Psychology of Complaining
Complaining is one of the biggest issue in our society from ages. There are many different thoughts about it some people believe it is necessary for betterment of the system. They think if they do not complain the things do not change and they suffer but when they complain, things do change for good. At the same time some people think that it is a negative behavior and once we start complaining we tend to continue it and use every opportunity to complain for everything. Some of the scholars find complaining as a natural act that expresses dissatisfaction. If we lose control over it and continue to complain it can be addictive. Dr. William Glasser lists seven habits that have a negative effect on our relationships with other people and complaining is one of them.
I have tried to put together the information about the different causes of complaining, the research work by various scholars, usefulness and the harmfulness of complaining as well as some tools and techniques for counselor’s use in this essay. Some interesting interviews are also there that helps us to understand that every individual thinks differently about complaining according to his experience but at the same time most of the people feel that it is a bad habit.
The word complaining comes from the Latin word complangere. Com means "very much" and plangere means, "To hit the chest". To hit the chest very much gives us a good image of someone who is complaining. It is hard to define complaining in few words because it varies from individual to individual some of the definitions by various authors and scholars are as following -
Steve Pavlina an American self-help author says complaining, like all thought patterns, is not mere observation but a creative act. It expresses dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief. It is not always bad and is not like a negative emotional reaction but addictive and the act of dwelling on the negative. The more you do it, even within your own mind, the more it becomes a habit and the harder it is to stop and then you summons your energy in finding faults and complaining.
Rose, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri, Columbia defines it differently and says “There’s a definite belief that talking about our problems makes you feel better,” “That’s true in moderation. ... It only becomes risky when it becomes excessive.” Positive people who are good at manifesting don’t complain. Even when things don’t go their way, they keep directing their thoughts towards the positive side. They expect that things will eventually go their way this clearly explains that complaining is a thought process and we can control it.
There are many causes of complaining some of them are give below. As we say “there is no smoke without fire” the complainer also thinks that he does not complain without reason. While complaining he is actually looking for something, even though he may not be aware of what it is at the time. We may complain about anything and everything that meets with our disapproval. It can be our health, wealth, neighbourhood, relatives, job, circumstances etc. Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron a Buddhist author says that we complain for various reasons may be because we simply want someone to recognize our suffering. Once they do, something inside us feels satisfied, but until they do, we go on and on telling our story. At other times, we complain out of self-pity or the wish to gain others' sympathy. Others may show they understand, but no matter what they say or do for us, we are dissatisfied and continue to lament.
Another author says we may complain in the hope that someone will fix our problem. Instead of asking someone directly for help, we recount our sad story again and again in the hope that he will get the message and change the situation for us. We may do this because we're too lazy or frightened and lack the confidence to solve the problem ourselves. For instance, we complain to a colleague about a disturbing situation at work in the hopes that she will go to the manager about it.
Some of the scholars say that we complain to vent our emotions and our feelings of powerlessness. We criticize government policies, the corruption of CEOs, and the politicking of the politicians that prevents them from actually caring for the country. We dislike these things, but we feel powerless to change them, so we mentally convict and banish the people involved. Sometimes we complain about the social problems we face in our life like discrimination, behavioural, sexual abuse, emotional or physical abuses. These kind of complaining are very common because such things happen in our life now and then that dissatisfies people and they try to raise the issue. Sometimes people who are competitive, aggressive, irritable, worry about deadlines also complain.
Sometimes complains are really helpful and protect us from many harms for example if we complain about the broken electric cable or the open manhole on the roadside we can prevent many accidents .There are many issues which are addressed and have received a fruitful result and the people who could not raise that issue really feel thankful to the one who had the courage to complained about it. Specially complaining about the injustice of the senior authority where many subordinates suffer but don’t have the courage there somebody takes the initiative to resolve the issue which helps the rest of people.
A vast psychological research has been done on complaining in various fields like customer service, e-service, clients, customer, married romantic couples, old age, sports, family, relationship etc.
Skye Arthur-Banning Clemson University and Mary Sara Wells University of Utah examined the the relationship between adult behaviors and young (third through sixth grade) athlete behaviors in a community recreation basketball league. It was discovered that the sports programs improve the positive behavior and decrease the negative behavior if planned appropriately. The behavior of the coach and the positive spectators also play a very important role in the positive behavior of the players. This information will help youth sport administrators to understand that they should develop programs that promote positive sportsmanship and discourage negative sportsmanship.
