Category Archives: Categorization

A Complaint Is An Opening

Anxiety, Categorization, Change, Differences, Emotion, Intimacy, Psychology, Relationships, Sociology, Uncategorized, Work-Life Balance, Worry, , , ,

We all feel great after receiving a compliment. It makes us happy and, while we try to stay humble, we might have the urge to share the compliment with cherished family or friends. Compliments, after all, are affirmations of our worth.

Complaints or criticisms, however, rarely make us feel good about ourselves. When we hear one, often our first reaction is upset. Then we add some defensiveness. And for many of us, it ends there; however, we need to learn to work our way to wonder. Why did the person feel that way? What feedback can I get from this? Wonder, then, is the opening to growth.

I will share a recent example. I was teaching an Introduction to Psychology class on Zoom and was enjoying the interaction that had developed among the students. There was an active dialogue, with students sharing orally or in the chat. We were discussing an article about why boys often lose interest in academics. Then, the complaint. One of the students said, “Well, as a man, I can say that I want you to get to the point. Your stories just don’t hold my interest.”

My reaction: immediate upset. Thoughts included: I work so hard to make the material relevant and useful; that was rude; how does he expect me to respond to that accusation? Defensiveness was next. Thoughts included: I have incredible ratings on MyProfessor.com; I have won two awards for Excellence in Teaching, one a statewide award. Who was he to tell me how to teach?

But then, I encouraged myself to move to wonder. Thoughts included: I wonder what kinds of stories would hold his interest; I wonder how many weeks ago he lost interest; I wonder why he still comes to class; I wonder why he felt comfortable sharing his point of view. That was the opening.

Once I recognized that his comment was an invitation for me to engage in a meaningful conversation, the door to growth opened. I embraced the idea that he felt safe enough to criticize me in real time and I was then able to ask how he thought I could improve. We both grew from the exchange of ideas.

I know I’m not alone in my reaction to complaints or criticisms. They are, at their core, feedback. The problem is that so many of us do not know how to provide meaningful feedback. Compliments are easy feedback. The person simply has to tell us what we did right. A complaint or criticism requires that the person includes a suggestion for improvement; it requires that they tell us what they want/need us to do in the future.

Because most people tell us what they don’t want (the complaint) and forget to include what they do want, we tend to go into fight/flight mode, making our response less effective. The fix, however, is to go into “wonder mode”. When I did that, I was able to elicit the feedback I needed from the student. Wonder mode is much more effective that fight/flight mode. It allows us to think and to solve problems.

So, the next time you get some feedback that causes you to feel upset and defensive, try to add the “I wonder.” Say to your supervisor, “I wonder if you can suggest how I can handle that situation next time.” This is a statement that opens a door to growth. The next time your teacher grades an assignment as needs improvement, ask “I wonder if you could offer some advice about what I need to do to improve this grade going forward.” This is a statement that opens a door to growth. The next time your significant other makes a comment that you interpret as a cause for alarm about the health of your relationship ask, “I wonder if there is something I can do to make things better between us.” This is a statement that opens a door to growth, especially if your partner wonders the same.

A complaint is an opening. So, don’t fear it. Instead wonder about it and embrace the opportunity.

Shifting Categories

Categorization, Change, Differences, Psychology, Relationships, Sociology, Uncategorized

If you recall the movie Bambi, there is that wonderful scene where he is learning words and goes through bird, butterfly, flower…and Flower the Skunk.  It is an excellent example of categorization because it demonstrates how categories allow us to quickly organize our experiences and choose responses based on that categorization.  We respond differently to birds than we do to skunks.  It also demonstrates the flexibility of categorization and how items can shift from one category to another.  A skunk is suddenly a flower and we start to wonder if a skunk can be more than a potential smelly danger.

The importance of categorization is one of my favorite topics in psychology.  I love engaging with my students as we discuss the importance of prototypes (the best example of a category) and how they provide the basis for inclusion and exclusion in a category. 

For example, if you show your child a penguin and say “bird,” you are correct (because penguins are birds); however, your child will not find other birds to add to the category (because penguins don’t fly, for example).  If you show them a Great Dane and say “dog”, they won’t find many dogs to add to the category because a Great Dane is a very unusual dog.  It is better to show them a mutt (a combination of many dogs) as the prototype because it allows them to compare many breeds to the prototype and include them in the category.  It also allows them to correctly exclude ponies from the dog category. 

Categories are also quite flexible; we can shift items within categories and among categories.  For example, take the category of chairs.  There are many different kinds of chairs within the category: kitchen chair, dining room chair, lawn chair, beach chair, office chair, rocking chair, and so on.  Although a chair is something we sit in, we can shift it to other categories. When we use it to climb on, we shift it a stepstool or ladder category.  When we sleep in a chair, we shift it to the category of bed.  When I consider how we do this all day long, paying very little attention to how we shift our thinking and the behaviors allowed by that thinking, it never ceases to amaze me how much babies and children are absorbing about the world as they learn each new word and the ideas those words represent.

While categories are important when teaching babies and children about their world, they also play an important role in how adults shape their thinking.

Let us start with the category of dog – a great example of a category which has shifted over time.  Dogs belong in the category of animal and the subcategory of domesticated animals.  Most domesticated animals sleep outside; years ago a doghouse, a shelter outside for a dog, was a common feature.  If a dog slept inside, it slept in a room alone on the floor, with a towel or blanket as bedding.  Today, though, dogs wear clothes.  Dogs have special bakeries.  There are restaurants that have dog amenities included.  Dogs sleep in bed with their owners.  Dogs have carriages so they don’t have to walk. We put dogs in foster homes. We adopt dogs. Dogs are referred to as family members.  In other words, we have shifted dogs to the human category of family.  This reveals a shift in our thinking and behavior.

Strikingly, we have also shifted some humans to the category of animals over the past several years.  By doing so, it also allows certain behaviors from society to be considered acceptable.  For example, politicians have called some immigrant groups animals; this allows us to put these people in cages and separate them from their young.  We call people who have committed crimes “animals”, allowing us to focus on punishment without considering the need for rehabilitation or treatment of any kind.  It allows us to keep them in cages.  The homeless are often invisible to us while they sleep on the street, in the cold, the heat, the rain, without any shelter.  It is not the shift from dog as animal to dog as family that troubles me.  However, it is important to consider the consequence of shifting a human to the category of animal.

We cannot eliminate categorization, nor can we eliminate the shifting of categories.  In fact, we are doing these shifts hundreds of times a day.  Under certain conditions, a table can shift from the category of something to place our food on to a category of something to sit on.  The assumptions satisfying that movement might include that the table is sturdy enough to support someone’s weight.  Assumptions that would prevent the shift might include the fact that the table would collapse if someone sat on it.  We don’t need to reflect on these category shifts because the consequences of the movement are minimal.  However, when we shift people into different categories, the consequences, as we have seen can be significant.