in that our experience of them can hopefully propel us to act more morally.

    They are both closely linked with how we see ourselves about others. They continue to profoundly influence our behaviour in interpersonal situations throughout our lives, especially in contexts involving perceived transgressions, mistakes or moral failures.

    Shame and guilt both involve becoming self-conscious following a personal transgression and evaluating our behaviour about our perceived self, familial and societal norms. Based on this evaluation and what we internally attribute the violation to, we judge our behaviour and potentially internal sanctions towards ourselves if we deem the behaviour morally or socially unacceptable.

    Although Philosophers and Psychoanalysts have been theorising about shame and guilt for over a century, it is only really since the late 1980s that Psychologists have begun to systematically research and examine the nature of shame and guilt and the implications that these emotions and experiences have. Unfortunately, as well as being difficult to observe directly, many people tend not to have a clear understanding of the differences between shame and guilt.

    Features where shame and guilt differ (Tangney & Dearing, 2002):

    Focus of evaluation

    • With shame, the focus of the evaluation is on the global self (e.g., “I am horrible!”)
    • With guilt, the focus of the evaluation is on the specific behaviour (e.g., “What I did was horrible!”)

    Degree of distress

    • With shame, the degree of distress is generally much higher than with guilt, with more significant pain.
    • With guilt, the degree of distress is generally much lower than with shame, with less pain.

    Phenomenological experience

    • With shame, people tend to shrink and feel worthless, powerless and small
    • With guilt, people tend to feel tense, remorseful, and regretful

    Operation of “self.”

    • With shame, the self becomes split into an “observing self” and an “observer self.”
    • With guilt, a unified self remains intact

    Impact on “self.”

    • With shame, the self becomes impaired by a global devaluation (because of the focus of evaluation on the self)
    • With guilt, the self is unimpaired by a global devaluation (because the focus of the evaluation is on the specific behaviour)

    Concern vis-a-vis the “other.”

    • With shame, one becomes concerned with an internalised others’ evaluation of the self.
    • With guilt, one becomes concerned with the effect that their specific behaviour has had on others.

    Counterfactual processes

    • With shame, one tries to mentally undo the undesirable aspects of the self that have become apparent through denial, defensiveness, blaming others or aggression.
    • With guilt, one tries to mentally undo the undesirable aspects of their behaviour through being moral, caring, socially responsible and constructive.

    Motivational features

    • With shame, the desire is to hide, escape, or strike back
    • With guilt, the desire is to confess, apologise, or repair

    How to measure Shame and Guilt

    I challenge you to take the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA Version 3) to determine if you are more prone to shame, guilt or blaming others across work and social situations.

    When I took it, my results were:

    “I seldom blame others.”

    “I use guilt self-talk an average amount.”

    and

    “I use shame self-talk an average amount.”

    It was nice to see that I do not blame others when I realise that I have made a mistake and am often accountable and responsible for my actions. However, it does seem that I tend to punish myself too much following a transgression. But what do these findings mean for real life?

    The TOSCA has been used widely in studies on shame and guilt since 1989. It defines guilt as a more adaptive response to a situation where the focus is on the desire to repair or right the specific wrong caused. Conversely, shame is a less adaptive response where the attention is on a global negative self-evaluation without any reparation generally being taken.

    Research Findings on Shame and Guilt

    Research findings using the TOSCA have found that “Shame and guilt have important and quite different implications for interpersonal relationships.” For example, based on 12 years of research, Tangney and Dearing (2002) have found that:

    Individuals who are prone to shame:

    • They are more likely to blame others for adverse events through humiliating others, bullying, and violence.
    • They are more likely to experience bitterness, resentment and a seething kind of anger and hostility towards others and the world. They are also inclined to express their anger in aggressive and non-constructive ways, particularly in close interpersonal relationships. The shame-anger dynamic may help explain what occurs in many domestic violence incidents.
    • They are less likely to be empathetic, as the global self-focus of shame impedes sensitivity and impairs connection.
    • They are more likely to be vulnerable to a range of psychological difficulties through internalising the shame, including depression, low self-worth, self-loathing, eating disorders, and addiction.
    • They are more likely to be suspended from high school, use illicit drugs, engage in unsafe sex practices, abuse their spouses and attempt suicide (when individuals were first assessed in fifth grade and then followed up on years later).

