how to put an end to conversational narcissism?
The American sociology professor Charles Derber gave a name to this mild egocentric tendency to attract conversations to oneself: conversational narcissism. In his work, he bluntly dissects our increasingly individualistic society. Number one cause of this evolution: the weakening of the social fabric.
“Isolated, lacking in attention, we tend to take advantage of social contacts to compensate for this lack and position ourselves at the center.”
Our families have become smaller and we no longer live close together around the steeple of the church. We have a lot less daily conversations, which makes us want more. Isolated, lacking in attention, we tend to take advantage of social contacts to compensate for this lack and position ourselves at the center. In a professional environment, there may be good reasons for wanting to stand out from the crowd and aspire to be “the best”, but today, we often find the same behaviors in family and friends. To better understand this tendency to speak more than the other, Derber compares a discussion to a ball game. You throw the ball, the other catches it, then you throws it, etc. The problem is, when we hear someone else’s story, our brain tends to draw reference material from our own memories … time to keep the ball a little too long or forget to return it.
True listening
Really listening is not easy, according to the Canadian doctor of psychology Faye doell, we can listen either to understand someone, or to be able to place one in our turn. And we are obviously unconscious experts in the art of nodding our heads, of placing a few « ah, yes », of waiting while stamping inside and finally cramming our personal history. People who master the first way of listening tend to have more friends. In psychology, this skill is called the deep listening.
“To really listen to someone and hear what they say is a decision that we make.”
This listening has three goals: collect information, understand the person or his situation and finally also heal the relationship. And really listening to someone and hearing what they say is a decision you make. Other tips from listening experts: avoid putting our solutions on the table, because it mainly serves a purpose, that of showing how smart we are; try to put yourself in the shoes of the person in front of us, and for that, to follow her body attitude, to keep eye contact, to refrain from judging her words and to summarize from time to time what she is saying. In his own words, it’s even better.
Read this article in full in the February GAEL, available in bookstores.
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