The August 21 edition of the Wall Street Journal contained an article titled “Why Do We Shout When We Argue? Lack of Confidence.” When I saw the headline, I immediately thought about the hundreds of videos that run through all the news feeds featuring people shouting at school board members. And in the first paragraph, sure enough, the article mentions school board meetings, CRT, and masking. The WSJ reports some reasons for the anger and yelling, and none of them are good.
In an interesting contrast of research findings, the article mentions that the average American is overconfident in their beliefs and underconfident in our ability to convince others. Hence, we resort to slower and louder. Oh, and slower and louder just doesn’t work.
People are an interesting lot. From the WSJ, I learned about a Stanford University study that found the average American considers themselves less biased than the average American. Much like other studies have found, the average American believes themselves to be an above-average driver, with above-average intelligence, athletic ability, and better than average morals; on average, we aren’t exactly humble.
The paradox reported is that we also consider ourselves below average about our “social proficiencies such as our ability to win friends and influence people.” The author asserts that this under-confidence leads us to take the more assertive path when trying to convince others. To generalize, we think we know more than you, and we believe you aren’t going to listen, so we yell.
KASB staff did a book study on Adam Grant’s book “Think Again.” We learned from Grant that asking good questions, showing empathy, listening, and asking others about why their beliefs and opinions might be flawed is the best way to get people to reconsider. Angry yelling, sarcasm, and cynicism are the least effective methods of getting others to listen to your views.
So, if you feel like others aren’t listening, maybe you are just yelling so loud they can’t hear you. And if you always think you are right, on average, you are wrong.
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