Something You Should Know - How to Spot Bullsh*t When You Hear It & How to Diffuse and Resolve Any Conflict

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

What’s the difference between an antique, a collectible and a vintage item? This episode begins with a brief and helpful explanation. https://www.antique-hq.com/the-difference-between-antique-vintage-and-collectible-item-127/ Since we don’t swear on this podcast, we won’t use the word that BS stands for - but we all know what it is. As you are aware, a lot of people fling BS around to try to make themselves look good or try to sell you something. So, how do you tell what is true, what is a lie and what is BS? Listen to John Petrocelli a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University and author of a book called The Life Saving Science of Detecting BullSh*t (https://amzn.to/3vNOyfl). John spends a lot of time researching and talking about BS and once you hear what he has to say, you will be a much better BS detector.  While we all know friendship is important, people have fewer friends today than in previous generations and many of us live more isolated lives than ever before. According to one psychologist, what we need are friends who have “refrigerator rights.” Listen and find what that means and why it is important. Source: Dr. Will Miller author of Refrigerator Rights (https://amzn.to/3Ch0jxh). It sure seems people are more willing to argue, disagree and get upset with each other today than in the past. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all just get along? Perhaps we can. Or at least we could move in that direction, according to Bill Eddy who is an attorney and mediator and author of the book Calming Upset People With EAR (https://amzn.to/3Ch58qm.) Bill is kind of a real-life Ted Lasso, if you watch that TV show. He doesn’t get upset, people don’t really rattle him or make him upset, he just works toward resolving the problem and getting on with life. I think you will enjoy what he has to say.  PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.  You can grow thicker, healthier hair AND get $15 off at https://nutrafol.com Promo code: SOMETHING Make sure to follow and listen to Uncommon Ground on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. https://amazonprime.box.com/s/eug5mfyvdarwke0getizsup4iqqvhfm2 Omaha Steaks is the best! Get awesome pricing at https://OmahaSteaks.com/BMT Listen to Build For Tomorrow with Jason Feifer, our favorite new podcast, right here! https://apple.co/3rPM8La or visit https://www.jasonfeifer.com/build-for-tomorrow/ T-Mobile for Business the leader in 5G, #1 in customer satisfaction, and a partner who includes benefits like 5G in every plan. Visit https://T-Mobile.com/business Discover matches all the cash back you earn on your credit card at the end of your first year automatically and is accepted at 99% of places in the U.S. that take credit cards! Learn more at https://discover.com/yes JUSTWORKS makes it easier for you to start, run and grow a business. Find out how by going to https://justworks.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, what's the difference between a collectible, an antique, and something that is vintage? Then, how do you detect and defend yourself from people who fling BS at you? We know this, that clarification is a major antidote to BS. you detect and defend yourself from people who fling BS at you.

We know this, that clarification is a major antidote to BS. So you'll already be exposing yourself to less BS by just acting maybe a bit dumb, a little bit confused, and say, well, I hear you saying X. Is what you are saying X? Also, a test to determine how many true close friends you really have. And a simple technique that will diffuse almost any argument and it always works better than getting angry. Angry emotions are contagious. Your positive emotions are also contagious. And so the other person feels that coming at them and that automatically influences them to be calm. All this today on

Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Something you Should Know. Maybe it's because of eBay and people selling their old stuff, but you hear a lot of times people talk about antiques or collectibles or vintage. What do those terms mean? Well, what constitutes an antique has been

debated for some time now. Some say that an antique is an object of considerable age that is valued for its aesthetic or historical significance. In the antique trade, the term refers to objects that are more than 100 years old. Some dealers are attempting to lower the standard of an antique, believing that an item over 50 years old should be considered an antique. But traditional antique dealers say the 50-year definition lowers the standard to a point that dealers can sell collectibles and call them an antique, which takes us to collectibles. A collectible, that's a term that describes valuable objects less than

