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Old 02-14-2007, 11:54 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Significant other annoyed that you ignore him/her? Just explain, it's reactance!

<a href="http://www.pressesc.com/01171393773_nagging_wife_ignore/">
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Originally Posted by PressEsc.com
</a>Why do men ignore nagging wives? It's all science
Submitted by Vidura Panditaratne on Tue, 2007-02-13 19:11

A psychologist has found the answer to the age old question many women have about there husbands: " Why does her husband often seemed to ignore her requests for help around the house?"

New research findings now appearing online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology show that that people do not necessarily oppose others' wishes intentionally, but even the slightest nonconscious exposure to the name of a significant person in their life is enough cause them to rebel against that person's wishes.

"My husband, while very charming in many ways, has an annoying tendency of doing exactly the opposite of what I would like him to do in many situations," said Tanya L. Chartrand, an associate professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

When Chartrand envisioned a formal academic study of people's resistance to the wishes of their partners, parents or bosses, her husband, Gavan Fitzsimons, became not only her inspiration, but also her collaborator.

Fitzsimons is a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke who, like Chartrand, is an expert in the field of consumer psychology.

Working with Duke Ph.D. student Amy Dalton, Chartrand and Fitzsimons have demonstrated that some people will act in ways that are not to their own benefit simply because they wish to avoid doing what other people want them to.

Psychologists call this reactance: a person's tendency to resist social influences that they perceive as threats to their autonomy.

"Psychologists have known for some time that reactance can cause a person to work in opposition to another person's desires," Chartrand said. "We wanted to know whether reactance could occur even when exposure to a significant other, and their associated wishes for us, takes place at a nonconscious level."

The researchers undertook a set of experiments to determine whether reactance might occur unintentionally, completely outside of the reactant individual's conscious awareness.

In the first experiment, participants were asked to name a significant person in their lives whom they perceived to be controlling and who wanted them to work hard, and another significant and controlling person who wanted them to have fun. Participants then performed a computer-based activity during which the name of one or the other of these people was repeatedly, but subliminally, flashed on the screen. The name appeared too quickly for the participants to consciously realize they had seen it, but just long enough for the significant other to be activated in their nonconscious minds. The participants were then given a series of anagrams to solve, creating words from jumbled letters.

People who were exposed to the name of a person who wanted them to work hard performed significantly worse on the anagram task than did participants who were exposed to the name of a person who wanted them to have fun.

"Our participants were not even aware that they had been exposed to someone else's name, yet that nonconscious exposure was enough to cause them to act in defiance of what their significant other would want them to do," Fitzsimons said.

A second experiment used a similar approach and added an assessment of each participant's level of reactance. People who were more reactant responded more strongly to the subliminal cues and showed greater variation in their performance than people who were less reactant.

"The main finding of this research is that people with a tendency toward reactance may nonconsciously and quite unintentionally act in a counterproductive manner simply because they are trying to resist someone else's encroachment on their freedom," Chartrand said.

The researchers suggest that people who tend to experience reactance when their freedoms are threatened should try to be aware of situations and people who draw out their reactant tendencies. That way, they can be more mindful of their behaviors and avoid situations where they might adopt detrimental behaviors out of a sense of rebellion.

Not surprisingly perhaps, Chartrand and Fitzsimons, as wife and husband, also take home some slightly differing messages from their experiments.

Chartrand believes her husband "should now be better equipped to suppress his reactant tendencies." Fitzsimons, however, believes the results "suggest that reactance to significant others is so automatic that I can't possibly be expected to control it if I don't even know it's happening."
Has anyone recognized such a tendency within themselves? Is reactance something you deal with on a regular basis with your significant other, boss, or family?

I don't know if it really falls under the description of reactance in this particular study, but I do find that my willingness to do something - even if I know it's a good thing to do - depends on how someone asks me to do it. The less polite someone is when asking me to do something, or the less acknowledging they are of the fact it may not be something I'm entirely eager to do, the less likely I am to be willing to do it. I think some of Dale Carnegie's advice is particular relevant here: "Talk in terms of the other person's interests."

What are you own experiences? Do you feel as though you're more often the victim of reactance or someone who responds with it? Think about specific relationships, such as with a SO or boss, since I suspect it's pretty even if you look across all your relationships.
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Last edited by SecretMethod70; 02-14-2007 at 02:26 PM..
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Old 02-14-2007, 02:12 PM   #2 (permalink)
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I actively practice reactance because humans are trainable and I like people that interact with me to be respectful and not naggers. It's amazing how people treat each other to me sometimes. I simply refuse to be treated in a disrespectful manner, and if someone wishes to interact with me, they have to show respect because I will just ignore them otherwise.

When I was younger I would actively refuse requests much as the article states about people trying to retain their autonomy - even when the request was something I wanted to do or was already doing. Now I am much more relaxed about that. Call it immature, but I generally let them know that I was in the process of doing it so they know I'm not doing whatever simply because I was told to. Sometimes it is still hard for me to do things I want to do / should do if someone has told me to do them, though.

The article made me think of something else I would pose as a question to everyone else: Does nagging work? I mean, if it didn't work, people wouldn't do it, right? Perhaps it works on some and not others.
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Old 02-14-2007, 02:32 PM   #3 (permalink)
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It is interesting. Yet another tally in favor of pacifism.
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