It took me a long time to realize that A) the impulse to stay quiet is a signal to speak up, and B) the impulse to say one more thing is a signal to stfu.
— Ed Batista (@edbatista) February 23, 2019
Recent work on emotion regulation [1] reminded me of this simple insight--and helps to explain why it can be such a challenge to put it into practice. The impulse to stay quiet and the impulse to say one more thing are invariably emotional responses. They obviously have a cognitive dimension as well, and whenever such impulses take hold of us we no doubt have our reasons. But the determination to allow such impulses to govern our behavior is fundamentally emotional.
We feel inhibited by something, or emotionally aroused by something else: The moment, the setting, the topic at hand. The person or people we're talking with, something they said earlier, the presence or absence of observers, our relationships with everyone involved. Our inhibition is often experienced as a sense of foreboding, wariness, anxiety, even dread. "Safer to stay quiet," we tell ourselves, and so we keep our mouths shut. Our arousal is often experienced as an irrepressible urge, an unshakeable conviction in the necessity and justice of what we're about to say. "I must speak up," we tell ourselves, and so we do.
The belief that emotion and reasoning work in opposition to each other is widely held--and fundamentally wrong. Neuroscience research has made it clear that among the various functions emotions serve, they are essential inputs to the process of logical reasoning. [2] Emotions allow us to make use of much larger amounts of data in the course of this process than we can access through the relatively slow mechanism of conscious cognition. But emotions are a "quick and dirty processing system," in the words of NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux [3], and USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio also makes clear that "uncontrolled or misdirected emotion can be a major source of irrational behavior...[and] seemingly normal reason can be disturbed by subtle biases rooted in emotion." [4]
This is essential to bear in mind when we feel the impulse to stay quiet and the impulse to say one more thing: While emotions are necessary inputs for logical reasoning, by no means are they unerring guides to effective action, and in some circumstances they reliably lead us to act against our best interests. And in addition to this common thread it's also helpful to understand the differences between these two impulses.
The impulse to stay quiet is rarely a purely personal phenomenon. While our individual psychology inevitably plays a role, there are almost always group dynamics that contribute to our inhibition. The human system we're operating within at that moment--the relationship, the event, the group, the culture--is unsettled by our voice in some way and is acting to protect itself by repressing us. This need not take the form of heavy-handed censorship or overt hostility--it's often expressed in warm and pleasant tones. But when the system realizes that our contribution could be embarrassing or threatening, particularly to someone in power, it reliably enacts a "defense routine," in management thinker Chris Argyris' phrase, to ward off the embarrassment or threat. [5] Thus the impulse to stay quiet--and the vital importance of resisting the system's repression by speaking up. [6]
The impulse to say one more thing is undeniably influenced by the surrounding human system as well, especially if it's one in which we've felt repressed in the past. But in this instance we've felt free to share our voice and have been participating actively. The person or people we're talking with have been listening, receptive, open to our influence--and yet somehow it's not enough for us. We want something more from them, and we want it now, and we feel a frantic sense of urgency to get those needs met. The interchange is winding down--it may have even ended--when we suddenly extend it at the last second, our words tumbling out in a rush. We feel triumphant!--and then it's obvious that we should have kept out mouths shut. Our final contribution was unnecessary and even counter-productive, and our urge to express it was nothing more than impatience and narcissism. Thus the impulse to say one more thing--and the vital importance of mindful self-restraint.
Footnotes
[2] For more on the nature and purpose of emotion:
- Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (Antonio Damasio, 2005)
- The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life (Joseph LeDoux, 1998)
- The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them (Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley, 2012)
- Why We Feel: The Science of Human Emotions (Victor Johnston, 2000)
[3] LeDoux, page 163
[4] Damasio, page 53
[5] Overcoming Organizational Defense: Facilitating Organizational Learning, page 25 (Chris Argyris, 1990)
[6] Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up)
Photo by Melissa Weise.
