A friend sent me an article about Facebook’s recent clandestine psychological experiment on a group of its participants. Knowing me as he does, he knew I’d want to write about it. Apparently, Facebook, Cornell and the University of California wanted to know if they had the power to upset you by controlling the ratio of positive to negative posts that appear on your newsfeed.
Not to worry: I’m sure they meant no harm. (<– sarcasm.)
Putting aside the obvious creepy undertones of that revelation (I keep trying to write that post. I can’t seem to get the words right. The jist of my response is this: the whole thing just weirds me out), I bring that article up because I read another article from the Harvard Business Review this morning about the neurochemistry of positive conversations. The two articles dovetail in a way that highlights the value in one of those things your mother always said:
“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
I still remember verbal wounds that were inflicted when I was a child. These wounds hang on, yet the verbal kindnesses do not seem to hold. Why is that?
According to the linked article above,
“When we face criticism, rejection or fear, when we feel marginalized or minimized, our bodies produce higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that shuts down the thinking center of our brains and activates conflict aversion and protection behaviors. We become more reactive and sensitive. We often perceive even greater judgment and negativity than actually exists. And these effects can last for 26 hours or more, imprinting the interaction on our memories and magnifying the impact it has on our future behavior. Cortisol functions like a sustained-release tablet – the more we ruminate about our fear, the longer the impact.”
(Well that explains my Facebook feed during election cycles.)
Kindness produces a different chemical response in the brain (again, from the linked article):
“Positive comments and conversations produce a chemical reaction too. They spur the production of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that elevates our ability to communicate, collaborate and trust others by activating networks in our prefrontal cortex. But oxytocin metabolizes more quickly than cortisol, so its effects are less dramatic and long-lasting.”
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” -Plato
How valuable kind speech is. How fleeting its effects.
The Harvard Business Review article focuses on the value of kindness in the workplace: elevated communication, collaboration, and trust in the workplace can lead to innovation in innumerable areas at the office, and executives who facilitate such environments will see greater success.
Cue your first grade Sunday School teacher: “Be ye kind.” (Ephesians 4:32a)
I was thinking about the value of kindness, and social media, workplace communication, and corporate worship environments, and it strikes me that on social media, at the office, and even in churches, negative speech is often used by people in power in order to control those that are under their influence, and such speech cuts off virtually all discussion and devalues the hearers. Some people in positions of authority even use some sort of plastic kindness to mask their negativity, and that just makes it worse. An obvious lie about how concerned or interested or open to hearing one is with regard to someone else’s viewpoint is worse that rejecting it altogether.
There are times when no discussion is merited or necessary in social, faith-based, and business situations. That said, giving those directives in a kind and respectful manner, based on the scientific evidence above, will produce better results whether one is discussing the Obama administration on their Facebook wall, profit margins in their board meeting, or how to interpret some of those weird and violent passages in the Psalms.
When we take the time to listen to others instead of just waiting for our turn to talk, make thoughtful and reasoned arguments in a respectful way, and treat people with basic human kindness, then understanding and collaboration can, and often will, follow.
How wonderfully weird would that be?
