“Order the red wine”, “Take your jacket off, you’ll get hot”, “Look there, take a picture of that”. Familiar? If you’ve had someone around telling you what to do (be it with zero malintent), I am sure you felt frustrated. It’s normal. As adults, and as kids alike, we hate it when people tell us what to do. As explained before, here, when something triggers a negative reaction in us, the root cause is within us. We can’t control what others do, but we are responsible for how we react. And this is exactly how this phenomenon is called: psychological reactance.
Let’s dig into it.
A brief distinction
Although I’ve given you some examples in the first row, we need to make a distinction. When someone POLITELY explains you that you do something incorrectly, that person is trying to help. Of course, the matter of offering this unsolicited feedback is extremely important. Example: you’re working with a new app and friend of yours sees you don’t master all the features. That person could say: “here, let me show you a trick” OR “did you know there’s this shortcut in the menu which…”. These are polite and friendly manners to correct someone, which are OK and should not be misinterpreted.
There’s also the case of recommendation. That also appeals to the art of giving feedback. Example: you are examining a menu in a location where your friend has been before. That friend could say: “if you’re into pork, you should definitely try….” – OK, this is a polite recommendation. OR: “the [insert something sounding French] is divine, you should try it” – still OK. Versus… “Order the greek style salad! I tell you, do it, it’s good” – this is actually bad.
What happens in your brain when people tell you what to do?
Let’s deal with your reaction first, because You are the most important. When people are told what to do, they react with anger, hostility or just do the opposite as a form of protest. This is psychological reactance. It’s a perfectly normal reaction when a threat to your freedom / free behaviour is perceived. This perception can be based on how we interpret the other person’s intention (how someone makes you feel) or based on reasoning (logical interpretation of the facts).
What this triggers in you is an urge to restore your freedom by doing something immediately. This is called “direct restoration”. The magnitude of your reaction is directly proportional to the PERCEIVED threat.
A reinterpretation when someone tells you what to do can be to not take it as an attack to your freedom or actually consider that the suggestion made is really a good idea. I’m not saying to fake it, just to consider these possibilities.
What drives the other person to tell you what to do?
Well, here’s your chance to rejoice. When someone tells you what to do, bosses you around basically, that’s a narcissistic or even sociopathic tendency. If you extrapolate to a much larger scale, this is what a dictator does. Tells people by law what to like, enjoy, how to address others… These people don’t understand that you don’t teach a bird to fly by giving it flying lessons.
In essence, it’s a matter of dominance and affirming status. Superiority. If I tell you what to do and you execute, I’m dominating you. That’s why ads like “Stop smoking!” don’t ever work. Instead an ad like “Passive smoking can kill those around you. Will you save them?” might make a difference.
Buy-in is built by helping people reach the conclusion you want them to reach. “Be careful, you’re too close to the margin and people here drive at high speed” (which should help you reach the conclusion that by pulling yourself away from the margin is a good idea).
How should you react to… reactance?
Ignore or reframe. Ignore the person telling you what to do. Reframe the scenario to check if it’s an actual unsolicited “order” or a pertinent observation in a bad format. What’s really more important? To react based on your ego? To act passive-aggressive? Can ignoring what you were told to do lead to a potentially unsafe outcome? Ex: “move to the side, the train might hit you”
So here’s a bit of heuristics (mental shortcut) to deal with this: is what you’re being told to do a worthy recommendation or something safety-related? Yes -> then consider doing that. No -> is what you’re being told to do stomping on your freedom of personal choice? Yes, then ignore it and do what your heart or common sense tells you to do.
On the long run, rather than consuming yourself over nothing, just remove from your life these people that don’t respect your freedom. Last, here’s something to think about. When someone tell you what to do, why does it trigger you so bad? Could you really lose your freedom?
If you have enjoyed reading this or know someone who needs to hear all this, please go ahead and share it with your friends. Thank you!
