Most people do not think about how we communicate, they simply communicate the way they have seen others communicate. Unfortunately, this becomes a problem. Many of our communication strategies are poor problem-solving tactics: they fail to achieve the desired end.

Let’s use an example that I recently witnessed.

A Mother and her teenage daughter are close and care about one another. They get along in most cases, but one topic frequently causes arguments: the mother believes the daughter is to fat.

The Mother, who practices medicine, worries about her daughter’s physical health. She knows of the risks that come along with weight gain, lack of exercise, and obesity. She is very concerned and communicates her worries through criticism and shaming.

“How could you let yourself get so fat.” she says.
“You should exercise more.”
“You should eat healthier. Less soda. No more fried foods.”
“You look awful.”

The mother has never really thought about the way she communicates. Instead, she believes that she is doing the responsible thing in telling her daughter her concerns.

Though she is unaware, the mother essentially trying to motivate the daughter using shame, guilt, and penitence to get her to become healthy. Her words establish that the daughter is doing something wrong and should feel bad. The hope is that being in such a negative environment will spur the daughter to want to lose weight, and take action to lose weight and become healthier. This is related to the Negative Reinforcement tactic of Operant Conditioning, though not exactly the same.

The Effect

So what effect do her comments have?

Let’s take the daughter’s perspective: The incentive to lose weight is not new to her.

Her mother is not the only one who shames her for her weight and appearance. Everywhere she looks is a reminder of society’s beauty standards: Magazines in front of the checkout show thin photoshopped models with perfect skin, celebrities on talk shows are asked about the methods they used to lose weight, and even her peers talk about weight loss.

The mother’s attempts fail to create a negative environment because the daughter already lives in one. The mother’s communication strategy adds nothing new to the table besides additional pressure and shame.

The daughter also has a desire to change. She wishes to meet the expectation of her peers, societal standards, or even for her own health and self-image.

We also see that the daughter is not apathetic, but ambivalent: She has a desire adopt a healthy lifestyle, but has been unable to put it into action. These pressured comments are not what the daughter needs to achieve this goal. Yet again, all the mother’s strategy adds is more pressure and shame.

The Pressure

Despite all of the pressure and shame around her, the daughter hasn’t taken action.

From a problem-solving perspective, we would recognize that this means something is missing from the equation. Specifically, something that connects a desire to lose weight with the action to lose weight: This could be time, competing desires, or a lack of skill. But the mother doesn’t have such awareness and continues to use the same strategy, in hopes that an increase of pressure will lead to a different outcome.

“I saw my friend’s daughter the other day. She was so thin, like a model!”
“I read an article the other day talking about the correlation between obesity and a rise of cancer risk.”

The daughter feels this pressure to lose weight from both external and internal sources, but has been unable to implement it into action. There is no release, it simply builds like a pressure cooker. This cycle of increasing pressure and subsequent perceived failure eats away at her self-esteem and self-image. She starts to exhibit signs of depression: she believes she cannot accomplish anything in spite of everything she’s done. Ironically, this depressive state makes the accomplishing of the goal even more difficult.

Despite the mother’s good intentions: wanting her daughter to become healthy and safe, her communication strategy simply created a negative environment.

But, what if it works?

Negative reinforcement is not recommended, because even if it accomplishes the goal, it creates negative consequences.

Let’s assume the Gambit succeeds: The daughter is so affected by the negativity, and she manages to put her desires into action and lose weight. Suddenly, the negative pressure is removed from her (see operant conditioning). Things seem good for a while, she gets compliments and praise for losing weight.

But what this has also done is tie her position in society and self-esteem to a conditional status. She must meet the expectations of others to receive respect from them and herself.

This creates a psychological dependency. She begins acting out of fear of losing her position, rather than a desire to meet her needs. Eventually, people like this explode. They either internalize it and become dead men walking, or they externalize it and inflict their pain on others.

What is the alternative?

At the start, I would recommend a more empathetic approach to communication.

As we saw in this case, a hostile approach to communication does not achieve our desired goals, and can lead to the ironic situation where it prevents the achievement of the outcome.

Instead, a different strategy needs to be employed. The mother must implement a strategy that would maximize the best chances for her daughter to be able to take action. Rather than being an enemy that creates a pressurized negative environment, the mother should become a support.

We have to ask the question: Is what I’m saying something that makes me feel better? Or is it something that would help my daughter achieve her desired goal?