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5 Simple Strategies to Prevent Group Disruptions · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

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  Welcome to Professor Peterson's Psychology Classroom,
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  connecting the science of human behavior to everyday life.
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  Here's Dr. Curtis Peterson.
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  And that is preventing disruptions.
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  The reason why I want to kind of give this a
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  general outline at the end of today is
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  because, again, over the next weeks we
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  are going to be going over this topic.
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  We're going to dismantle each
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  one of these 5 preventive
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  strategies. Okay, so how
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  do we prevent disruptions? Okay, one is to
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  get that agreement early. Uh, with the rules of
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  the group, raising your hand,
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  um, everyone giving a verbal agreement that we
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  won't disrupt when someone is talking,
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  uh, those kind of initial rules.
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  The 2nd one is listen and show respect,
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  and this is I, I will say
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  that these 2 through 5 are
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  all things that you role model
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  for the group. Okay, so this
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  is listen and show respect. And what number 2 is really talking about
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  is that we provide everyone in
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  the group with the same amount of opportunity to
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  talk. So that means
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  if I spend 2 minutes listening
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  and interacting with participant 1,
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  I will give that same about 2 minutes and whatnot to
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  participant 2, even if participant 2
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  does not have as much to share.
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  Okay, so you may be asking, but Dr. Peterson,
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  um, so what do you do? Just sit there? So they talk for 1 minute,
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  do you just sit there for another minute?
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  Uh, the answer is, uh, no.
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  The answer is, is that when that person has done
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  their processing for that 1
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  minute that they could process You then,
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  uh, give that moment, and we're going to be talking
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  about this a lot next week, that moment of
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  respectful silence so that if
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  they have more to say,
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  you— that they're provided that psychological
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  space to do it. So next week we will talk about counting
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  to 20 in your head Um, uh,
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  in a moment of sight, providing a moment of silence.
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  So it's that 1 minute and at least 20 seconds,
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  uh, of silence before you move on then
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  to the next participant. Okay, so that's what
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  this number 2, listening and showing respect. You'll notice that number
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  3 also says showing respect.
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  This is when we're working with
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  someone who, let's say we're giving each participant
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  2, 3 minutes and a participant is now
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  on their 5th, 6th, 7th minute. Okay,
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  this is really important to
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  recognize because it's showing respect,
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  is when a participant is starting to monopolize
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  the time, it is okay to say,
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  okay, Tom, thank you for sharing.
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  I know you have a lot to say,
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  but we really should hear from your other group members now.
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  Okay, and I want you to think about what
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  that's role modeling. You're not denying
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  what Tom is saying is not important.
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  What you're saying is, is yes, what you have to say is important,
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  but remember, we need to provide everybody
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  else with the same space.
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  Okay, and so remember that
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  that's not just Uh, rudely cutting in. And,
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  and, uh, it's modeling for Tom to
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  remember that he needs to be respectful
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  of everybody else and what everybody else has to say.
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  And it models to the other participants that
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  they have the right to have space too.
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  Okay, so that's why we have
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  number 2 and we have number 3. Both of them
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  have respect as their main premise.
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  Okay, number 4 is learn expectations.
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  Okay, learn expectations. You can— you'll
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  notice that this doesn't say that participants
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  learn the expectations. This says learn expectations.
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  This is you sitting in
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  the group and realizing what
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  you could expect from each participant and
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  their participation in the group.
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  So when you start to learn that Tom—
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  I'll use Tom again— has the propensity to
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  interrupt before someone's done talking,
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  then you should have the expectation of
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  Tom and, and making sure
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  that every time you have someone else speak
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  in the room, you give that behavioral reminder
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  of saying, let's hear what Sally has to say.
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  Let Sally speak before we start
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  to give Sally feedback. And so providing that
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  expectation that Tom's going to interrupt
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  and, uh, um,
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  and putting some type of prevention that
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  will remind Tom that the part that
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  we don't, uh, give feedback until
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  the person is done talking. Okay,
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  now I will tell you, with some Toms in the world,
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  you'll give that reminder and give that person the space,
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  and some individuals you'll just never get from
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  just having that need to talk before someone is done talking.