    Individuals who are prone to guilt:

    • They are more likely to understand, empathise and connect with others.
    • They are more likely to accept responsibility for their transgressions.
    • They are less likely to be angry, hostile and aggressive. Conversely, people who feel guilty and angry are more likely to express what they feel assertively and constructively.
    • They are less likely to experience psychopathology as long as the guilt is “shame-free.”
    • They are more likely to apply to college, engage in community service, begin drinking alcohol at a later age, and use birth control (when individuals were first assessed in fifth grade and then followed up on years later). They were also less likely to try heroin, drive while intoxicated, and be arrested or convicted of a crime.

    Is guilt always a helpful emotion?

    No. Two maladaptive forms of guilt (Kim, Thibodeau & Jorgensen, 2011) have been correlated with depressive symptoms to a similar degree to what shame is. These are contextual-maladaptive guilt, which involves an “exaggerated responsibility for uncontrollable events,” and generalised guilt, which involves “free-floating guilt that is unrelated to any specific context” (Kim, Thibodeau & Jorgensen, 2011). This excessive or inappropriate guilt would not be helpful to experience regularly.

    What Can We Do?

    A. Manage guilt effectively

    With guilt, the steps for dealing with the emotion are pretty straightforward:

    1. Has a transgression occurred where you have not lived up to your own (or an internalised other’s) moral standards?
    2. Can you make up for this transgression in any way?
    • By taking responsibility for your action?
    • By fixing the mistake and cleaning up the mess?
    • By genuinely apologising and showing remorse for your actions?
    • By understanding and empathising with the person if you hurt them?

    3. How can you learn from the mistake so that you are less likely to repeat the same transgression in the future?

    4. What plan can you put in place so that you are less likely to repeat the same transgression in the future?

    If you feel guilty for having a particular thought, please understand that we cannot control what ideas pop into our consciousness. What we can control is how we interpret or respond to the ideas that do arise. Considering that we have at least 10,000 thoughts a day, it is implausible that all of these thoughts will be positive, happy, kind, pro-social thoughts.

    No transgression has occurred if it is just a thought, and there is no need to feel guilty, no matter how antisocial, nasty, sinful or taboo these thoughts may seem. A court of law can never charge you for impure thoughts. You do not need to put yourselves on trial either. Even psychologically healthy people have weird or unsettling ideas, as evidenced by this list of common intrusive thoughts (Purdon & Clark, 1992). Our actions define our character and how others see us, not our internal monologue. The above steps only need to be worked through when your efforts do not live up to the person you would like to be.

    Once you have worked through these steps, there are no additional benefits that you can achieve by continuing to feel guilty, punishing yourself for your transgression, or not forgiving yourself for your actions. Everyone makes mistakes. We must utilise guilt as an indicator that we have not been living consistently with our most important values and then practice these steps to get back on track.

    If you continue to feel guilty after this, try to accept your feelings and make room for the emotional experience. Then try to change your focus to whatever is most important to you in the present moment. For example, it could be the sport or computer game you are playing or connecting with others if you are out socialising. By asking yourself, “What’s Most Important Right Now?” it becomes a lot easier to get out of a cycle of ruminating about what you have done and feeling guilty for it.

    B. Encourage parents, teachers, bosses, managers, coaches, and mentors to help others to learn from their behavioural mistakes so that they can improve and maintain a positive sense of self, rather than criticising who they are or shaming them for doing something wrong

    We must educate people in these roles about the differences between shame and guilt and let them know that even if using shame seems to be effective in changing behaviour in the short term, it can have devastating long-term consequences. It can damage your relationship with the person and their mental health and behaviour.

    Shaming children is especially dangerous and shows them that their love, worth and approval is conditional. As a result of being shamed, children will eventually give up, become rebellious, try to be perfect, or subjugate their own needs and please others to maintain their fragile sense of being loveable, good enough or worthy.

    Once people become knowledgeable about focusing on the specific behaviour rather than the person as a whole, it can enhance their sensitivity and effectiveness in all relationships.

    C. Develop a Growth Mindset

    I have previously spoken about mindsets, as researched by Carol Dweck. When examining the difference between shame and guilt, I noticed the similarities between shame and a fixed mindset and guilt and a growth mindset.

    Both guilt and a growth mindset are focused on improving following setbacks, rather than remaining stuck, giving up or blaming someone else for your shortcomings. In addition, research indicates that you can cultivate a growth mindset over time.