100 years old, often distinguished from antiques, which are over 100 years old. Then we have the word vintage, which originally applied to the age of a bottle of wine. The term was hijacked and is now used to describe an item that has cycled back into fashion or is less than 25 years old. However, it should be known that the label antique or vintage or collectible or retro, none of that really has any effect on the value of the item. The value of an item is determined more by whether there is demand for it. There are very rare antiques which are sold for much less than a newer collectible

because there's no demand for the rare antique and a high demand for the collectible. And that is something you should know. We don't swear or use profanity on this podcast, mostly because it's just not necessary. Also, that way we don't have to put that little explicit E in our description. But the fact that we have that policy here at Something You Should Know requires a preface to this next segment,

because my first guest today is here to discuss BS. And the word that BS stands for is in the title of a book he wrote. We're going to talk about BS, but we're not going to say the word. It is an important topic, though, because, as you likely well know, the world and the people in it are often full of BS. We've all likely flung some of it around ourselves. And BS can get us in trouble and lead us astray in life, according to John Petruccelli, he is a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, and his research examines the causes and consequences of BS. He's author of a book called The Life-Saving Science of Detecting BS. Hi, John, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. So I guess we need to define what BS is. What is it exactly and what isn't it exactly? Absolutely. BS, as I've defined it, is consistent with Harry Frankfurt's definition. He's the philosopher that first defined BS in this way. And he defined it as a communicative substance that results from communicating something with little to no regard or concern for truth, particular domain, or it may be useful to impress others, to fit in, to influence, or to persuade others, such as when one is trying to confuse or hide simply the fact that one does not know what they're talking about. And so this is very different, actually, from lying. It may sound like lying, but it's different in the sense that the liar is often concerned about the truth so far as to be successful in detracting us from the truth.

But the BSer really doesn't care. So what the BSer says in many cases may actually be correct. It may actually be true what they're saying, but even they would not know that because they're not paying any attention to truth, established knowledge or evidence. So if somebody's trying to sell you something, somebody's trying to sell you a car and they say, you know, knowing full well that this car does not get 40 miles to the gallon, but I'm going to say that anyway, because it sounds good. That's not BS. That's a lie. Exactly. That's right. Because they, in that case, they know the truth, but they're telling you something that they know not to be true. And then also the liar, it's important to know that the liar doesn't actually believe what it is that they're saying. Right. But but the BS or oftentimes does believe what it is they're saying. It's not it's not necessary that they believe.

But in a lot of cases, what you find is BSers actually do believe what it is that they're spewing. Don't you suppose we all BS once in a while? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That's by definition, it is such an easy behavior to engage in. So it's, I mean, it's almost like breathing because the opposite of BSing is evidence-based reasoning and evidence-based communication. And that takes time and effort. And in most cases, people are not willing to put forth that time and effort to have a well-informed opinion about everything. And this is one of the reasons why BS is so pervasive and ubiquitous in society, because people often feel as though that they need to have

an opinion or they're obligated to have an opinion about everything. And it's just, it's impossible to have an informed opinion about everything. And so people, people often say, you often hear the expression, you know, that they have a BS detector that they can spot it a mile away. I can tell when this guy's giving me the business here. And are some people really good at detecting it or not? Well, Mike, you are hitting on an issue of great interest and concern to us. What our data suggests right now is that people have opinions about their abilities to do just that, to detect BS. But the early data suggests that the most overconfident or the people who feel that they are most competent in detecting BS, oftentimes they are the least likely to successfully detect BS. So the big problem is that almost everyone

feels as though they're not susceptible to the unwanted effects of BS because they can detect it and it's really harmless to begin with. And people cannot be more wrong in that. And we do know that there's sort of a continuum of harm. Well, people may vary in terms of their ability to detect it. And I imagine that also is dependent on how good the BSer doing the BSing is, that some people are easier to detect than others. Yeah. What we find though, in our research is there's actually more variance in the former. So there is more variance in the likelihood of asking critical thinking questions when you can communicate directly with the potential BSer. So, so if you don't ask questions, if you don't ask your, you know, who, how, you know, what agenda do they have? What are they trying to sell me? Kinds of questions.

You will oftentimes be exposed to BS and it may have a longer lasting effect than you actually realize. So there's more variation in that than there is this charismatic kind of stereotypical vision of the BS artist that we usually think of. Those are pretty rare, but the real reason why people fail at detecting BS is that they fail to engage in evidence-based reasoning, basic critical thinking skills, and a healthy attitude of skepticism. It also seems that part of the reason BSers get away with it, it seems like we have kind of a predisposition to want to believe people. So in the absence of evidence that it is BS, we tend to believe what people tell us. Why would they tell us otherwise? Absolutely, yes. I've argued that perhaps the most potent form of BS is that coming from

our interpersonal relationships. Our family, our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors, people who we actually trust and care about, they can have a bigger impact on what it is that we believe, which is the foundation of decision-making, is what we believe to be true. And so since you study this, I mean, it's interesting to hear you use the phrase, the data on BS, because who would think that you would actually study this, but you study it. So why? And what have you found in studying it? And what are you trying to find in studying? The very first studies that we conducted in my research lab were designed to better understand the conditions and the context under which people may generate BS. And that was all geared to improving our BS detectors, because if we know when we're likely to be BSed, we can be more on guard and more likely to kind of kick in the basic critical

thinking skills that need to occur in order to detect it. So what we find is that there are really, there's really only one specific instance in which people do not typically generate BS is that it would be rather difficult to get away with BS. For example, I personally, I'm not going to BS an auto mechanic. I just don't know enough about cars and engines and parts. Auto mechanic is going to know right away that I don't know what I'm talking about. So if it would be rather difficult to get away with, and I don't feel obligated to share an opinion anyway. Why should I make myself look like a fool in talking about things that I don't know, really know anything about?

But in all other conditions, all other combinations, if you have like, if it's easy to get away with, or if you feel obligated to share your opinion, or if both are in place, you feel obligated and you think it's going to be easy and it's going to be acceptable, you're going to get a social passive acceptance for your BS, then people will let it fly. So in many cases, the BS detector needs to be at full throttle. You know, they say in the advertising business that you have to expose people to a message multiple times in order to get them to believe it and to take action. That also seems to be true with BS in the sense that, you know, if you hear something often enough, if people keep repeating the same BS often enough, it sort of moves over and makes

its way into the truth column and people start to actually believe it. Yes. Well, Mike, we used to think that maybe you need to hear that false statement 20, 40, 50 times before you start to believe that it's true, even when you know better. But my own research lab and the lab of others, Lisa Fazio at Vanderbilt University has also found this, that it only takes one instance of hearing something that is false and to process it to later believe that it is true. And what is typically going on here is that people often confuse something that sounds familiar, it feels mentally, it feels familiar. We confuse that for truth because typically what feels familiar is true. It only takes one instance, especially when you mix it in with other statements that are actually true.

It only takes one time, only one exposure. We're talking about BS with a guy who actually studies BS, John Petruccelli. He is a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, and his book is called The Life-Saving Science of Detecting BS. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest.

Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,

looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars.

Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts so john have you done any research where you're a fly on the wall and you're just kind of trying to figure out what percentage of conversations is just total bs okay yeah i get this question a lot well from from my experiments about 40%, the answer is about 40% of what people are typically willing to admit. I do think it's greater than that, but that's a huge chunk that people are readily willing to admit. It's not the same amount that

they are willing to admit for lying. Most people will say, well, I lie a little bit, but rarely do people say, oh yes, I lie 40% of the time. So 40% is a huge chunk. Well, but much of conversation isn't evidence-based. It's, you know, how are you and how's Bobby? Oh, Bobby's sick. I think he has the flu. Well, okay, so that's BS because you don't know if Bobby has the flu.