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  But at least you're providing that expectation and initiating
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  that preventative strategy. The 5th one is,
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  uh, you'll notice it says stay cool.
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  Okay, this means in some instances
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  not giving in to our human propensity
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  to get upset to get angry, to take
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  things personally, to, uh,
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  get on the defensive to defend our own egos,
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  um, and, and, uh,
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  um, those kinds of things. It's really about not
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  giving in to some of our natural reactions.
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  It's about us sitting and
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  calmly going through the,
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  um, conflict. Okay,
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  um, and, and I'll give 2 examples.
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  One, I'll give one in education, and then I'll give a group example
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  of what I mean by staying cool. Throughout my
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  career, many students, uh,
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  have had the tendency to get upset about
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  a grade I gave them.
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  And I have received over my career many
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  emails from students calling me a list of names,
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  calling me— I've even been called, I must be prejudiced,
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  or I must hate whatever
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  group they belong to. And Um,
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  they feel like I pick on them and all this kind of
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  stuff. And those emails, I will admit,
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  uh, take a personal hit.
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  Um, my natural reaction, if it was not
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  within my professional domain, would be to, uh,
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  send a lengthy email saying, if you ever call me this
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  ever again, da, da, da, da, da, da. The natural defensive
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  person in me, um, says it
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  gets under my skin. Okay.
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  The professor in me, uh,
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  has learned to reply and completely ignore
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  all the students' personal attacks and
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  focus on that student's specific work.
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  Uh, providing deeper feedback about the reason
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  why their assignment was assessed the way their assignment was assessed,
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  providing them with the academic
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  information and completely ignoring the personal
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  attacks. Uh, because what I've learned in
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  my years is, one, that is the best
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  thing for my mental health. Um,
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  because by providing that nonpersonal feedback
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  about their grade and the reason the grade was provided and
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  keeping me out of it, uh,
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  lets me let that go.
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  Um, and 2, the student,
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  um, seems to just
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  no longer email me anymore.
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  And make personal attacks. Well, I shouldn't
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  say they don't no longer email. They no longer email me making personal
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  attacks and continuing the narrative that
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  I must be prejudiced, I must be this, I must be that.
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  Okay, those conversations stop
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  because I don't feed into them. All right,
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  so that's an example from education.
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  An example from groups is, uh,
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  I have had group members get up and say things
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  like, um, you prefer this group member
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  over that group member. Um,
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  I've had a group member get up and say,
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  I think this group is bullshit and I
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  don't like it and I'm done with it and I'm What
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  you— what, what we're learning is just ridiculous. I've,
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  I've heard all of that. And again, the natural
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  propensity would be to escalate and to
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  say, uh-uh, no way. Um,
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  but, uh, the preventative
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  strategy is to stay cool,
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  give the group space to process what
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  that individual just said, recognize what that individual
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  just said, and not take it personally,
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  um, because they're going through an emotional crisis
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  of their own. They own the words that
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  they say, and you don't have to.
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  But also, you're role modeling to the group
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  about ways you cannot allow
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  a person to psychologically
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  and emotionally impact you.
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  Okay, and so when we say stay cool,
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  we're literally saying maintain your
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  emotions. And on the end of this, I will also
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  say staying cool also means,
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  uh, when a group has incredible successes
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  and everyone is clapping and everyone
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  is cheering. And I'm not saying don't sit back
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  and go, yeah, that's what we did. Okay,
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  don't— I'm not saying that. Yes, we clap,
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  we do those things, uh, but,
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  uh, what we do by staying cool is
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  allowing the group to take ownership
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  of that success. For us
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  kind of just staying and, and yes,
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  rewarding, doing the clapping hands, you guys did a really
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  good job, da da da, and let them
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  have the emotional excitement and
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  own it. You're allowing them to have that success
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  in that moment. And you were just there as
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  that facilitator, that person that helped them along.
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  Okay, so these are things that we will talk about
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  in more and more detail,
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  but I wanted to present them right now.
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  Um, and then what we will do— we're
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  actually going to come back to this— what we're going to do starting with
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  next week, and I'm going to stop, uh,
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  my recording because