    The similarities between guilt and a growth mindset suggest that it is also possible to change from being more shame-prone to being more guilt-prone. As you become more guilt-prone, you will begin to learn from your experiences and continue to grow without being held back by the transgressions that you have made in the past.

    D. Embrace your imperfections, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and share your feelings of shame with those that have earned the right to hear your story

    In “The Gifts of Imperfection’, Brene Brown defines shame as the following:

    “shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”

    Brene Brown

    Brene has found that shame needs the three ingredients of secrecy, silence, and judgment for it to grow and spiral out of control in our lives. She also believes that we all experience shame to some degree and that even though we are afraid to talk about what we are ashamed of, it is actually by talking about our shame that we are least likely to be controlled by it.

    “If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that get in the way — especially shame, fear and vulnerability”

    Brene Brown

    How to become more shame Resilient (Brown, 2010):

    1. Understand shame.
    2. Recognise what triggers shame for you, both externally (e.g., other people’s critical messages) and internally (e.g., your unrealistic expectations).
    3. Check to see if these criticisms or expectations are realistic or accurate.
    4. Realise that being imperfect does not mean the same as being inadequate or unworthy of love.
    5. Reach out to people who have earned the right to hear your shame experiences.
    6. Talk about what makes you feel ashamed and whatever else you may be feeling about the experience.
    7. Ask for the type of support that you need from them. It could be some kind words or reassurance. It could be something they can do for you (even if it is turn up and listen). It could be some hand-holding, back rubbing, or a hug. Or it could be some quality time, something to cheer you up, or a fun outing to help you change focus and move on.

    Once our previously shameful experiences are out in the open, we begin to own our story and realise that we are loveable and worthy, just the way we are. Although it is easier to experience this if our closest relationships provide us with unconditional acceptance, love, and belonging, we only need one person we can open to for shame to reduce and improve. If there is no one in your life that you would feel comfortable talking to about your shame, then a psychologist you feel safe with can help.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • 10 Traits of Highly Successful People

    10 Traits of Highly Successful People

    Tom Butler-Bowden’s book ’50 Success Classics: Winning Wisdom for Work & Life from 50 Landmark Books’ suggests ten characteristics that successful people have. They are:

    1. An optimistic outlook

    In ‘Learned Optimism,’ Martin Seligman shows that having an optimistic mindset or favourable expectations towards the future leads to better mental and physical health. Upbeat individuals have better immune functioning and are less likely to develop depression (Carver et al., 2010). They are also more likely to persevere in tough challenges and are more likely to experience psychological growth following a traumatic experience (Prati & Pietrantoni, 2009). Optimism can also reduce mortality rates over four years (Galatzer-Levy & Bonanno, 2014) and forty years (Brummett, Helms, Dahlstrom, & Siegler, 2006).

    The good news is that you can develop an optimistic mindset. A recent meta-analysis by Malouff and Schutte (2016) showed that across 29 studies, an individual’s optimism level does significantly increase with training. The most effective way to do this is with the ‘Best Possible Self’ intervention:

    “Imagine yourself in the future after everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded in accomplishing all the goals of your life …” — Boselie et al., 2014, p. 335

    Optimism training works. However, it would be best to keep it up as the benefits typically wane once the intervention has finished.

    2. A definite aim, purpose, or vision

    “The primary cause of success in life is the ability to set and achieve goals. That’s why the people who do not have goals are doomed forever to work for the people who do. You either work to achieve your own goals or work to achieve someone else’s.”

    Brian Tracy

    Although I like this quote, Stephen Covey provides a caveat when he says that there is no point exerting all of your energy climbing up a ladder leaning against the wrong wall. First, we must determine where it is that we would like to climb.

    “The key to prospering and adapting in the coming decades amidst an ever-escalating rate of change is to first be clear about and resolutely dedicated to what you stand for and why that should never change. You must then be just as resolutely willing to change absolutely everything else.”

    J.W. Marriott Jr.

    Successful people are clear on what their values are and what they stand for before taking purposeful action. Values clarification and committed action are two of the six essential components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, with the other four elements focused on teaching clients mindfulness skills. According to the American Psychological Association, ACT has strong research support for chronic pain and modest research support for depression, anxiety, OCD and psychosis.

    Chase and colleagues (2013) found that goal setting alone did not affect students grade point averages (GPAs) across a semester. However, it did when they provided training in values clarification alongside goal setting—furthermore, clarifying values before setting goals also significantly reduced the dropout rate of these students the following semester (Chase et al., 2013).