Another research by Alberts, J. K, Noller and Fitzpatrick 1993 on complaining and nagging is focused on married or romantic couples. Most of the people understand that the relationship depends on understanding and the mutual respect for each other but still they complain. Research indicates that parental satisfaction and adjustment is the key to overall family health and functioning .Thus, when parents manage their complaints effectively, family adjustment is likely increased.
According to Gottman 1979 Alberts 1988 various studies examined relationship satisfaction and complaining and found that satisfied and dissatisfied couples manage their complaints differently. One of the most consistent findings is that dissatisfied couples are more likely to cross-complain; that is, they respond to a complaint with a complaint. Whereas satisfied couples complain about specific behavior rather than general personality characteristics, they are more positive in their affect when they do complain, and they are more likely to respond to their partners' complaints with agreement or apologies. Overall, happy couples manage their complaints more effectively and are less likely to escalate complaint episodes.
This does not mean that happy couples complain less but because of their positive attitude they handle it differently. They do not hold it but complain and resolve the issue. Whereas very unhappy couples do not complain they withhold it due to their perception that they will not be received well or will have little effect. The lack of complaining was attributed to the chilling effect by (Roloff and Cloven 1990).
This is my personal experience also that in the family when we complain positively and respond with agreement and apology all the family members are satisfied and confide each other.
In one of the journals of clinical psychology it was noticed that recent years have seen a surge of interest in the positive psychology movement. The emphasis of positive psychology is on human virtue rather than on human vice, on human strength rather than human frailty. Thus, the purpose of the present article is to broaden the scope of positive psychology by examining, in addition to its negative facets, the positive features of one particular aversive behavior, complaining. It shows indeed, positivity in the negativity.
Some of the leading scholars who worked on Psychology of Complaining are Mark D. Alicke Ohio University ,James C. Braun University of Florida, Jeffrey E. Glor University of Florida, M. L. Klotz Susquehanna University, Jon Magee University of Florida, Heather University of Florida .They observed complaining is a pervasive and important form of social communication. The present study was the first to examine the role of complaining in everyday social interactions. College students kept diaries of the complaints they made to other people for 3 consecutive days, twice during the semester. Students recorded the complaint, the reason for expressing it, and the response it elicited. Over 75% of all complaints registered were non instrumental in nature, in that they were not directed at changing an existing state of affairs but, rather, were expressed for reasons such as to vent frustration or to solicit sympathy. The most frequent complaints involved specific behaviours of another person. The most frequent response to a complaint was to agree with the complainer's statement. The importance of complaining as a form of social communication is discussed, and a number of hypotheses are generated for future research.
Literature suggests that the antecedents of complaining involve more than dissatisfaction alone; several other factors affect consumers' propensity to complain. This study examined the effects of personality and behavioural factors on consumers' propensity to complain. Findings suggest that consumers' locus of control and their price consciousness have a significant impact on their propensity to complain.
Jen-Hung Huang and Chiao-Chen Chang from National Chiao-Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and ROC collected data from 252 respondents in a questionnaire survey. They observed that personality traits in terms of internally oriented Type A and locus of control may moderate the relationship among e-service failures, consumer complaint behaviour, and service recovery but at the failure of e-service the consumer gets aggressive. Whereas Type B and externally oriented consumers tend to tolerate e-service failures and refrain from complaining.
The purpose in this study was to explore the moderating effects of personality traits. With regard to personalities, Type A consumers tend to engage in aggressive complaint behaviour because they are competitive, aggressive, irritable, worry about deadlines, and are work- and achievement-oriented. Consequently, they may not tolerate the faults. On the other hand, internally oriented consumers believe in their own control of things and that complaints can improve the performance. The findings show that individuals’ achievement orientation and perception of control over others influences their behaviour.
Lynn Goetzinger, Jung Kun Park, Richard Widdows Cardiff University, United Kingdom Researcher in Strategic Marketing researched on e service, e-customer complaining and observed that complaining depends on the personal behaviour.
It was observed that the complaining is also because of the dysfunctional clients who deliberately or unintentionally disrupt service in a manner that negatively affects the organization or other clients. Such behaviour involves service encounters.
