In an article by Harvard Business Review, using pronouns may reveal your focus. This may be nothing new or surprising to some of you, but it's worth some attention. Before you express a healthy dose of skepticism, this study was done by analyzing poems written by depressed or suicidal people compared to non-depressed individuals. The results were statistically significant. So how much and how often do we think about ourselves?
If you use "I" or "I think" a lot, then you may think about yourself more often than most people. It can also mean that you're insecure or depressed as depressed people often focus on themselves.
Using "they" and "we" also reveals differences on focus in a team setting. When talking about a project, say, in an interview, "we" may reveal the relationship between your team while "they" may suggest a lack of team conformity. Liars also tends to distance themselves from the lie by avoiding to use "I" and vice versa in their explanations.
It also doesn't take a psychologist to reach these conclusions either. While I won't be thinking about these simple truths every time I open my mouth, I will be a little more self-conscious with my speech, perhaps in an interview. I wouldn't suggest that you should avoid using "I" at all costs so take it with a grain of salt. I also know my audience, so I expect some of you to rip this article into pieces.
Thoughts? Do you trust this study? Do you or interviewers (unconsciously) pays attention to this?
But if you use "you" too much, you are too confrontational and aggressive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message
There's no winning!
Yea I agree. I met this sales manager once who kept asking me questions and using "you". It was like an interrogation. I guess it's all a balancing act.
This is really interesting. Do you have a link to this study with the poems? Would appreciate it, thanks.
Edit: Also appreciate the excessive use of "I" towards the end there... hahahaha
You can click on the link to the article from HBR which describes his study. It was a study done by James Pennebaker, who wrote "The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us". You might have to google the actual study, unless it was written in his book.
Oh geez, the excessive use of "I" towards the end was unintentional. I was told to add my own opinion to my posts. I can't help it!
Correction: megalomaniac
I don't think its a big issue. In interviews and other team situations, when somebody asks you a question, they are expecting to hear what YOU think. Isn't it just a way to show your opinion then?
I hate how "self-absorbed" has such negative connotations. I think people often confuse behaviors of the genuinely self-absorbed whoring up the attention and of the attention whores trying to act self-absorbed, with all the negative stereotypes being formed about the latter and attributed to the former.
The fundamental difference is that the genuinely self-absorbed have an internal locus of control, while the attention whores have an external one.
It translates into the attention whores trying to focus everyone else's attention on themselves, because they cannot focus their own, their mind simply doesn't comprehend you can do that.
Because of that, the attention whores will whore up attention from anyone and anywhere, they need to have that attention to feel worthy; but the self-absorbed activate the whoring mainly for realizable personal benefit.
That will probably the most noticeable difference, as the others aren't as easily perceptible at the first glance.
The big mistake people make is that they assume the self-absorbed are takers.
That couldn't be further from the truth. When the self-absorbed interact with people, they generally assume that people's universes revolve around themselves, vs. assuming that people are more interested in the approval of others.
That develops an interesting dynamic when it comes to contributions in anything - business, relationships, etc etc.
The truly self-absorbed will attempt their best (which is usually very good) to meet your needs if you are meeting theirs, and reject your contribution if either you are not meeting their needs, or if you are unnecessarily harming yourself in process.
But the attention whores don't have the internal mechanism to measure your contribution in terms of value to them. Even if you saved their life, the fact that they do not have the internal focus to bring to themselves will ensure that they would not feel happy and grateful for living another day, but rather happy that someone was paying enough attention to them to notice they were about to die.
Your contribution will never be reciprocated and you will never get any real gratitude. It is far more likely that the saved attention whore will try to covertly sabotage you or put you in danger so that he/she then could "come to your rescue" and enjoy the attention associated with being a "hero". If you ever want to help an attention whore, it is most definitely safer to do that anonymously.
And if an attention whore is trying to "help" you with anything - run. Either he/she is trying to take credit for work you are handling just fine yourself, or he/she is trying to indefinitely keep you in position of needing help, so that he/she can then get more attention for being such a good, kind person.
Wtf, where is the edit button
Are you re-posting it to get more attention? haha i'll delete it. Thanks for your insightful post.
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