Be a Martyr?

The Unseen, Part 2

A Taxonomy of Bores by Joseph Epstein

On Feedback

Microsignals: Subtle ways we show that we like or don't like someone

A Mock First-Date Conversation (Example 1)

Getting Respected: The HUVA technique can help

Many people wish they got more respect. One tactic that can help is HUVA, developed by Dr. Mark Goulston.  I describe it in my Psychology Today article today.

The 20-40 Rule: The case for talking less than your share.

The 20-40 Rule: Speak a little less than your share. My PsychologyToday.com article today makes the case for why that's wise.

Real Acting: Tips for acting on- and especially off-stage

We tend to think of acting as something done on stage, in the movies, or on TV.
But we’re all acting, all the time: at work, in relationships.

Off-stage acting is viewed as unseemly, phony but, framed more accurately, it’s the appropriate adapting to your counterpart's needs, the opposite of the narcissism so often written about these days.

Of course, acting can be used for nefarious as well as benevolent purposes but that’s true of most tools--from intelligence to a pocket knife. That doesn’t obviate the value of learning how to be a better actor. To that end, as my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer tips for how to act without being discovered as acting

A Kinder, Gentler Approach to Kim Jong Un

Today, C-SPAN broadcast the United Nations’ unanimous Security Council vote to increase sanctions against North Korea and its nuclear-threatening Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. Speech after speech seem psychologically oblivious, merely returning threats of might with threats of greater might.

Of course, it’s possible that the sanctions will work. Some people understand nothing but pain and the threat of more pain. And it’s possible that Kim Jung Un is simply "crazy:” a psychopathic, megalomanical, sociopathic monster, as is often claimed.

But on the possibility that Kim Jong Un is not crazy but just a human being who for, some psychological and practical reasons, has felt backed into a corner and thus feels he must threaten and alienate the world with nuclear threats, assassinations, and human rights violations, even at the cost of great pain to his people, I thought it might be instructive to you if not to him to write a letter to him.

I can't imagine he'd actually read it, so its primary purpose is to offer my readers an approach to dealing with a hated person and to conflict in general that is more consonant with Psychology Today's and its reader's humanistic sensibilities. Perhaps the tactics I use in the letter may be useful as you address conflicts in your life. In that letter, which I post on PsychologyToday.com, I embed those tactics in parentheses and italics.

Ways of BeingTactful...and When Not to Use Them

As today's PsychologyToday.com contribution, I list times when it's wise to be direct but opine that various degrees of sugar-coating are more often wise. I list a number of such tactics.

Toward Constructive Conversation with The Other Side

In the abstract, everyone asserts belief in constructive dialogue, in the free marketplace of ideas. But the nation has become very polarized. We are doing a poor job of talking with people across the aisle.

Our best chance at societal improvement may be through respectful dialogue with people who hold views different from our own. In the aftermath of the Trump election, I’ve written two articles in an attempt to encourage that:

Communication Lessons from the Trump Win: and Ten Questions in the Time of Trump.

In the final article in this PsychologyToday.com series, I offer an activity designed to get people to better understand perspectives other than their own on four contentious issues: climate change, affirmative action, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and illegal immigration.

Communication Lessons from the Trump Win

No matter how you feel about the outcome of the presidential election, it certainly can’t hurt to try to derive lessons from it, including those we can apply to our own lives. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer communication lessons I have derived.

The Power of Silence

In conversation, we underestimate the power of silence. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer examples, both in one's work and personal life.

Changing Someone's Mind

The American Psychological Association ranked Leon Festinger the 5th most influential psychologist of the 20th century. 

I was taken by his quote, "A person with conviction is a hard person to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show her facts or figures and she questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."

Changing anyone is difficult but there are mitigators. I list five in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

My Favorite New Thoughts

Every time I get what I believe is a fresh thought on my PsychologyToday.com's blog's theme--How to Do Life--I archive it as a Twitter tweet. I have posted 3,400 tweets.

There, I’ve posted a few sets of my favorites: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Today, I offer 25 of my latest on communication, education, genes, values, feelings, and pleasure.

A Fight Between Business Partners...and Lessons Learned

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a contentious dialogue between two business partners that offers lessons on business and on communication.

Three Keys to Effective Conversation

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers three potent, easy-to-explain, harder-to-implement conversation rules.

In Praise of the One-Second Pause

Waiting one full second after someone finishes talking yields remarkable benefit to the speaker and to you. I flesh it out in my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

So You Met Someone You Might Want to Date. Now What?

In a recent PsychologyToday.com article, I described how I helped a client develop a plan for meeting Mr. Right.

A reader asked, “So you’ve met him. Now what?”

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers some ideas on what to do when you've met someone you might want to date.

HERE is the link.