Vithal C Nadkarni
Congress president Rahul Gandhi invoked love while asking his electoral rival to look after the borough that had just fallen out of his pocket. Earlier, another four letter word (c-h-o-r, thief) had been his most favoured epithet. But in retrospect that seems to have done him greater harm than any good. One explanation of such ‘damage by rebound’ lies in a phenomenon called spontaneous trait transference.
In this, communicators become associated with the very traits that they describe in others. That is how the pot that calls the kettle black gets perceived as being black itself. Now is this simply because of association, due to what is called ‘sangati-dosha’ in Sanskrit? Not really. Psychologists say such a transfer of traits may occur even when there is no logical basis for making such inferences.
What is alarming is that it’s a mindless association that persists over time. So even if you don’t have the negative characteristics that you ascribe to others, you end up being perceived negatively. “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,” says Luke (in the Bible). “Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.”
The Bhagwad Gita has a similar positive mandate for speech that does not agitate – anudvega-karam vakyam; satyam, which is true and priyam-hitam ca, beneficial. In the mother of all battles, the Mahabharata, Krishna endorses manah-prasada, a positive mindset, and soumyatvam, mildness, backed with mental fortitude.
But can such goody-goody tactics win you votes? How do you knock down your opponents from their pedestals? With positivity? With trumpeting of your own accomplishments instead of harping on your rivals’ failures? Psychologists say that not only are politicians, who allege corruption by their opponents perceived, as dishonest themselves but critics who praise artists are perceived as being talented.
As social animals born to bond and to belong, we do seem to be instinctively wired to respond to positive pitches better than to negative rants. That is why as children we are often exhorted to speak positively – shubh-shubh bol. Psychologists have now decoded the secret of that ‘speak well mantra’. According to them, candidates with a pessimistic explanatory style tend to blame themselves when bad things happen and also fail to give themselves sufficient credit for successful results. They also display a tendency to view negative outcomes as expected and lasting – jo hua, so hua: hone wala tha.
In contrast, candidates with an optimistic explanatory style tend to give themselves credit when good things happen (acche din). But they also tend to make scapegoats of outside agencies for bad outcomes. More importantly, they tend to view negative events as transitory or atypical.
Our parents told us that if we had nothing good to say, it was better not to say anything at all. That piece of mothers’ wisdom has now been rebranded as the Boomerang Effect of Gossip. Of course that is not the sort of gossip West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was alluding to in her Tweet. She was talking about exit polls.
As for the garden variety of gossip, St Paul included it in the Book of Romans among the sins of greed, deceit, malice and murder. “Those who do such things deserve death,” he wrote. But surely, his imprecation was not meant to be taken literally. For to do so would be to endorse politics of murder and mayhem, which demonises opponents, and justifies winning at any cost.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: Times of India: The Speaking Tree: 27th May, 2019
Vithal C Nadkarni
Congress president Rahul Gandhi invoked love while asking his electoral rival to look after the borough that had just fallen out of his pocket. Earlier, another four letter word (c-h-o-r, thief) had been his most favoured epithet. But in retrospect that seems to have done him greater harm than any good. One explanation of such ‘damage by rebound’ lies in a phenomenon called spontaneous trait transference.
In this, communicators become associated with the very traits that they describe in others. That is how the pot that calls the kettle black gets perceived as being black itself. Now is this simply because of association, due to what is called ‘sangati-dosha’ in Sanskrit? Not really. Psychologists say such a transfer of traits may occur even when there is no logical basis for making such inferences.
What is alarming is that it’s a mindless association that persists over time. So even if you don’t have the negative characteristics that you ascribe to others, you end up being perceived negatively. “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,” says Luke (in the Bible). “Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.”
The Bhagwad Gita has a similar positive mandate for speech that does not agitate – anudvega-karam vakyam; satyam, which is true and priyam-hitam ca, beneficial. In the mother of all battles, the Mahabharata, Krishna endorses manah-prasada, a positive mindset, and soumyatvam, mildness, backed with mental fortitude.
But can such goody-goody tactics win you votes? How do you knock down your opponents from their pedestals? With positivity? With trumpeting of your own accomplishments instead of harping on your rivals’ failures? Psychologists say that not only are politicians, who allege corruption by their opponents perceived, as dishonest themselves but critics who praise artists are perceived as being talented.
As social animals born to bond and to belong, we do seem to be instinctively wired to respond to positive pitches better than to negative rants. That is why as children we are often exhorted to speak positively – shubh-shubh bol. Psychologists have now decoded the secret of that ‘speak well mantra’. According to them, candidates with a pessimistic explanatory style tend to blame themselves when bad things happen and also fail to give themselves sufficient credit for successful results. They also display a tendency to view negative outcomes as expected and lasting – jo hua, so hua: hone wala tha.
In contrast, candidates with an optimistic explanatory style tend to give themselves credit when good things happen (acche din). But they also tend to make scapegoats of outside agencies for bad outcomes. More importantly, they tend to view negative events as transitory or atypical.
Our parents told us that if we had nothing good to say, it was better not to say anything at all. That piece of mothers’ wisdom has now been rebranded as the Boomerang Effect of Gossip. Of course that is not the sort of gossip West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was alluding to in her Tweet. She was talking about exit polls.
As for the garden variety of gossip, St Paul included it in the Book of Romans among the sins of greed, deceit, malice and murder. “Those who do such things deserve death,” he wrote. But surely, his imprecation was not meant to be taken literally. For to do so would be to endorse politics of murder and mayhem, which demonises opponents, and justifies winning at any cost.
DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: Times of India: The Speaking Tree: 27th May, 2019