Social Allergens: The Impact of Annoying Habits

The Personal Journal section of today's Wall Street Journal had a headline that caught my attention: "I'm Sorry, I'm Allergic to You." The article highlighted the work of Dr. Michael Cunningham, a psychologist and professor at the University of Louisville, who for 15 years has been studying a phenomenon called, "Social Allergens," behaviors or habits that drive other people "nuts." These behaviors or habits can be, intentional or unintentional, personal or impersonal. All impact others in a way that causes discomfort, irritation and/or annoyance.

Dr. Cunningham describes four groupings of "social allergens." The first is "uncouth habits." When a person does something that is considered rude or breaks social norms for polite behavior, they may not be doing it intentionally and it is not personally directed at others. A person might be chewing their food loudly, getting food stains all over their shirt, or picking their nose in public. The behavior may make you feel uncomfortable, but the actor is not thinking about the others it impacts.

"Egocentric actions" are a second category of social allergens. While not necessarily intentional, the behaviors are directed at you personally. Have you ever had a friend who does not order dessert, and then, without asking your permission, helps themselves to half of yours? Or a friends who smokes their smelly cigarette so close to you that you are breathing in the smoke, whether you want to or not? Or the friend who helps themselves to your cellphone without asking your permission? Or assumes you will do something with them without asking or checking your availability?

"Norm violations" are intentional but not personal. Examples the article gives are talking during a movie, or texting while driving. Other examples include running a red light or not paying income taxes.

The fourth grouping of social allergens includes "actions that are both intentional and directed personally." Insulting another person, starting a fight by saying a provocative comment or making an insensitive comment like, "what are you doing eating ice cream when you said you wanted to lose weight?" are all examples of this fourth category. The speaker may not be aware that s/he is making you feel bad. But his/her comments/actions do make you feel bad.

People we encounter regularly in close relationships are plentiful generators of our social allergies. Just like with many physical allergies, like pollen or animal dander, repetition may trigger and exacerbate our allergic reaction. If someone does something moderately annoying once, we can just write it off as eccentric or "just the way they are." However, if a friend or colleague, or partner or boss repeatedly picks their nose, barges in on you without knocking, walks around the office with food stains on their shirt, our annoyance level, or allergy, grows more uncomfortable.

Dr Cunningham notes that at work, where our relationships are involuntary, we may experience more social allergens. We may be more tolerant or forgiving of our friends and loved ones. On the other hand, in romantic relationships, where there is initially "new relationship energy," where we put our best foot forward and see the idealized version of the other person for the first one to six months, as time passes and defenses go down, we might find ourselves increasingly annoyed by some little idiosyncrasy that we could initially just write off. The article calls this "de-romanticism." And people who once thought they loved each other can find themselves picking fights over which end of the toothpaste tube should be squeezed or how many paper towels are okay to use to clean up a spill.

How do we reel ourselves in and truly not sweat the small stuff, so that the small stuff does not blow up an imperfect, but very human relationship?

1. Learn to accept that we all have idiosyncrasies. We are all uniquely human. And we all have different habits or patterns or concepts of behavior. Letting the other person be on the small stuff, like making hospital corners on not when making a bed, or closing the refrigerator door right away after taking an item out versus leaving it open to go grab a second item, can ease tension and reduce allergic reactions.

2. Talk with the other person gently about their behavior. If someone you work with or are close to has an annoying behavior find a gentle and respectful way to talk about it. If you can tell a colleague, "I know your job involves a lot of phone calls, but when you talk on the phone it is often so loud I can hear your voice in my office. You may not be aware of how your voice travels," that is very different than accusing them of disturbing your piece or telling them they are a loud mouth and to shut up.

3. Work on your own reactions. See if you can give your colleague or loved one a little more slack. Take a few deep breaths. Don't react.

4. See if what is annoying you is actually a signal that there are deeper concerns or issues in your relationship. If you feel good about someone, their little annoying habits can more easily be brushed off. If you are harboring resentment about deeper issues, the little annoying habits are magnified. If there ARE deeper issues, address them respectfully. And if you can't do it yourselves, get counseling.

All in all, it is certainly good advice not to sweat the small stuff, and to pick your battles. We are all human. Can we learn to laugh with and at our idiosyncrasies rather than erupt in allergic reactions?

Greed Is A Terminal Disease

While intellectually, many of us know that anything taken to an extreme can lose its goodness, practically, our culture seems to have forgotten that this is so. While the Wall Street culture promoted the idea that greed is good, just as a person who lives on a diet of junk food will ultimately become seriously ill, too much greed for too long exacts a toll. This toll is felt by the greedy, the people taken advantage of or shut out from the food chain, and by society as a whole.

Bernie Madoff's uncontained greed not only led to his sentence of life in prison, but also to the suicide of one of his sons. Greed on Wall Street, in business, and in the political arena, has left countless people adrift, unemployed, homeless and displaced, without hope of any change in their circumstances. And the greedy who put so many people in such difficult positions turn their head the other way and watch their bank accounts grow.

We have example after example that greed is a terminal disease, and perhaps an addiction in our culture where success is measured in financial terms, not in meaning, contribution, and making a difference in the world. In his article, The Real Social Security, published in Ode Magazine, Kenyan microcredit bank managing director, Kimanthi Mutua notes that the only REAL social security is our collectiveness.

Mutua notes, "Centuries of individualism and materialism have destroyed most of this essential support structure in the West." We have no collective infrastructure to catch people when times are tough, and falling through the cracks of life is all too familiar a risk of hard times and forces beyond our control.