    3. A willingness to work hard and persevere

    “There is absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary people can accomplish if they’re given the opportunity and the encouragement and the incentive to do their best. It takes risk, hard work, knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there.”

    Sam Walton

    Professor Angela Duckworth studied the West Point Military Academy students over some years and determined which ones graduated. She knew that each cadet admitted to West Point was intelligent, physically fit, with excellent grades and test scores. However, she was also aware that nearly 6% of the cadets dropped out during the first seven weeks (Beast Barracks training), and one-fifth dropped out before graduation.

    Eventually, Duckworth identified two qualities that were more predictive than anything else for determining which students made it to the end: 1. passion and 2. perseverance. Together, they make up a quality known as grit. People who score high in grit are much more likely to put in the effort required, do whatever it takes and persist until they succeed. She has since found that grit is a great predictor of success in other areas too.

    “Often we are caught in a mental trap of seeing enormously successful people and thinking they are where they are because they have some special gift. Yet a closer look shows that the greatest gift that extraordinarily successful people have over the average person is their ability to get themselves to take action.”

    Anthony Robbins

    4. Discipline to work until goals are achieved

    “Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage… Genuine success requires both courage and character — patience, discipline and rationality.”

    Claude Bristol

    Duckworth and colleagues (2010) have also researched self-discipline and show that you need to sustain this for long-term commitment and implementation. Without this self-discipline, adolescents struggle to set long-term goals and strive towards them.

    Fortunately, it can be improved using two strategies:

    1. Mental contrasting — elaborate upon a future that you desire with the relevant obstacles that you currently face.
    2. Implementation intentions — identify the action you will take when an opportunity arises that is relevant to your goal.

    Compared to a control writing exercise, eleventh-grade students who spent 30-minutes writing on the above two strategies completed over 60% more practice questions in preparation for a high-stakes exam. Because of the writing exercises, they had a higher level of self-discipline in pursuing a meaningful goal (Duckworth et al., 2010). Over time, self-discipline can result in higher knowledge, deeper understanding, and better results and grades.

    “The first step on the road to success is good character. The second is openness to new perspectives. The third is ensuring that daily action is shaped by higher aims, with the knowledge that you always reap what you sow.” 

    Stephen Covey

    5. An integrated mind utilising both logic and intuition

    In his excellent book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman talks about our two systems of interpreting the world.

    The first one, appropriately named ‘system one,’ is perceived quickly, instinctual, and generally our emotional reaction or intuition. ‘System two’ takes more effort and time to access but is also more rational and logical.

    As Kahneman shows in his research, people typically use heuristics when making decisions or judgments. Heuristics are generally adequate but not optimal solutions to severe problems. Heuristics use our first system and help us conserve brainpower, but they are only accurate about 80% of the time.

    Successful people can utilise both system one and system two. System one is excellent if the decision has minimal long-term consequences, such as what to have for dinner. If the decision has potentially significant implications, however, such as whether or not to buy a house or change jobs, the more energy depleting and accurate system two will be better, even if it takes more time to come up with the correct answer for you.

    “Stroll through the open spaces of time to the center of opportunity. Wise hesitation ripens success and brings secrets to maturity. The crutch of time can do more than the steely club of Hercules.. Fortune gives large rewards to those who wait.”

    Baltasar Gracian

    6. Prolific reading

    Reading fiction is great for developing empathy towards others. It provides an opportunity to see inside the characters heads and experience their inner world in a way that you often don’t get in movies or TV shows. It helps develop imagination, as the brain creates the visual images that it reads in words on the page. Thirty minutes of reading can significantly reduce stress, as indicated by lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure and lowered heart rate (Rizzolo, Zipp, Stiskal & Simpkins, 2009).

    I love reading non-fiction because I can learn from experts in psychology and related fields for such a low cost. If I were to see them give a talk or book a one-on-one consult, I might be paying up to $1000, and it would only be scratching the surface of all of the fantastic knowledge that they have accumulated in their lives. That is if I could even get a chance to see them. A book in comparison is $30 or less and contains the majority of their pearls of wisdom in one place. Sure, some books can take a while to get through. However, the value for money and knowledge gained is worth it.

    “The movers and the shakers of the world are often professional modellers — people who have mastered the art of learning everything they can by following other people’s experiences rather than their own.” 

