Turns out there IS such a thing as tough love? Who needs that? All of us, according to new research.
Typically,
all we want from a friend is support—unconditional, uncritical, and
unwavering support. OK, that’s not completely realistic, but new
research suggests it may not even be healthy. (By the way, there are at
least 24 tricks to being a good friend that we could all benefit from knowing.) According to a study from the University of Plymouth, when a friend is cruel, she or he might actually be kind—even if it doesn’t feel that way.
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Researchers in the UK developed a theory that when we put
ourselves in another person’s shoes, we might choose to be critical if
we thought it could help that person achieve an important goal: Imagine
the friend who keeps making terrible relationship choices, for example,
and you’d love to get her to stop. To test the theory, the researchers
asked volunteers to play a violent video game, and then give advice to a
partner who was going through tough personal times on winning the game.
(The partner was imaginary.) The researchers found that volunteers were
more likely to go negative if they felt it was important for their
partner to win the game.
Based on the results, the researchers concluded that
empathy led people to choose negative emotional experiences for their
partner because they believed this would ultimately help their partner
be successful. Extrapolating this to real life, being frank with the
person who keeps dating criminals could help them out in the long run.
[post_ads]But if you’re going to take this approach, it’s important
to go about it the right way. According to the study, you shouldn’t
berate your friend or make them feel like a fool. Instead, you want to
present the situation in a way that your friend can imagine a worst-case
scenario. Ask them how they would feel if they had to go through yet
another heartbreak coupled with identity theft, as opposed to telling
them they have terrible taste in partners. This alternative perspective
can help increase your friend’s chances of making better decisions and
reaching their goal (here are some proven ways to help everyone make better decisions).
“These findings shed light on social dynamics, helping us to
understand, for instance, why we sometimes may try to make our loved
ones feel bad if we perceive this emotion to be useful to achieve a
goal,” says study author Belén López-Pérez, a psychological scientist
who is now at Liverpool Health University, in ScienceDaily.
