Can Validating Others Be the Secret that Makes you Likeable? Perhaps.
Includes the one and only four step method of validation!
How will the conversations that you have, and, consequently, the relationships that you maintain, change when you validate others instead of giving advice or being adversarial? That's the question that prompted me to read “I Hear You” by Michael Sorensen. The tiny book's thesis is simple - for people to like you, you need to validate them.
Since, over the years, I either implicitly or explicitly decided to don the armor of the devil's advocate in the discussions - nearly always taking the opposite stance to what was being discussed - it took me a while to get rid of the resistance while reading the book. Another hurdle was no doubt my belief that compassion - which oftentimes takes the form of validation - is often overrated; Validating other people's fears and struggles only makes them latch onto you as a means of emotional regulation. It also makes them unable to cope with the harsh realities that they need to confront in order to progress beyond their fears and struggles.
I'm delighted to say that despite having to overcome resistance greater than that of holding myself back before a plate of pancakes after a day of fasting, the book has convinced me of the value of social validation.
Before I tell you why, let us go through the hoops of defining what is that we're talking about.
Sorensen:
Effective validation has two components:
1. It identifies a specific emotion and;
2. It offers justification for feeling that emotion.
Let's paint a scenario for the above quote. Say a friend is telling you about her struggles at work:
“Wendy is being such an emotional vampire! She always comes to me when she has a problem and talks and talks and talks! I nod, listen, and sometimes I even ask a question (silly me), because I think that's what good friends do. When she finishes, I feel like a freshly squeezed lemon! And the best thing? We never discuss my struggles!”
As a validator par excellence, you answer:
“Wow, that seems like a lot to take in! I can imagine how frustrating it must be to take all that in and not even get a chance to talk yourself. I would feel the same way in that situation!”
Now notice what happened. Your friend has shared her emotion with you (frustration with Wendy). You validated her emotion (“I can imagine how frustrating that must be [...] I would feel the same way in that situation”).
This, according to Sorensen, is validation in its simplest form.
Notice, also, what didn't happen (which often does happen). First, there was no advice given. As a compulsive advice-giver, this was the first eye-opening thing: what? The person shares her struggles with you and you don't offer any advice? What is this sorcery?! Yes, apparently advice is optional, a point to which we’ll return to later.
Second, you (the validator) also shrewdly didn't try to “encourage” your friend through phrases such as: “I'm sure you'll be fine!” or “you are a strong person I'm sure you can handle it!” or “at least it's not [fill in the blank]”. Many of us (= me) never stop to reflect on what these phrases actually mean. Instead of offering encouragement, as we think or implicitly assume, these phrases invalidate people's plight. They communicate that whatever your friend has just shared with you is inconsequential.
I'm definitely guilty of offering such “encouragement” from time to time. Mostly because that's what I learned to tell myself: “ah, you didn't get the promotion? Well, there are children in Africa that starve and die every minute - not getting that promotion probably isn't the worst thing that could happen.”
Next to not offering encouragement or advice, the biggest eye-opener was something that probably doesn't even show on the radar of practiced validators. Namely, that validating doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with the person. In fact, you can validate people's emotions without agreeing with them about the issue they are sharing.
For instance, in the above example, you finished your bout of validation with the words: “I would feel the same way in that situation”. While this is perfectly fine if you can relate to her situation, you can also leave it out if you can't. After all, you can still imagine how frustrating it must be to listen to emotional babble for hours whilst not being able to chip in yourself.
This stretches beyond mere conversation with friends and relates to something that I - and presumably many of you - find important: having a discussion about a thorny, complex issue like climate change, feminism, or the like - what we discussed last week.
Most of us are positioned in some way when it comes to discussing such issues. You can imagine the positions on the dimension of totally agree to totally disagree. What I suspect often happens during a discussion is that people diverge, rather than converge, on the issue - they move their mild position of “somewhat agree” to “totally agree” and vice versa, just because more and more extreme arguments are needed to defend one’s position in the course of the conversation.
This is kind of funny if you consider that both sides are often equally correct. While I believe that complex issues such as climate change should be at the top of all the countries' agendas, you point out that the concern for the environment ought to share the spotlight with economic and social considerations: we can't shut off all the fossil fuel operations without descending into total chaos. Likewise, people would lose their livelihoods and identities had some change - say autonomous trucks - been implemented.
Thus, many of such discussions aren't necessarily about agreeing or disagreeing (most rational people wouldn't object to the above argument, I think). They are more about what we feel deserves more attention (environment, economy, or society), and whether we feel that our position is being validated or not by the conversational partner.
I've had many situations where I laid out an argument that was reasonable (I learned it was reasonable only a few days after the argument after the emotional turmoil has subsided) but still had to fight tooth and nail to defend it. I learned now that one of the factors that polarized us both in the conversation - maybe THE factor - is that neither of us extended the olive branch and validated the emotion that we were feeling at the time. As a result, we both felt unheard and thus unable to consider the other person’s point of view.
For instance, many people will feel strongly about the issues of social inequity, such as poverty. One of the ideas that make people argue for universal basic income or other approaches is the notion that poverty has a physical imprint on a person: the people who suffer from poverty often have cognitive impairments and have all sorts of other health-related and behavioral problems (eg. here). Thus, we ought to do whatever we can to lift people from poverty.
Now, if you play the devil's advocate and argue that the science behind adversity and poverty research is problematic, eg. methodologically flawed and hardly replicable, and thus that we should interpret the results with a grain of salt, the person on the opposite end might get (scratch that: will get) testy because she feels strongly about social inequity. Such evidence is not only an attack against her belief but also an attack against a just and noble cause of making sure that we even out the field for everyone and that people aren't discriminated against for where - or to whom - they are born. Not only that, but this person might also be sick and tired of hearing arguments that seem to "detract" from her cause.
You, on the other hand, might feel that the person disregards the evidence and uses motivated reasoning to uphold her view and the morality of her cause.
Validation might help to overcome this emotional barrier so that the rational side of the argument can sink in:
“Look, I get it. It must be frustrating to argue about such things, especially with someone who doesn't suffer from the consequences of poverty. I just wanted to point out we must be careful in how we approach the issue and don't overplay the "science" card. Not that poverty isn't an issue.”
To this, the person might say:
“Yeah, well, I thought the entire time you just didn't care about the plight of poor people. I can see that the evidence is a bit wobbly, but that shouldn't stop us from acting on the issue. Maybe knowing all the failed studies helps us to identify what exactly we can do - and in which context - to help alleviate the problem.”
I might be too idealistic here, but hey, nice people can exist at least on paper (or on a computer screen)!
The point is, validation might make conversations about thorny issues more palatable for both sides. It might be the ingredient that turns soldiers (motivated reasoning) into scouts (accuracy-based reasoning) and lead to all involved parties having a better understanding of the issue.
“Okay okay, you beat the point into submission”, I hear you say, “validation can help improve social interactions!” Yes, indeed, my very shrewd and perceptive reader. But if you think you grasped validation in its entirety, I'm here to disabuse you of such notions: you haven't mastered the craft of validation until, *drumroll*, you've learned the four-step method!
Let us now explicate what the method is about.
The Four-Step Validation Method
The first step is the step that many of us (= me) are truly bad at - listening. Nevertheless, we shouldn't skimp on this step because it's important. If the person is opening her heart to us, if she's not feeling heard, our validation efforts might go to vain. What are some situations that might make someone feel that we're not listening? Sorensen mentions distraction, such as when someone is phubbing you (looking at their phone instead of interacting with you). So, when someone talks to you, you listen by dropping everything else and absorbing every word the person says. Eat the person with your eyes if you can. Imagine swallowing her whole just by the sheer intensity of your stare. Ehm. Anyway. Listen carefully and avoid being distracted is what I meant to say.
If you thought that the four-step process culminates in validation, you were wrong. But that's okay - I had also guessed incorrectly. The second step - already! - is validation. After you turned every fiber of your being into an auditory receptive organ, it is now time to switch gears and become the connoisseur of emotions, the sommelier of affect, the ultimate feeler or feeleress! So, think on the emotional undertones of what's being said: is the person venting frustration? Is she confused, dazed, or flabbergasted? Or is she perhaps ecstatic from the promotion? Now it's time to validate all those juicy emotions! Here's where the emphatic people will naturally excel. But even those with the emotional capacity of a pebble ( = me) can do a decent job here. So, take a best guess and try to reflect on what the person is feeling. Practice makes perfect.
My time has finally come, for in the third step, you can finally give advice or encourage people. Sadly, Sorensen had to go ahead and ruin the fun by making this step purely optional. As I mentioned in the beginning, advice isn't in the validation package. What you can do, though - if you absolutely cannot withstand the pressure building in your chest, screaming that your friend absolutely needs to tell Wendy to fuck off and find a different victim for her emotional vampirism - is to politely ask whether she wants advice. If yes, you can go ahead, of course, but if not, you must now and forever keep the dark fantasies about Wendy to yourself.
Now, I won't harbor any illusions as to whether most of us (= me) can withstand such pressure: most of the time we won't, fail miserably and end up lecturing our friend about all the ways she can establish boundaries so that Wendy, the emotional vampire, can't suck out all the life energy out of them. If that happens, there's one last recourse before we must forever live under the label of a despicable person: apologize for the unsolicited advice.
Okay, the fourth step. Now pay attention because this is important: you validate the person once again! Because what's better than one instance of validation? That's right, it's two instances of validation! And that's what you're here to do. So, after you've had the chance to utter the words of advice - or not, remember, it's optional! - now is the time - once again! - to validate the emotion your friend is feeling. Since by now you already should have a good impression of what the person is feeling, you can simply reiterate the emotion or, if you're feeling especially fancy, use Thesaurus and look for synonyms. Not only can you dazzle (astonish, impress, amaze) your friend by being oh so perceptive and validating. But you can also truly show them your mastery of semantics (and that playing Scrabble with you is probably futile).
So, the four-step validation method consists of the following steps: listen, validate, offer advice or encouragement, and validate once again.
Conclusions
Despite the obvious sarcasm in the preceding section, I have begun implementing the lessons described above with, let's say, a modest amount of success. Why modest? Mostly because old habits die hard - I really struggle holding my advice back when people share their struggles or successes with me. But also because identifying and reflecting emotion is difficult. People are complex and the same situations can give rise to different emotions.
I also suspect that what we do during validation is to try to put ourselves into the other person's shoes and see how we'd feel had we been in their situation. If you generally aren't that sensitive ( = me), it's hard to truly feel the struggle or elation your friend feels. Here, though, I must say that I have already improved a bit. As with anything, identifying emotions can be trained and the more you'll do it, the better you'll be.
Validation is, without a doubt, truly a tool that makes other people like you more. And it's not difficult to see why... people crave validation, they live for it.
So, what better occupation can you find for your time than to save your friends from seeking validation:
outside of their relationships in the crotch of other people;
in the chips & sweets aisle in the supermarket;
or by getting a dog?1
That’s right, you can’t! So, get to it and start validating, you now know how!
Okay, I admit, never save your friends from #3!