How to Solve an Unsolvable Problem
Thursday, February 7th, 2013Feeling stuck in a bad situation?Two simple questions may be your ticket out.by Amy Yeager Until a few days ago, I had an unsolvable problem. Or at least, I was fully convinced that my problem couldn’t be solved. The subject of today’s post is the strategy that gave me an answer in less than 10 […]
How Could You Say Something Like That?!
Thursday, January 31st, 2013When Questions Attack, Can You Avoid Striking Back? by Amy Yeager & Ben Benjamin “What were you thinking?” “Are you out of your mind?” “Is this really the best you can do?” If someone asked you a question like that, how would you respond? For many of us, these types of questions—called righteous questions—are very […]
The Danger of “Always”
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013Why Saying “You Always…” Is Almost Always a Bad Ideaby Amy Yeager & Ben Benjamin “Why do you always second-guess me?!”“Why do you always have to be so negative?” “You always interrupt me and it drives me nuts.”“You’re always complaining.” Have you ever been on the receiving end of an “always” attack? If so, you […]
Why Behavior Matters
Monday, January 14th, 2013Three good reasons why anyone who cares about communication should care about behaviorby Amy Yeager In my last blog post, I talked briefly about some recent critiques of overhyped, oversimplified neuroscience and highlighted one major benefit of looking beyond the brain: we can rediscover the value of studying behavior. In the work that my colleagues […]
The Key to Understanding Communication: That Other B Word
Monday, January 7th, 2013by Amy Yeager Fill in the blank:If we want to understand the real reasons why people have so much trouble relating to each other and resolving their conflicts, we need to look more closely at their b_______. How would you finish that sentence? If you said brains, you’re not alone. With all the attention that […]