Is that what you're talking about? Well, no, no, no. So if you are qualifying the assertion or the claim in some way to say, well, I'm speculating, or I don't know for sure, or I heard, but I haven't actually talked with Bobby, you know, you are expressing, you're giving the cues that, okay, I do actually have some interest and motivation in communicating truth, genuine evidence, or established knowledge. You had mentioned the situation where you're not going to try to BS a car mechanic because you don't have the knowledge that he has. But because he has the knowledge that you don't have, he could very easily BS you. And so how do you prevent that if possible? Or at least how do

you detect it? Yes. The very, very best way, I'll just get to the skinny on this, and that is to ask questions. That is the number one reason that people fail to detect BS is they fail to ask questions. The very first question that you should ask when you suspect or you're in a situation where you might be exposed to BS or even lies for that matter is to ask what. What exactly is the claim or the assertion? If you ask for clarification by asking what, most often BSers will start to clean up the assertion a bit. They'll take a couple of backpedaled steps. We know this, that clarification is a major antidote to BS. to less BS in most cases by just acting maybe a bit dumb, a little bit confused and say, well, I hear you saying X. Is what you are saying X or are you saying, you know, what does this look like?

And then the second question we should ask is how, how is it that you know that X is true? And then if you can get through how, because most often people do not give you much evidence, which you will get more evidence if there is readily available evidence that they're aware of, you'll get more evidence than explanation if you ask how. But if you get through that and you can ask then, well, have you considered why?

I hear you saying X, have you considered Y? Have you worked that out? And all three of these questions, what they're designed to do is they are designed to diagnose the potential BSers, you know, interest in truth, genuine evidence, and established knowledge. And then when And then if they can answer those questions, then you can make a more well-informed decision as to whether or not you're buying the claim or the assertion that they're making. It does seem that we can BS ourselves. We'll say things out loud to other people, but really we're just saying them out loud to kind of test the waters and see how it flies.

And in a, in a way we're, we're kind of BSing ourselves. And then if other people buy it, then maybe we'll buy it. Yeah. And in addition to interpersonal BS, probably the most potent BS or to have an effect on our own opinions and

attitudes about issues of the world and things that we think about ourselves is ourselves. So when we are not asking our own selves to what extent is this claim or this assertion built on evidence or established knowledge, it's very easy to BS oneself. So absolutely, Mike, I mean, it has, you know, looking in the mirror, you'll see probably the most frequent BSer that you're ever going to meet. Well, it also seems, and you alluded to it earlier, that we're more likely to fall for a BS that confirms what we believe, even if it may not be true. I mean, you watch cable news, depending on your politics, whatever flavor of cable news you like, somebody will tell you something and there's your evidence. The guy just said that. So boom,

I was right. Exactly. Yeah. And what we do know from our studies in the lab too, is that if I give you a statement, we've done two studies where one was, we just gave you what we call pseudo profound statements that are really nonsense statements that don't really have any meaning, but they kind of sound profound. They have profound sounding words in them. Like what? And so if we say like hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty. Right. And if you happen to have conservative values or political orientation and in that statement is coming from Newt Gingrich or Paul Ryan, as opposed to Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, that's regarded as pretty good stuff. But if the speaker's own political orientation misaligns with your own, people are then likely to ask, well, what evidence is there for that? This sounds like BS. So again, if the political orientation or the general attitudes that the speaker has align with our own, it's very difficult to detect BS. And even if we do detect it, we're less likely to say it. We've done another study where we looked at, well, let's take a look at meaningful statements that actually do make sense. Let's look at statements about innovation.

And they were sort of heady, sort of ambiguous statements about the future of innovation and business and technology and science. And again, we found the same thing, that if the speaker's political orientation aligned with your own, no matter what it was that they said, that was good stuff. But if it misaligned with your own orientation, it was trash, right? It didn't make any sense, and it was judged as less profound. Generally speaking, if you've studied this, if you're talking with someone, all things being equal, you have no reason to believe that you're being BS'd here, but something tells you all of a sudden, little alarm goes off that this is BS. What this guy's saying is BS. Is that reliable? Well, I would say to the extent you're talking about the conclusion that it is BS, is that reliable? Yeah. If you're not expecting BS, but all of a

sudden you're starting to sense what you think it is BS, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, is it likely the duck? Yeah. And I have sort of a mixed opinion about this. And that is that, I mean, it certainly is, it's good to have an open mind, but at the same time, you don't want to be so open-minded that your brain falls out, right? So I would say that to the extent that you have asked follow-up questions and as many follow-up questions as you can, then you can start to uncover any inconsistencies if they exist. But if you ask follow-up questions and you are now, you're still convinced that, all right, this doesn't make sense and this isn't very well thought out, it's not tied very well to truth, genuine evidence, or established knowledge, then