While Americans may look at Africans as residents of third world nations, emotionally and spiritually, America is a third world nation, or worse. The richness of daily connections with people, face to face, where people know and care for one another, cannot be made up through bonding in virtual reality. Mutua notes that in Africa, people connect in the daily reality of their lives. They naturally support each other, which builds an experience of community and compensates for the hardships of their lives."

Mutua notes as well that based on data from a World Value Survey, "most people in Africa do not report feeling less happy than people in developed nations despite being the poorest people on the planet. African is a living example of the fact that more money does not bring more happiness."

So, if we can stop looking at our own reflections in the narcissistic mirror that is so common today, perhaps we can look at ourselves through the lens of other cultures that may be more spiritually and emotionally rich than we are. As we are lost in the trance of working ourselves to death, and pursuing the American Dream, that a Psychology Today article notes has transformed into the American Nightmare, we lose sight of what really matters, and what we really need to survive.

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

See "American Nightmare" in April 2011 issue of Psychology Today, and "The Real Social Security" by Kimanthi Mutua in the October 2007 issue of Ode Magazine for more.

Tiger Mothers and Other Approaches to Parenting

This past month, the Wall Street Journal has managed to run an article each week presenting very different and even extreme approaches to parenting. While perhaps not intentionally envisioned as a "series," this series nonetheless, was kicked off with Amy Chua's article, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" on January 8. Chua proudly states that her two daughters were not allowed to do what we in the Western world consider "normal activities," such as attend a sleepover, have a playdate, or be in a school play. In addition, complaining about not being in a school play, choosing their own extracurricular activities, getting any grade less than an A, or not being the number one student in any subject other than gym or drama is more severely disallowed.

Chua assumes that American parent are wimps, psychological and emotional factors don't exist, and if you don't get what you want from your child, you humiliate them, berate them and shame them into submission. Chua suggests that this is for the child's own good, since children would not be motivated to be successful without such a heavy hand and rude mouth coming from their mothers.

She details vignettes of parenting her own daughters, speaking to them in ways those of us who are psychologically inclined would consider verbally abusive, such as "hey fatty--lose some weight, " or calling a child "garbage, stupid, worthless or a disgrace," and psychologically abusive, such as forcing her 7 year old daughter to practice a piano piece she was struggling with for hours and hours, including working through dinner and not being able to get up for water or to go to the bathroom for days, weeks and months.

While books may portray these "Tiger Mothers" as "scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests," Chua posits that maybe Chinese parents believe they are more committed and caring than Western parents are in regard to their children.

The second article in the "series," appeared on January 16, a sort of rebuttal to the "Tiger Mother" article, entitled, "In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom" by Ayelet Waldman. Waldman identifies herself as a modern day Jewish mother of four, who allowed her children to quit the piano and violin, sleep over at friends' houses and participate in any extracurricular activity they wayted to, with a few narcissistic caveats thrown in.

Waldman was delighted if the child quite their instrument near a recital, so she wouldn't have to be "tortured" listening to other children play, or if the sleepover was on a holiday or night she wanted to go out with her husband to save her the cost of a babysitter. More narcissistic was her insistence that she not have to drive more than 10 minutes to get her kids to any activity or "sit on a field in a folding chair in anything but the balmiest weather for any longer than 60 minutes."

All practicality aside, the thread of narcissism strikes me as just as troubling as the streak of domination expressed by Chua. For the most extreme article on parenting, the January 22 Wall Street Journal presented the case of a Russian-born Christian couple living in Oregon, who were arrested on criminal child abuse charges. When their 14-year-old son escaped to a pay phone to report his beatings (and that of his 6 siblings), to the police, all 7 children, aged newborn to 15, were taken away from the parents, as the parents were sent to jail.

Within their isolated and non-assimilated Slavic Christian community, the brutal beatings of children for wanting to wear Western clothes, trim their hair without permission or wear eye make up were considered "disciplining their children according to Biblical Law." Being whipped, struck and beaten with wires, branches and belts was considered to be an expression of their faith. In the Western world, it is considered child abuse.

All 6 of the older childre, aged 5 - 15, were sick of their parents' abuse and told police they wished to be removed from their home. At times, their beatings were so severe, they could not go to school because of their wounds. Eventually, the infant was removed from the parents' home as well.

While cultural difference do account for differences in parenting styles, too few take into account the actual nature and developmental needs of human children. Religion, narcissism and historical norms do not allow for or even recognize psychological needs. As I studed the reality of family life in early Colonial families in the US, I discovered just how rampant domestic violence was.

Sadly, while those who practice Tiger Mothering or Slavic Christian parenting can rationalize and justify their behavior saying they must shape the child to be "successful" or even "good," their children often have serious mental health issues as teens and adults. The suicide rate for Chinese teenage girls is much higher than for their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the cultural model I find most appealing is that of my Siamese chocolate point kitty, Prayer. When Prayer had her kittens in April 2008, she was a present, attentive, nurturing, loving mother. She knew to stay close to her kittens and keep them warm, fed and safe when they were tiny. She knew to give them more space to stretch their paws and explore as they grew ready to do so. She nursed them gladly until they were ready to start eating solid food. And she carried them in her mouth by the scruff of their necks when she perceived they were in danger. Prayer occasionally "disciplined" her kittens with a growl or a gentle tap of her paw. But she never beat them, humiliated them, rejected them or hurt them. All of her kittens grew up to be well-adjusted, loving cats. Might there be something to learn here for human parents?

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks