What makes people mean

For example, a wife doesn't want to deal with her overspending problem and ignores the fact that they are going more into debt. Eventually their house is foreclosed on because she had not told her husband she hadn't been paying the bills.

Feelings of superiority can lead to mean behavior that may not always be deliberate but can be very hurtful to others. Different from a superiority complex that stems from low self-esteem, some people truly believe they are superior to others. Sometimes this is due to being taught from a young age that being born into privilege or money or with certain qualities makes them better than other people.

Some who believe this feel that they have an obligation to treat those lesser than them with respect. However, others may have disdain for those they perceive as less than them and treat them with a lack of understanding or compassion.

Some people who have achieved success early in life and easily may also develop this attitude of superiority. Due to their success they are often treated as if they are better than others and they may come to believe that they deserve to be treated this way by everyone. Therefore, they may be rude and demanding. Finally, some people have a sense of superiority because of their beliefs.

For instance, they may have a sense of moral superiority such as people discussed earlier who believe that total honesty, no matter how hurtful, is being genuine. Or, people who believe that they are always right so their opinion is more valid than others' opinions. Or, someone who rebels against the status quo or against being politically correct because they believe it is phoney. These people believe in their right to behave in ways that might hurt other people because they are doing it for morally superior reasons.

Being mean due to mental problems is nearer to the malicious end of the continuum because of the severity of the events that can occur. However, it is very important to recognize that most people who have mental illness are not mean or are probably more in the self-protective category if they are mean. This category is referring to those people who have severe mental disturbance causing them to be mean. Although someone who has mental illness may be unintentional in their meanness, they can sometimes be quite hurtful.

For example, a person with paranoid schizophrenia may become very anxious in certain situations and react with a great deal of anger against undeserving targets. Sometimes this can reach the level of physical aggression. I do need to reiterate, however, that most people with mental illness and even paranoid schizophrenia are not hurtful to others. Other times people with mental illness can be mean indirectly. For instance, a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder who demands that her family engage in excessive cleaning behavior such as showering before they come into the house.

If they don't comply, she becomes very angry in her attempt to control them. The worst of the meanness due to mental disturbance is psychopathy. A psychopath is usually quite intentional in their meanness and often malicious. This type of person may also derive pleasure from meanness and would therefore be in the next category as well.

A psychopath is often the most dangerous type of person because they can frequently be very charming and disarming. Often you may not know you are dealing with a psychopath until it is too late. Fortunately, the type of psychopath that you see in movies who is physically dangerous is more rare. However, psychopath refers to anyone who doesn't have a conscience and is willing to take advantage of other people for their own personal gain without feeling any regret. Therefore, they can cause a great deal of harm whether they are a salesperson or a politician or a criminal.

I placed the pleasure-seeking reason as the most intentional and malicious of the reasons for being mean because I find it most disturbing. Even though some of the behaviors may not be excessive, people who act mean based on this reason are doing so due to a self-centeredness and complete disregard of others. They seek to feel good at the expense of others. The following categories are based upon the type of reward they obtain by being mean.

Frequently people engage in mean behavior because of the attention they gain. Attention doesn't even have to be positive to be rewarding. We see this frequently in children who misbehave and are mean to others because they get noticed. Unfortunately, some people never grow up and continue to hurt others in adulthood for the purpose of obtaining notice. Some people confuse respect with fear. They believe that if they mistreat someone they will gain respect.

However, what they achieve is obedience based on fear. For example, a boss who threatens employees with termination for minor problems to keep them in line. One of the most rewarding aspects of being mean is obtaining power. Making someone else hurt or react gives them control over that person and allows them to feel more powerful. The attempt to gain power can be either direct and aggressive or it can be passive-aggressive.

Sometimes the passive-aggressive is more difficult to recognize. All I did was give you a compliment. Some circumstances reward meanness with monetary gain. For instance, someone who profits from insider trading to the detriment of the shareholders of a company. Or, people who trash their competitor's products online to improve their own sales.