I think the judgment that it's BS and the treatment of it, of the information as false until otherwise proven, otherwise, you know, is a safe bet to take. I guess what I meant was more before you start to ask the questions, that your detector goes off and you think, now I need to ask some questions because this sounds like BS. Because you're not going to ask those kinds of questions for everything someone says. The conversation will never get anywhere. So it was more about just kind of detecting it without asking questions, and maybe then you do start to ask questions. Yeah, and that's not something that the research currently answers. My guess is that people feel that they're better at doing that than they actually are, but we don't have any data that directly speak to

how accurate people actually are yet. Well, that's interesting because I think my BS detector is pretty good that I can spot it when I hear it. But what you're saying is probably not as good as I think. Again, especially with BS, sometimes the information is true and we are much, much more likely to count the hits in our BS detection. We can say, oh yeah, I remember I called it out, right? We remember the hits, but we're not only unaware of a lot of the misses, but we're not as likely to count them, right? So there's probably many, many more instances in which we have fallen for BS and just never knew it, and that's why it was never counted. So the scoreboard too would be a very difficult kind of thing to track. You know, I wonder why it's bull excrement.

Well, some people say horse, but what is it about bull excrement that makes it so appropriate? Yeah, we really don't know. Yeah, why did they pick that animal? Who knows? You know, why not lizard-esque or rat-esque, you know? Well, that's probably not part of your research. But the part of your research that we've been talking about is pretty interesting.

John Petruccelli has been my guest. He's a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, and the name of his book is The Lifesaving Science of Detecting BS. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, John. Thanks for being here. All right, Michael. Well, thank you very much. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. Thank you very much. hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong?

And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all

things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. I don't know if you share this opinion with me, but it certainly seems to me that people today are quick to disagree and argue. We have become very contentious. Not only do people disagree, they get mad about it and they argue and fight rather than try to resolve the disagreement, much more so than in the past. Yet, when you stop and think about it, resolving a disagreement is far better than fighting about it. So I want you to listen to Bill Eddy. He is a mediator who has been helping people resolve conflicts for a long time.

And I swear, I don't think you could rile him up or get him mad no matter how hard you try. He's written a book called Calming Upset People with EAR. EAR being an acronym for Empathy, Attention, and Respect. Hi Bill, so give me the quick overview of this EAR technique, the Empathy, Attention, and Respect. What is it? Yeah, it's a technique that I developed about 15 years ago working with clients as a lawyer and as a mediator. And what I found was often people, of course, are upset and dealing with conflict and all of that. And giving them an ear statement, something that shows empathy or attention or respect, seemed to calm people down. So I've been teaching professionals this for 15 years, but now

with kind of the negative times we're in and polarization and all that, I thought it's time to teach everybody. And the result of it is it does what exactly? What it does is it calms down people's emotions. So let's say they're angry at you, they're pointing a finger at you saying it's all your fault. And instead of arguing back saying, no, it's not all my fault, it's all your fault, is instead to say, wow, I can see you're worried about how this is going to turn out. Or I know you've been having a hard day. or I respect the work that you've been doing, or I'll pay attention. Tell me more. I want to understand. And the effect is that people, 90% of the time, people really do calm down and then you can solve problems instead of just having

an argument. Which probably works a lot better than telling people, calm down. Right. Telling people calm down really bothers them. Don't tell me to calm down. You calm down. So it has the opposite effect. But being calm and making a calm ear statement does help people calm down probably 90% of the time. So teach me how to do it.

