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Why do people we care for sometimes engage in cruel behavior? What can we do about it?<\/p>\nWhy do people we care for sometimes engage in cruel behavior? What can we do about it?<\/p>\n
Alfred Adler<\/a> believed the ultimate goal for all human beings is to belong and feel connected to others. Unfortunately, when a person doesn’t find connection with others through kindness and good deeds, they become discouraged and feel inferior to others.<\/p>\n Adler said no one can tolerate these inferiority feelings, and so they over compensate by striving for superiority. One way to strive for superiority is to become a bully<\/a>. Bullies who band together with other bullies in order to strengthen their sense of belonging are called gangs, terrorists, mafias, and racists.<\/p>\n Learning theory explains cruel behavior as being modeled. If a child is treated with emotional or physical abuse<\/a>, the child learns to act that way: “monkey see, monkey do.\u201d So a person, the child who has experienced being treated cruelly, learns to be cruel.<\/p>\n Still another reason for cruel behavior may be mental illness. There are some mental illnesses that manifest themselves with angry outbursts, violence, a lack of empathy, or difficulty understanding the impact of one\u2019s behavior on others. There are also medical conditions, like brain injuries or Tourette’s syndrome, which can feature aggressive outbursts as a symptom.<\/p>\n There are a number of other theories that can explain cruelty, including genetic inheritance. Darwin thought behavior is related to survival, so violence could be seen as adaptive to our very survival—or violence may in the end be the reason humans ultimately fail to survive.<\/p>\n We can\u2019t change another person’s actions, but we can change our own reactions. Here are some typical reactions to cruelty:<\/p>\n \u2022 Retaliation These are natural responses, but they never work to stop cruelty. In fact, any of the above reactions can make cruelty intensify. So what can we do to stop cruelty?<\/p>\n We can do as Rudolf Dreikurs said and \u201cseparate the deed from the doer.\u201d A person who engages in cruelty engages in unacceptable behavior, but that does not mean the person is unacceptable. That does not mean we chastise, admonish, and punish the person. If we believe in Adler\u2019s theory that all people have a thirst to belong, we can make an effort to accept the person while not accepting cruel behavior. We learn to be more inclusive and forgiving .<\/p>\n We have to feel good about ourselves when we hear cruel things. If we like ourselves enough, there\u2019s no need to get defensive when nasty things are said. We can react as if it\u2019s untrue nonsense that doesn\u2019t deserve an ounce of our negative energy. If someone tells me my hair is pink, which it is not, I don\u2019t have to argue. I may make a joke of it or say, \u201cThank you, pink is my favorite color!\u201d<\/p>\n We have to take a stand against cruelty. No one deserves to be treated cruelly. It takes two people to fight and only one to stop it. Be the person to stop the nastiness. Refuse to fight. Say \u201cI\u2019m not going to fight with you,\u201d and physically remove yourself.<\/p>\n We must tell ourselves over and over and over again, \u201cI deserve to be treated kindly.\u201d<\/p>\n Does knowing the source of the cruelty help stop the nastiness? I\u2019m not sure. What I do know is that if we want cruel people to stop their behavior, we have to look within and change our own reactions to this heartlessness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When people act cruelly, we may be shocked, hurt, and defensive. We must remember that we deserve to be treated kindly and “separate the deed from the do-er.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[261,425,530,25,27,235],"class_list":["post-8566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-adlerian-psychology","tag-aggression-violence","tag-bullying","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-psychotherapy-models","tag-self-esteem-psychotherapy-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Understanding Cruelty<\/h2>\n
Responding to Cruelty<\/h2>\n
\n\u2022 Anger and outrage
\n\u2022 Defensiveness
\n\u2022 Fear
\n\u2022 Avoidance
\n\u2022 Passive-aggressiveness<\/a>
\n\u2022 Self-blame
\n\u2022 “Walking on eggshells”
\n\u2022 Lowered self-esteem<\/a>
\n\u2022 Attempts to please<\/p>\n