Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Teenagers are less likely to cooperate and put effort into their mother's requests when they are said in a controlling tone of voice, researchers have found.
Speaking to a son or daughter in a pressurising tone is also accompanied by a range of negative emotions and less feelings of closeness, a new study has discovered.
The experimental study involving over 1000 adolescents aged 14-15 is the first to examine how subjects respond to the tone of voice when receiving instructions from their mothers, even when the specific words that are used are exactly the same.
Lead author of the study Dr Netta Weinstein, from Cardiff University, said: "If parents want conversations with their teens to have the most benefit, it's important to remember to use supportive tones of voice. It's easy for parents to forget, especially if they are feeling stressed, tired, or pressured themselves."
The study showed that subjects were much more likely to engage with instructions that conveyed a sense of encouragement and support for self-expression and choice.
The results, whilst of obvious interest to parents, could also be of relevance to schoolteachers whose use of more motivational language could impact the learning and well-being of students in their classrooms.
"Adolescents likely feel more cared about and happier, and as a result they try harder at school, when parents and teachers speak in supportive rather than pressuring tones of voice," Dr Weinstein continued.
The new study, published today in the journal Developmental Psychology[*], involved 486 males and 514 females, aged 14-15.
[*] Paywalled
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:56AM (17 children)
Bosses who talk like that also dig up resentment by treating the workers as children rather than adults to be talked to like sentient reasoning beings and not slaves there just to hear and obey.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:09AM (16 children)
And bosses who have conversations rather than issuing orders get walked all over, have shitty productivity, and get fired by their own boss for sucking at their job. Having a conversation is fine in its place but when you need something done you tell not suggest.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:31AM (5 children)
If only there were some kind of ancient tradition where the boss does real work in the trenches as primus inter pares.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:49AM (4 children)
That's how I run my small engineering company. I'm not "friends" with my contracted workers, but I don't lord it over them either. If they have a personal issue that gets in the way of work, I'm open to discussing how to get everything done (including their personal problem). I never issue "orders", but I do make it clear what we have promised our customers so everyone knows the schedule. While I can't do everything they do, I know our specialty very well, so I can catch errors before we deliver a mistake.
It has been working fine since my father started the company in 1976, I've been managing since late '90's.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:56AM (3 children)
Your workers are walking all over you, and you need to dominate them with an iron fist or wing or beak or pecker or whatever a buzzard uses to peck his underlings to death before he eats their tasty corpses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:21AM (2 children)
Unhappy workers are proven to be less productive. They're also more likely to engage in union activity when pushed too far. I keep hearing all these anti-union rants by people who were never members of a union, but I was a member of the steelworkers at one job, and they would make a good union for IT workers. Got to love the leverage of a badass reputation when it comes to negotiating.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:25AM (1 child)
Buzzard's a one-bird productivity machine, cranking out productivity like nobody's business. He has to be, because nobody will work for him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @04:07AM
As I'm laughing, I really want a mod that looks like this:
"Insightful?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jelizondo on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:57AM (4 children)
Bollocks! Different people react differently to a given stimulus.
I don’t get along well with authoritarian figures. Sorry to brag, but I have a superior intellect, two degrees (Engineering and Law), speak several languages and no asshat is going to simply order me around because by happenstance he has a higher hierarchical position. I have told fuck off to many bosses, including a Police Chief of a medium-sized city and the fucking Mayor.
When commanding, I prefer to explain what needs to be done and why, because I want the person doing the work to be able to suggest a better way of doing it. Sitting behind a desk is a sure-fire way to miss many things that happen on the field (or factory floor, or sales area, whatever) and the line worker has a better grasp of the real situation.
Of course, despite my superior qualifications, I do not assume that I know better than the people actually doing the work; which seems to be your position. Like Socrates, I know that I know nothing…
Now try and walk over me and you’ll get your ass handed to you so fast you won’t notice you are sitting on your sacrum bone.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:39PM (1 child)
There are six basic styles of leadership. You seem to be describing the coach. Make it a team effort, get everyone's input, consider all the input, get everyone onboard, make a final decision, make certain everyone understands their job, then stand back and watch it happen.
You also seem to be something of an authoritarian. Few people resent abuse of authority more than an authoritarian. Very few, as in, almost none.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday October 02 2019, @10:20PM
Quite right. If push comes to shove, I can be Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao all rolled into one. I prefer to get along and get the job done, but in a crunch, I will bite anyone’s head off!
I might regret it later and have apologized more than once, even publicly, but it’s all part of the job.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:06PM (1 child)
Well, aren't you just the special one then. Hope you're good enough to keep food on the table with that attitude, because it's going to cost you a lot of work.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday October 02 2019, @10:23PM
Thanks for your concern. Food is plentiful and so is work. As Diogenes remarked, I rather eats lentils than bow to the Great Alexander.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @01:17PM (1 child)
Found the authoritarian, condescending, controlling boss.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:04PM
It's amusing that you think you need to qualify the word "boss" like that. Two of those three qualities are integral to the meaning of the word.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:59PM (2 children)
Hahaha thank god I don't work around people like this anymore.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:02PM (1 child)
That you can't tell the difference between a reasonable person who is still ultimately the boss and a power-mad asshat says a lot about you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday October 02 2019, @10:32PM
I must have forgotten in all the years since my last peasant job.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:12AM (11 children)
I notice they segregated the study based on sex of the parent. What were the results for fathers? I dunno about you lot but I was never remotely intimidated by my mother (no matter how angry or adamant she became) as a teenager.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:21AM (2 children)
And here I thought you just sort of spawned under a rock somewhere ;)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday October 02 2019, @12:31PM
FTFY
compiling...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:10PM
Naw, under a cabbage leaf.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:38AM (7 children)
This explains so much. Either you view intimidation only in terms of physical capability of violence, or your mother was so submissive to your father than it is now wonder you are the way you are. So, sociopath or run-of-the-mill asshole taught through intimidation?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:15PM (6 children)
More the fact that pretty much nobody's mother can actually make a teenage male do anything that they don't want to do. They lack the very crucial fallback ability to do so and can be pretty much completely ignored if such is the cut of the adolescent's jib.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday October 02 2019, @04:10PM (5 children)
Yeah your mom was a pussy. Mine was an idiot but anything like you're talking about would have sent me to some sort of camp for molesting troubled teens.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:06PM (4 children)
And how would she have done that? Were you an epic pussy yourself? I mean I know they exist but I haven't actually met any. Very few women can physically make a teenage boy do anything he doesn't want to, so all they have is talk. If the boy realizes this, he can ignore her and do whatever he likes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday October 02 2019, @10:27PM (3 children)
Women can always find a man to hurt people for them. If it makes you feel better my dad blew his brains out and I've managed to bring trouble to some of the other enablers as an adult.
By the way I left my six figure fortune 50 job at noon today so I could smoke weed. This is possible because I maintain a zero asshole lifestyle inspired by lovely parents.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:29PM (2 children)
Am I supposed to be impressed that you're a backstabbing, ladder climbing prick instead of a micromanaging one?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Thursday October 03 2019, @10:40PM (1 child)
Why would you antagonistically troll the same forum you're supposed to moderate? I don't understand.
In that same vein you're barely able to moderate an internet forum so of course you can't handle any sort of professional authority. I haven't had a boss say anything remotely nasty to me in over a decade and these workplaces are more productive and much less stressful than anywhere I'd worked in my younger days. Sure I see people get fired or whatever but at least they don't have to worry about some shitheel boss rubbing it in and getting their jollies off over the incident.
I do understand how terrifying it must be for you to think that someone from your past would track down folks with current grievances and give them the tools to hold you accountable. Totally unfair right?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 06 2019, @04:26AM
That ain't trolling and this forum is fairly well unmoderated. It's just a case of you come at me talking shit and you're not going to get hugs and puppies in return.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:12AM (2 children)
End transmission.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:19AM (1 child)
Begin Transmission.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:34AM
I'm a vagitarian.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:15AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lS_l0mx-JQ [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by Sally_G on Wednesday October 02 2019, @06:08AM (4 children)
I'm trying to think of any mother with an IQ larger than her shoe size who didn't know this already. If we can find such a mother, she is probably psychotic.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:38AM
Psychosis is more common among smart people. So I doubt she'd be psychotic.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Wednesday October 02 2019, @11:22AM (2 children)
I see it all the time - mothers ineffectually screaming at their kids who are running amok up and down the aisles of the grocery store, sometimes even grabbing them and yanking them by their arms.
Perhaps it's a selection bias (I only tend to notice the loud, obnoxious ones), but I seem to see a lot more bad parents than good out in public.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 02 2019, @03:32PM
You notice bad behavior a lot more than good behavior. As a parent, it's easy to discipline the bad and not praise the good. You need to support the good behavior, so they are more likely to make good choices. Even as adults, when you've done a good job, it's nice to hear your boss say so, if you indeed did a good job.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by Sally_G on Thursday October 03 2019, @07:12AM
Generally speaking, those children throwing tantrums in a store are not the teenagers under discussion. There is no excuse for those tantrum throwing children, and IMO, both mother and child should be spanked. But teens are a different breed of animal from toddlers and young children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:45PM (1 child)
What's missing here are consequences. If there are no consequences either way, this result makes sense. If there *are* consequences, then these results are flawed and don't take those consequences into account. For example, when I was growing up, it was guaranteed that if I didn't do what my parents said when they used a stern voice (aka controlling), it was not going to work out well for me. And they only used that tone when something was very important, or I had screwed up or wasn't listening and showed that I needed some direction to get back on track. When I heard that controlling tone of voice, I immediately paid attention and did what I was told.
Consequences work. And are part of life.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday October 02 2019, @04:05PM
If the consequences are there and immediate I've noticed you can say it however you want. No video games for a day has been threatened and will become a fact as unavoidable as any force of nature. It will not be walked back and continuing will mean it goes to a month pretty damn fast.
If this is all over some shit yesterday you'll have mixed results and might want to let some things slide.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday October 02 2019, @06:07PM (1 child)
By 14-15 that teenager should be well on their way to being an independent adult. If you're still treating that teenager like a child then you have failed as a parent.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 02 2019, @07:32PM
yeah, this is the point. they are growing up and don't want to be bossed around anymore. if you haven't taught them to respect you by then, you're fucked.