So let's say someone's saying, you know, behind on a project that you're working with and suddenly they say, Mike, it's all your fault. So what you would do is tell yourself, it's not about me. I don't have to get all that excited about this. It's just someone that needs in your statement. So you can calm yourself down and then you go, well, let me think, am I going to give them empathy or attention or respect? So let's say you're going to give them empathy and you say, well, Joe, or whoever it is, I can see you're worried about us getting this done on time. Let's look at what we can do. So it's just a sentence. I see that you're worried because underneath anger is usually

another emotion like being worried, afraid, hurt, frustrated. And that's a big one. I always have that ready. People say something and I say, wow, I can see you're frustrated. Let's look at what we can do. So that way you calm yourself and then you give your ear statement. Could just be empathy. Could be time, attention. You might say, wow, Joe, you know, tell me what's happening. This really seems to be stressing you.

Or respect. Joe, I really appreciate the work you've been doing on this. I think we're going to be able to get it done and it's going to be a good result. So how do you decide which of those three types of statements to give or it doesn't matter? It doesn't really matter. They all seem to work. So whichever one is the easiest. You wonder why we don't do this naturally since, you know, when you talk about it in a calm, you know, disinterested way here,

like we're not in the middle of an argument, it makes a lot of sense. It's just that in the moment, it's very hard to do. Yes. And that's why it does take practice. And that's why up to now we've been teaching it to professionals because they kind of have to be the grownup in the room. So they're the ones that need to stay calm even when a client is angry with them. In a way, it's like a parent staying calm while a child's having a temper tantrum. It's something that we're not always used to. But today, we're seeing more upset people, more angry people, seeing more conflict and polarization. And so the automatic response is to get angry back.

So we're really needing to learn this because there's more conflict in our faces today than say, you know, 20 or 50 years ago. So give me an example and a situation of people in a conflict and how this would work. Well, first I'll give you one and I won't give you the exact words, but this was a real consultation case that I had. A woman in her job, her boss left, and her new boss, she was just a year from retirement, and her new boss picked on her, decided to make her the target of blame. And apparently her new boss had a high conflict personality, so she always had to blame somebody for everything. So the person, we call her Lori, says, what do I do? I try to kind of hide from my boss when I come into the office and go quickly to my room. And I said, I want to

suggest you do the opposite. You check in with your boss when you come in in the morning, pop your head in, in her office and say, hi, how's your weekend? Or, hey, that program on Friday was really helpful. I really appreciate that. That's a form of respect. Anyway, so each morning she'd give her an ear statement, one or the other, empathy, attention, or respect. And a month later, she said, guess what, Bill? I'm now her favorite. And she's picking now on somebody else. So I gave him your book. So why does that work? What is going on when you give an ear statement, an empathy, attention, or respect statement to somebody, what happens

to the dynamic between the two people that causes the conflict to subside? Well, what happens is emotions are contagious. And so angry emotions are contagious. Someone's angry with you, your body wants to get angry back and fight or flee. And so what this does is it takes the anger and you override your own angry response. And instead, you put out an ear statement, empathy, attention, and respect. That's a positive emotional response. And the other person, your positive emotions are also contagious.

And so the other person feels that coming at them, and that automatically influences their brain to be calm. And so what you're doing is either person, you have to shift yourself. That's the key. So when you've got anger coming in and your body wants to have anger going out, you override that, which you can do. Tell yourself it's not about me. I'm just going to give an ear statement. And then you give your ear statement that's calm, it's really hard for someone to be angry with a calm person if the person's engaged and seems to have empathy, attention, and respect. A calm person

who's just kind of cold and calm will irritate the other person even more, and that'll escalate them. But this is a positive emotion that really does calm people if you can do it. It takes practice, but it can be done. It often seems, as I think about conflicts I've been in with people, that part of why it gets so contentious is there's this desire to teach somebody a lesson, to get at them, to get them, not to solve the problem, but to teach them a lesson because they're wrong and I'm right. Yes. And that's, you know, part of human nature built into us is the win-lose construct. So we want to win, we don't want to lose. But the idea with ear statements is you turn it into a win-win construct. So you're right, we're all built to defend and protect ourselves. But the smart thing about humans is we can figure out when it's a dangerous situation and when it's not so that we can shift

gears into problem solving. So this is kind of like your gear shift into, you know, the other person's going in reverse and you can shift yourself into going forward and that influences the other person. So you're right. It's, there's an automatic fight response, but you can overrule that. And there's so many times, let's say you're watching TV or a movie and somebody's yelling and you don't get upset about that at all because, you know, it's thinking the same way with someone else who's upset. It's not really about you. It's about them losing control of their own emotions. And you can control yours and calm the other person because your positive emotions are contagious. So as I'm sitting here listening to you talk, I have to ask, do you ever get upset? You seem like the kind of guy that like never gets

upset. How could you say such a thing? Um, I'm generally calm by nature. And I think that's why I was attracted to doing mediation, for example. So two people can be angry in front of me and what's going on in my mind is, let's see, I wonder how this is going to turn out. I wonder where the solution is instead of getting angry. And I've had people, two people in a mediation both turn at me and say, Bill, then what do you recommend we do next instead of defending myself? Because I'm used to people being angry at me, and it's not about me. That's made it easier, I guess, because I'm in business dealing with other people's arguments. So I'm really used to staying calm and not taking it personally. I think people ask me about this sometimes sometimes and I may have been born calm so it's more natural for me but people find that they can learn this and I do get upset sometimes

I mean I was practicing as a family lawyer for 15 years and I'll tell you, I had some difficult situations where I just wanted to wring the neck of the other lawyer because I disagreed so much with some of what they were doing. But it's really it's all about practice, I think. Well, and when you think about it, I mean, what good does it do to, you know, want to wring the neck of the other lawyer or, you know, get upset with the other person. It doesn't help you. It doesn't help them. It doesn't help the problem. It doesn't do anything other than just inflame the situation. And yet somehow it scratches an itch in the moment

that really seems to need scratching. Yeah, or it feels like it does. And that's the thing. And I think, you know, parents of teenagers go through this all the time. Teenagers are just furious. What do you mean I can't go to that party because it's going to be so late or there's no parents there or whatever? And it's the end of the world. And the parents like, yeah, I know, Johnny, I know it's frustrating, but you know, this, I might be saving your life by setting this limit on you. Well, mom, you're just, you know, you're the worst person in the world. I hate your guts. And it's like, yeah, Johnny, I understand you feel that way and you can't talk to me that way though

and we got to work on this and so you really you know it's it's a practice but it's something people do have the skill for but also understanding we're built to defend and get angry and fight back but we're also built to override that depending on the circumstance. Well, what you just said about like a teenager who says, you know, mom, I hate your guts. And you said, well, you know, we really have to work on that. And I can understand some people hearing that and go, no, no, no, no, no. We're not going to work on that. I'm the parent. He's the child. And I'm going to, you know, I can't be too wishy-washy. I can't get pushed around like this.

No, you don't talk to me that way. And you get upset about it. Yeah. Well, it really depends on the particular parent and particular child. So the way we're going to work on this might be I'm going to take your cell phone away for 24 hours. And so it really depends on the situation. But the idea is it helps if the parent has empathy for the child, even while they're setting limits. And I have an example actually in the book like that. It's a father and a daughter, and that can always be

a pretty volatile relationship with a teenage girl and her father. And it's easy to get into that, wait, I'm the boss here and you just have to do what I say. I have to tell you, as a counselor, I've worked with a lot of parents and teenagers, including teenagers that then ran away. So the idea is by giving the teenagers some empathy, attention, and respect and setting limits, it calms the situation and teaches the lesson. And the teenager in many cases is more likely to accept the limit, even though they don't like it. Well, one of the phrases often in parent-child conversations and also at work between a boss and an employee is, because I said so. Yeah, and that really depends on the situation. You may be able to go, oh, okay, fine, or all right, I quit then. Right. So it depends so much on the relationship. But in general, you can set

limits with ear statements. And we're teaching because we teach this to managers and human resource professionals. And with some people in the workplace today, it can be pretty dangerous if you don't find a way to calm them. You know, people that are fired and they leave the office and they come back ready to hurt people. So we have to be, in general, I think as a society, I think we all need to be responsible for calming things more nowadays because things are getting so cranked up emotionally with polarization and COVID and other disputes. We all need to start practicing calming things. And that's why I think this ear statement technique is the kind of thing that anybody can learn and it's simple.