As you see from the above reasons, most people are mean due to some flaw in themselves or distortion in their thinking. Usually, unless you have done something significant, it is not about you. However, just because you don't deserve to be treated meanly, don't respond with mean behavior. That only validates and rewards the person who is mean by giving them permission to behave meanly in return. Attention and escalation of the conflict rewards the mean behavior because it allows them to place the blame on you.

As I wrote this article, I realized that another article that could be helpful would be describing ways to handle the behavior based upon these different reasons for meanness. Hopefully, I will be able to write that article soon. However, the main purpose of this article is to help people recognize that meanness is rewarded when the attack is successful.

But it needs the recipient's participation to be successful. In other words, when the recipient feels bad about him or herself, the meanness has been successful. Therefore, what you can do is to not participate. Recognize that unless you have done something that clearly hurts someone else, you are not the cause of the meanness. Don't base your self-worth on someone else's opinion or treatment of you. Don't feel bad about yourself when someone is mean to you. Instead, pity them or feel sad for them that their experience of the world is so negative and limited.

They are likely to experience the consequences of their meanness and won't live very happy lives. Building Blocks Emotion Training. Hot Springs Relaxation. Panic Assistance While Driving. When her parents yelled, shouted, said mean things or hit her, they were acting out their anger. This distinction was an important one to understand. Most people fear anger because they equate it with hurtful, scary and destructive actions.

Anger happens so fast that the internal experience and the actions that follow appear to be one and the same. We have the internal experience and we act on it in an instant.

With a little practice, we can slow down the whole experience of being angry into the two steps it actually is. By slowing down just a little bit, we can begin to notice a variety of things happening inside that hold the key to managing anger much more effectively. I explained to Cecily that we had to help her learn to experience her anger but NOT discharge it with yelling. So, what does it mean to simply experience our anger without acting it out? Staying with the experience of anger without doing anything is a challenge.

And it works in the moment. But there are always negative consequences to acting out. In summary, when we react in impulsive ways as a result of our anger, we are acting out. There is also a term called acting in. Remind yourself that there may be so much more than just plain rudeness going on and filter out your instinctive response. Whether the reason is emotional, social, psychological, or cultural, there will be some trigger or othe for the behavior you find hurtful or unacceptable.

Whatever the issues behind the behavior — any one of the above or a whole host of others — you have no control over the circumstances underlying the action. But you can control how you respond. Remember that you have a choice in the way you react and responding like-for-like is rarely the best response. Take the time to find out what triggered the rudeness.

Try to curb your instinctive response and stop yourself from retaliating. Removing yourself from the challenging situation is the most effective way to avoid being in the firing line for more rude behavior from the same person. Remember that you may unknowingly be guilty of upsetting people from other cultures by acting in a way which you consider to be quite normal.

This gives the other person a chance to calm down and readjust their behavior. Perhaps you can, in a small way, reverse the cycle and spread some joy instead! Imagine that person shrinking to one inch tall. Picture your enemy stomping around in the palm of your hand, yelling or sneering all the customary cruelties. You'll find that if your critic is making a valid point, it will still sound accurate, but mere verbal abuse is hilarious when squeaked in the voice of an inch-tall Mini-Mean.

Whatever your reaction to this tiny villain, that's probably the best way to react to your life-size challenger. If the insults are laughable, just laugh. If the mean person has a point, tell her that you get it, but she could stand to work on her people skills. Practice what you would say if you felt big and invulnerable, then say it, even if you're scared. Be "big" by responding to cruelty with honest calm rather than aggression or submissiveness. Ernest Hemingway claimed the most essential talent for a good writer was simply a "built-in, shockproof shit detector.

To write the stories of our lives as honestly as possible, we must thoroughly reject crap. This is especially useful when cruelty masquerades as kindness. Some of the most merciless behavior ever perpetrated looks very nice. The sweeter a lie sounds, the meaner it really is. The difference is that honesty, even the tough stuff, makes you feel clearer and stronger, while meanness leaves you mired in shame, despair, and frailty.

This is true physically as well as psychologically. I sometimes make my clients do push-ups while repeating feedback they've been given, such as "I need to lose 20 pounds" or "I should be nicer. If it's true, they become stronger.