When a client complains in a positive manner and ask for the help to fix counselor can recognize complaining as an issue for a client. The client will be able to tell the specific reason which is the cause of his dissatisfaction. On rephrasing the issue and asking questions the counselor may get to the bottom of the situation. On offering the solution if the client is satisfied and is thankful it means this was an issue. Even it can be checked with other people at the same place if others are also from the same thing then for sure the problem needs to be fixed. The councilor may ask various questions like how long was the issue and how often he has the complain ? That will help the counselor to recognize the issue.
Sometimes complaining is useful for the client it sounds strange but Zig Ziglar examined that “Statistics suggest that when clients complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining clients represent a huge opportunity for more business”
Marketers agree that consumer complaints are useful sources of information that help marketers identify sources of dissatisfaction, and therefore should be encouraged. However, does complaining have a more direct beneficial effect? Consumer complaining by itself cause increased satisfaction by allowing dissatisfied consumers a chance to vent their anger and frustration. An experiment was conducted on real consumers to test what effects complaining may have on changes in the consumers’ satisfaction and product evaluations over a one-week period. It was found that consumers who were encouraged to complain reported greater increases in satisfaction and product evaluation compared to consumers who were not asked to complain. The changes in satisfaction and product evaluations were found to be related to the complaining intensity.
Complains about discrimination, language, and sexual harassment, emotional and physical abuse seems to be well addressed and understood and thus we have the law protecting all these issues too. History speaks that many times a law and policy is introduced on the bases of complaints though it seems to be a complaint but actually it is an issue raised by some bold people at times and all others are benefitted by that. Like at the work place if we experience any kind of discrimination or sexual harassment we can complain about it and there is a law to deal with such issues that helps the complainer. Specially complaining about the injustice of the senior authority where many subordinates suffer everyday but don’t have the courage to talk about it, there somebody takes the initiative to resolve the issue helps rest of the people.
At times small complains are really helpful and protect us from harm for example if we complain about the broken electric cable or the open manhole on the roadside we can prevent accidents. Same way if the client is not happy with the counsellor he can speak about it and get another one for help after all it the question of his time and life. Client’s satisfaction is very important for the company sometimes his dissatisfaction may bring some good changes for everyone.
Scholars have examined that complaining is a negative behavior and it is not good to get into this habit. We do not gain out of it rather it is frustrating most of the time. Some people in old age do complaining just to get attention because they feel that they are not wanted by their family members and thus make the situation even worst because the family thinks that the person is thankless and has no tolerance. Same thing happens in any kind of relationship no one likes the complaining behavior and when it happens the differences get wider. In the beginning of the essay it is mentioned that Dr. William Glasser lists seven habits that have a negative effect on our relationships with other people and complaining is of them.
Constant complaining is really harmful Alexander Kjerulf has given the following reasons for it- 1: It makes things look worse than they are 2: It becomes a habit 3: You get what you focus on 4: It leads to one down man ship 5: It makes people despondent 6: It kills innovation 7: It favors negative people 8: It promotes bad relationships 9: It creates cliques 10: Pessimism is bad for you.
Lindsay Swinton an experienced people manager and business coach says if the team is complaining about some issue it means people are dissatisfied. Your ignorance will gradually shut down your communication channels and you will lose the confidence of the team. It is important to listen to the complaint positively and prepare yourself how to talk about it, what and where to talk about it. Effective and empathetic communication can help the person and the counselor may use it as tool. The technique to understand the complainer is to ask questions and get the reason for it with patience. It is found that there is an inverse relationship between politeness and complaining behavior. When the client seems to complain for too many things and for a longer time and do not have the positive attitude it shows that it is his /her negative behavior. People who often have problems in any kind of relationship have negative attitude towards life may be suffering from the negative behavior. Counselor may come to know about this with the time period of complains and the number of complains a person has.
From the above paragraph we understand that dissatisfaction is the major cause of complaining. It can be because of poor service, delay in the service, in business like tourism industry and travel agencies the cost or the special deal may be the issue. Counselor needs to find the root cause of complain instead of just ignoring it or taking it as a negative behavior. We can’t say that every complaint is because of the negative behavior of the person with this kind of response the complainer may feel neglected and become aggressive and actually pick the negative behavior.
Interview from five different people on how complaining influences them is as following -
It was really interesting to know from others how complaining influences them. My own son was the first one whom I asked this question and he immediately said “only silly people complain, others know how to deal with it and they fix the problem by talking to the right person right then and there. Complaining is like a long story which never ends, he also believed that it is an excuse when we fail in something. It is very easy to blame and complain about others and get away with it many people do this all the time. Such people are not liked by others. He believes that use of sense of humor is the best way to avoid it.