    Anthony Robbins

    7. The willingness to take risks

    There is a big difference between constantly engaging in risky behaviour and being willing to take risks when it is a sound decision to make. Someone like Sir Richard Branson has taken many chances with his Virgin empire, and if it weren’t for these risks, he wouldn’t have been able to expand and grow at the level that he has. For optimal success, you need to take some degree of risk.

    “People that don’t risk anything will inevitably find themselves behind those that do. You can lead a change or it can lead you.”

    J.W. Marriott Jr.

    However, recent research on female and male CEOs supports the notion that too much risk isn’t a good thing either. Faccio, Marchica and Mura (2016) found that firms run by male CEOs tend to make riskier decisions, with generally higher leverage and more volatile earnings than firms run by female CEOs. They are also less likely to remain in operation than firms run by female CEOs (Faccio et al., 2016). More significant risks may lead to higher growth but also a higher risk of overall collapse.

    8. Understanding the power of expectation

    Successful people think big instead of small and believe that they can achieve anything they set their mind to, even if it takes more effort, setbacks and time than they initially envisioned. Furthermore, look out if thinking big combines grit, a growth mindset, and the right timing. There’s no saying how much someone could achieve.

    “When our attitude toward ourselves is big, and our attitude towards others is generous and merciful, we attract big and generous portions of success.” 

    Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone

    Research indicates that individuals who believe they can improve are more likely to grow (Bergsma, 2008). Higher expectations strengthen hope, increase determination and goal completion (Geraghty, Wood, & Hyland, 2010). Higher expectations of the outcome can also improve distress tolerance (Williams, Thompson, & Andrews, 2013).

    9. Developing mastery in what is most important to them

    “The world does not dictate what you shall do, but it does require that you be a master in whatever you undertake.” 

    Orison Swett Marden

    While it may be tempting to try to learn as many different things as possible, the saying “jack of all trades; master of none” often becomes the consequence for people that try to take on too many different projects or career paths all at once.

    Warren Buffett once said to his pilot that he should write down the top 25 things he wanted to do in life. Then circle his top 5 priorities and label items 6–25 as “avoid at all costs” until you complete items 1–5.

    Reaching mastery can take a long time. In many cases, up to 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, as proposed by Malcolm Gladwell and Anders Ericsson. Ten thousand hours equates to nearly 7 hours a day of deliberate practice, every day, for four straight years. So it makes sense not to spread yourself too thin unless you want to develop mastery in nothing.

    “I believe the true road to pre-eminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one’s resources.” 

    Andrew Carnegie

    10. Well-roundedness and balance

    Developing proficiency and accumulating achievements in one area of your life may not mean much if you are not a success as a person.

    “No kind action is ever lost. You will be indebted to these trifles for some of the happiest attentions and the most pleasing incidents of (your) life.” 

    Andrew Carnegie

    After watching ‘The Founder’ movie based on the life of Ray Kroc, I was appalled by how willing he was to trample on anyone in his way throughout his pursuit of wealth and power without a second thought. He ignored his first wife, poached the wife of another business associate, didn’t keep his word, and screwed the initial founders of McDonald’s for millions of dollars annually.

    Ray Kroc was also a workaholic, with his famous catchphrase “if you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean” still repeated throughout McDonald’s franchises worldwide.

    “Without time for recovery, our lives become a blur of doing unbalanced by much opportunity for being.” 

    Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz

    Suppose you dedicate no time to personal growth, spiritual growth, health, relaxation, leisure, relationships and community. Then, it would become tough to have the well-being, vitality, meaning and support required to achieve ongoing success.

    My two cents

    Remember, relationship warmth is the number one predictor of long-term health and happiness, not how much money you have in the bank or how hard you have worked.

    Focus on building genuine connections and a sense of belonging with others who embrace you for who you are. Don’t let old friendships go by if they give you these things.

    “Various scientific studies have proven that if you learn how to deal with other people, you will have gone about 85% of the way down the road to success in any business, occupation, or profession, and about 99% of the way down the road to personal happiness.” 

    Les Giblin

    Try to be kind, compassionate, patient and accepting to others, but also yourself. No one is perfect, and we all fall into the same traps time and time again. However, if you can learn from these mistakes, you will improve and grow.

    Lastly, try to accumulate positive experiences, not things. Materialism and consumerism are empty pursuits, void of meaning and purpose. Doing fun, new or helpful things alongside the people you love never is.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist