When a friend, partner,
family member, or co-worker is upset, you have probably wondered how best to
make them feel better. Let them vent? Offer a chocolate bar? Give them space so
they can have a good cry? The ideal approach depends on the person and the
context, experts say. But a limited yet growing body of research suggests that
one of the most powerful ways to soothe a person’s feelings is to start a
conversation.
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Words play a powerful role in shaping
people’s emotions because humans are such a social species. People’s brains are
finely attuned to information they get from others, and they are “constantly
using it as feedback to change their behaviors and responses”, said Razia Sahi,
a doctoral candidate in psychology at the
University of California, Los
Angeles, who studies how social interactions influence people’s emotions.
“Other people care a lot about what we think.”
But the words we use to comfort
others matter, as some forms of verbal support have been found to be more
helpful than others. In a small study published on December 8, for instance,
Sahi and her colleagues found that people consider validation — phrases like,
“I understand why you feel that way” or “That sounds very hard” — to be
especially comforting.
Other forms of feedback, such as
helping someone recognize that things will improve or encouraging a person to
see the situation from a new perspective, can help too, research suggests. And
sometimes, those kinds of responses may even be more useful than phrases of
validation in the long run. “Different strategies meet different needs,” said
Karen Niven, a professor of organizational psychology at the Sheffield
University Management School in Britain who studies how
people influence the
emotions of those around them.
People consider validation — phrases like, “I understand why you feel that way” or “That sounds very hard” — to be especially comforting.
Here is a research-based guide for
supporting friends, colleagues and loved ones in times of need.
Validate their emotionsOne consistent finding from the
research is that telling people they should not feel so bad typically makes
them feel worse. In a landmark study published in 2012, researchers listened in
on 228 phone calls between angry customers and customer service representatives
who handled medical-related billing questions and complaints. When the
representatives told the upset customers to “calm down” or “relax”, the
customers typically became angrier.
These kinds of strategies backfire
because they imply that the person’s feelings “might be inappropriate, or that
their emotion might be more intense than the situation calls for,” Sahi
explained. It inadvertently sends the message that they are
overreacting,
which, paradoxically, only makes them more emotional.
“There’s no evidence across any
studies that that works well,” Niven said.
In their new study, which involved
two experiments, Sahi and her colleagues asked 318 people what kinds of
feedback from others they would feel most comforted by after experiencing a
conflict with someone they knew (a fight with a friend or roommate, for
instance, or feelings of betrayal). Validation was the clear winner.
Participants said they found affirming comments like, “I can imagine that was
difficult,” to be more comforting than other kinds of feedback that tried to
help a person change their thinking about the problem, like, “Try to see both
sides of the situation” or “Try to focus on the glass half-full instead of
half-empty.”
“When people hear you and they say
they understand you, you feel trusted, you feel cared for, you feel connected,”
Sahi said, “and feeling connected to other people is extremely, extremely
important for us.” Because our ancestors were more likely to survive when they
were members of a group, the desire to be accepted by others “is a survival
instinct that we’ve had embedded in us,” she explained.
Help them strategize (if they are
open to it)While phrases of validation can make
people feel better in the moment, they will not necessarily help them solve
their problem or resolve their negative emotions in the long run, Niven said.
So if they are open to it, talking through how to overcome a particular hurdle
or repair a conflict may give an upset friend or colleague a sense of control
over their situation, Niven said. This can help ease their emotions and even
potentially resolve the issue entirely.
If they welcome problem-solving,
frame it carefully
If you think the other person is open
to letting you help them strategize, you may still want to start by validating
their feelings, Niven said. Tell them that you understand why they feel the way
they do, or that you would have reacted similarly. Studies have found that
people are more receptive to advice after they have been made to feel
emotionally supported than if they have not received any validation at all.
Then, ease into a problem-solving
strategy. The participants in Sahi’s study found an approach called “temporal
distancing” most useful. This involves helping people understand that while
things may be bad now, they will likely improve over time.
People preferred this approach over strategies designed to make them feel more optimistic (like
“glass half-full” phrasing) or suggestions to try to see the situation from
another person’s perspective. It is unclear why this approach was preferable,
but perhaps it was because it did not feel confrontational or invalidating,
said Niven, who was not involved with the research.
“When people hear you and they say they understand you, you feel trusted, you feel cared for, you feel connected.”
It may also help to consider how the
upset person provided support to you in the past, Sahi said. Her study found
that people who tended to provide problem-solving advice to others also
preferred to receive that form of advice when they were upset.
Some problems, though, might need a
more serious intervention. Perhaps a friend is in denial about an abusive
relationship and you want to help them recognize the gravity of the situation.
In circumstances where you might want to challenge someone’s perspective, first
explain that your feedback is rooted in how much you care about them, said
Jamil Zaki, a social psychologist at Stanford University. “Say, ‘I really want
you to feel fulfilled. I want you to feel empowered. And I think that this
particular situation you’re in might be going against that goal,’” he said.
Remember that it is the thought that
countsAlthough it can be hard to know how
best to help someone, Zaki emphasized that we should be confident that our
attempts will be appreciated — even if we do not know what we are doing.
In a small study published in 2022,
researchers found that people typically underestimated how useful their
attempts to help others would be, perhaps because they feared that their advice
was not perfect. Researchers found that people appreciated support even if it
was not exactly aligned with their needs.
In other words, what matters most is
not that you say the right thing, but that you are present and trying to help.
“We can make a
difference to other people with relatively little effort,” Zaki
said. “Sometimes just being there is all that you need to do.”
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