And the more people that do it, the calmer world will have. Well, what would you say if you were working for me and we were getting into it and I wanted you to do something and you didn't want to do it? And I said, no, you're going to do it because I said so. What would you say? Well, I would say, hey, boss, you know, can you, I want to understand this a little bit more. Can you explain your reasoning behind this? Because then it'll be easier for me to accept it. Tell me more. That's what I would say.

Yeah, I've worked for bosses who have no interest in telling you more. It's because I said so. And that's the end of the story and get out of my office. And the reality is that like three quarters of managers are never trained in being a manager. But a good manager will have some empathy and respect for employees. And for example, I've done trainings with people in the high tech world where there's really smart people who are really rude and they don't want to lose them, but they also can't have them around offending everybody

and having people quit on them. So teaching them a little bit of skills in how to communicate more respectfully can make the difference and has made the difference because managers like that eventually lose their jobs as well. When people try this and it doesn't go well, what typically goes wrong? Well, some people are high conflict people, and we actually designed this for high conflict people. They're the ones that are more intensely upset, and they may need more than one ear statement. So I suggest you try a couple ear statements. But if they are so invested in their anger, in their blame, that even a couple ear statements makes no difference, it's probably more of a personality problem for them. So when you're saying what goes wrong,

it's probably because they have a personality that's stuck in conflict and high conflict where they're used to just increasing the conflict until they win and you lose. And that's not very, very helpful in the modern world where we're looking for win-win solutions. So what goes wrong is that that other person really can't shift themselves. And so if you're the person that's given a couple of your statements at that point, move on to problem solving and say, let's look at our options or say, okay, I'm going to move on now. Have a good day. Yeah. I wish I could be more like you if I've had 15 years of practice so it's a little bit easier but but people do learn this and find that

they can pull it off sometimes well I would imagine it just makes your life so much easier because you don't spend the same amount of time that other people spend getting all worked up and upset and pissed off. And it just seems to be water off a duck's back to you. Yeah, you're absolutely right that it really saves time because I don't have all these outstanding conflicts with people. And I can't think of someone who I've taught this method to that said that it's made their life worse. I've had people say it doesn't always work, and I agree with that. But generally, they say, I did it and it worked yesterday.

I can't believe it. I wish I knew this a week ago when I was talking to my mother-in-law or something like that. So again, it's practice, but it is possible. You know, I don't know if you watch the show, but you kind of remind me of Ted Lasso. You know, you don't get stuck in that angry, retaliatory, fight it out with people. You're looking to solve the problem,

which ultimately is the goal anyway. So why bother with all the negative and all of the anger? You just solve the problem. And really, that's the goal. That's the point. Bill Eddy has been my guest. He's a mediator and an attorney and author of a book called Calming Upset People with EAR. EAR being an acronym for Empathy, Attention, and Respect.

And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Bill. Well, thank you for so much. I appreciate you listening. Everyone knows that having good friends means a lot. Yet today, people have fewer good friends than ever, partly because we're busy, also because people move a lot. Yet today, people have fewer good friends than ever. Partly because we're busy, also because people move a lot, we've been locked down for a while, and people live much more private lives, it seems, than, say, our parents or grandparents. I mean, how many of us know who our neighbors are, let alone have them over for dinner? According to psychologist Will Miller,

all of this is part of the reason we have high levels of mood disorders, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. So here's a test to determine how many good friends you have. Ask yourself, how many friends do you have who have refrigerator rights? Meaning, they're friends who can walk into your house, go to the refrigerator, grab something to eat or drink without having to ask you permission. Those are friends with refrigerator rights, and those are the kind of friends you want. And that is something you should know. Remember, the best way to support this podcast is really to help us grow the audience, which is very easy to do. Just one person, just tell one person about this podcast and suggest that they give it a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for

listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro,

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and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Shinnok wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children.

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