Another young boy a friend of my son said yes it is good to complain about wrong things because it helps the person to change. Sometimes a person does not know that he is not doing the right thing unless somebody points it out. Good people always take it positively but some may get rebellious. He also has an impression that it is a bad habit for some people because they always look for the opportunity to complain and most of the old people and small children do it.
A senior lady who was my clique and had also worked for many years at a very responsible position said yes we do have complains sometimes which is very natural. It is good to talk to the person concerned if we have some problem rather than keeping it to ourselves. She also believed that some people have the habit of complaining because their tolerance is very low they complain for everything and anything. At work if you keep complaining about everything you lose your reputation and respect and if you genuinely complain for something you are readily heard and respected.
A very interesting man who is a grandfather does not agree that complaining is a behavior. He has many complaints from his life and believes that only the person who has problem complains it is not because of his behavior. At the same time he is very positive because he believes in karma he related complaining to karma that it is our bad karma we meet bad people and suffer because of their behavior and diseases. He said we can’t blame anyone for anything it is only our karma which makes a person good or bad. Yes complaining gives him the satisfaction that somebody is there to listen to him which is enough at this stage because he knows can’t change anything.
A young lady who recently got married says that she does not like complaining because it makes her feel weak. She gets frustrated if she complains and it does not work. She even does not like people who keep complaining one after the other and thinks it is a bad habit. According to her most of the people who have negative attitude towards the life have this habit and they are never happy. They actually want others to feel pity for them instead of changing their behavior.
From the above interview from five different people of different ages it is clear that everybody has his or her own view some are same and some are different .Like in the first interview from my son I can see his thoughts are straight from his family teachings. As a child he was never encouraged to complain about things rather he was supported to find a solution by himself and talk straight to the person concerned. He developed a habit of it and now he really finds that complaining is an excuse. His friend who has younger brother and sister has a different opinion and feels complaining is good. As he is encouraged by his parent to complain them about his brother and sister if they do something wrong to correct them. My clique finds it a very natural reaction but she strongly feels that one should not complain too much but when it really bothers you should not keep it to yourself talk about it and resolve the issue. Her suggestion is to take it positively not as a negative behavior of complaining. All her thoughts are based on her job experience. The gentleman I talked to is a senior Asian man his thoughts are based on his culture, he is a religious person. He basically feels helpless about his present situation and strongly believes in karma and a good thing about him is in spite of having a complaining behavior he is a positive person because he things that he is surrounded with good people and have their support. He does not have ill feelings for anyone he only blames his karma. The young lady talks according to her situation and experience because as a newly married person surely she is making a lot of adjustment and is very positive about it. She feels that complaining behavior is a week behavior and show the failure in adjustment.
Thus we can see that all have their views based on their personal experience and circumstances. All of them agree that complaining is a habit ones you start you continue it and nobody likes it. It can also be taken positively to change for good. The young boy pointed a very different thing that only old people or small children complain most of the time. I do not completely agree with this because even some teenagers complain a lot.
References-
1- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/08/complaining
2- http://www.thubtenchodron.org/DailyLifeDharma/my_favorite_pastime_complaining.html (My Favorite Pastime: Complaining by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron©
3- http://positivesharing.com/2007/08/top-10-reasons-why-constant-complaining-is-so-toxic-in-the-workplace/
4- Department of Psychology at Clemson University - Dr. June Pilcher http://www.clemson.edu/psych/ourresearch/drivesim.htm
5- Robin M. Kowalski -Journal of Clinical Psychology ,Volume 58, Issue 9 , Pages1023 - 1035 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/98015744/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
6- Rapport, Zachary. International Journal of Reality Therapy, Spring2007, Vol. 26 Issue 2, p26-27, 2p
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=6&hid=4&sid=58fdf459-4b40-4ef2-8c84-3dc94cca60ad%40sessionmgr4
7- Jen-Hung Huang and Chiao-Chen Chang National Chiao-Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=7&hid=4&sid=a5b4d79a-ebeb-46d1-b4e7-d6ee9881b0f7%40sessionmgr10
8- Journal of Service Research, Vol. 6, No. 2, 144-161 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/1094670503257044
9- Arthur-Banning, Skye; Wells, Mary Sara; Baker, Birgitta L.; Hegreness, Ryan. Journal of Sport Behavior, Mar2009, Vol. 32 Issue 1, p3-18,
