Six Tips for Speaking Up Against Bad Behavior - Deepstash
Six Tips for Speaking Up Against Bad Behavior

Six Tips for Speaking Up Against Bad Behavior

Curated from: greatergood.berkeley.edu

Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:

8 ideas

·

7.39K reads

38

Explore the World's Best Ideas

Join today and uncover 100+ curated journeys from 50+ topics. Unlock access to our mobile app with extensive features.

Why we lack the courage to step up

Why we lack the courage to step up

Most of us think we will have the courage to confront someone to do the right thing, but we will often fail to step up when actually facing a situation.

  • One factor that prevents us from speaking up is our fear of the consequences, such as losing a friendship, getting a reputation as a troublemaker, or facing negative consequences in our professional careers.
  • Another factor is confusion about what we're actually witnessing. We don't want to step in and appear stupid or overly sensitive.

276

1.33K reads

Clear vs ambiguous situations

Social psychologists have consistently found that people are more willing to take action in a clear emergency than in an ambiguous situation.

When facing an ambiguous situation, our natural tendency is to look to others for guidance. But if each person is looking to the people around them to act, no one wants to risk feeling foolish and embarrassed, and the problematic situation will be left unchallenged. However, we can sharpen specific skills for challenging bad behavior.

254

1K reads

Express concern in a short, clear way

Find a quick and straightforward way of expressing concern or disapproval when you're dealing with bad behavior. This identifies that the action isn't a reasonable one for the person doing the negative thing and for the others observing it.

One study showed that the best confrontation was calm but direct: "Hey, that's not cool."

280

951 reads

Disarming a speaker

You can disarm a speaker by assuming that a comment is sarcastic. That way, it doesn't make the person who made the remark appear stupid or bad.

For example, you could respond to a sexist comment by saying, "I know you're just trying to be funny, but some people really do think that women are too emotional to be president!" Your response shows you disagree with their comment without making the person look bad.

271

928 reads

Make the discomfort about you, not them

To explain your reaction when witnessing bad behavior, make a personal connection to an insensitive remark. _For example, "I was raised in the Catholic church so that comment is hard for me to hear."

This reduces the risk to make the person engaging in a bad behavior feel nasty or defensive but indicates that you found their behavior wrong.

266

870 reads

Actively play out different types of responses

Learn and practice different techniques for responses to wrong behavior to help reduce inhibitions about speaking up.

Roleplaying various scenarios increase our confidence to intervene in a real-world situation.

247

822 reads

Find people that share your concern

For those who are not naturally courageous, finding someone who shares our concern can be essential to challenge prevailing social norms.

238

703 reads

Learning to speak up: taking an outsider's perspective

Speaking up can be far easier when you see the world from someone else's perspective.

For example, understanding what someone else goes through who is being bullied or assaulted will give you the courage to stand up for wrong behavior.

251

789 reads

IDEAS CURATED BY

adalinew

Good communicator and coffee specialist. I also have a passion for music.

Adaline W.'s ideas are part of this journey:

How To Learn Anything Fast

Learn more about communication with this collection

The importance of practice and repetition in learning

How to stay motivated and avoid burnout while learning

How to break down complex concepts into manageable parts

Related collections

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Personalized microlearning

100+ Learning Journeys

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates