"As a Man Talketh"
When we talk to others, even in casual conversation, we are also talking to ourselves. And what we say influences how we feel and how we view and experience our world.
For example, does a person's language suggest that s/he makes things happen – that they are causal – or that s/he is a hapless victim of circumstance?
I have an old college friend who talks almost exclusively in victim language. He makes statements such as “Next week, I'm going to try to contact those references” and “I should have got my Christmas cards written.” This is the language of struggle and self-blame. Things happen to him instead of him causing things to happen. It is not a language style that includes choice.
He does not use statements like “Today I choose to finish my correspondence” or “I want to call those references,” and only rarely “I am going to finish that job this afternoon.” His talk does not come from his center, but instead suggests outside forces are pushing him, as in “I know I should change my internet provider.” It is no mystery to me that his tasks don't get done.
Professor Martin Seligman has used the term “explanatory style” to denote the way we think about and explain to others why things happen to us. In his book, Learned Optimism (1990) he writes:
“How do you think about the causes of the misfortunes, small and large, that befall you? Some people, the ones who give up easily, habitually say of their misfortunes: ‘It's me, it's going to last forever, it's going to undermine everything I do.' Others, those who resist giving in to misfortune, say: ‘It was just circumstances, it's going away quickly anyway, and, besides, there's much more to life.'” (p. 44) Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist is determined by your explanatory style.
If you talk about bad things happening with always's and never's – what Seligman calls Permanence – you have a pessimistic style. For example, “Diets never work” (permanent) instead of “Diets don't work when you eat out.” (temporary). Conversely, when we explain good events in permanent terms -- such as a raise at work – we'll tend to be optimistic. “I'm good at what I do” is a statement of permanence. “I worked hard to complete the project” is temporary.
A second dimension of explanatory style is Pervasiveness. A circumstance is either universal or specific. When asked why he failed an important examination, George might say “I wasn't as smart as the others” (universal, thus pessimistic) or “I didn't prepare for it well” (specific, and optimistic.) When we explain bad events that happen in universal terms, we make them permanent and our outlook crumbles into pessimism. When we explain bad events in specific terms, we are optimistic and can try again.
People who blame themselves when they fail, when they internalize the cause for failure, tend to have low self-esteem and pessimism as consequences. Rabbi Kushner's best selling book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” suggested that we can be a good and worthy person even if bad things sometimes happen. When we externalize the cause of a troubling event (“They downsized me to cut costs”) instead of internalizing it (“I wasn't good at my job, and I got laid off”) we can retain our self-esteem.
Psychologists have long known that how we think influences how we feel and experience life. Further, how we express our thoughts during conversation seems to be an even more powerful influence on us than our private, internal thoughts. As Martin Seligman points out, one's spoken explanatory style is “more real” and greatly influences whether we see ourselves controlled by outside circumstances or whether the point of control is within us.
Note: If you'd like to check your own style, you can find a short self-test in Learned Optimism (1990), available in many public and college libraries.
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