De-escalation, Reflective Listening & Non-Complimentary Behavior

I was bullied as a child. I was constantly told by my teachers, my parents, and other people in authority, who I looked to for advice, that if I ignored my bullies they would go away – I tried it, and they didn’t go away; in fact, it made it worse, because the more I ignored them, the greater the lengths they’d go to, to get my attention. Nobody responds well to being ignored. When working door/bar security, If I was on my own and I had to separate two aggressors, whilst I was talking to one, the other would become frustrated that I wasn’t talking to them, and end up getting more emotional – he/she was invested in the dispute, and had no intention of walking away from it. It sounds a simple strategy: ignore them and they will go away, but deep down, we all know it’s fundamentally flawed, and will often escalate situations rather than de-escalate them. I have written a lot about de-escalation in this blog, however I’d like to talk about some proven methods that can be used effectively, in the right circumstances.

Firstly, de-escalation is rarely if ever successful in premeditated confrontations, where the aggressor has come to, or orchestrated the incident, with a goal or outcome in mind e.g. if a mugger demands your wallet, they are only going to be satisfied with one outcome – walking away with your wallet. If, however, you spill a drink over somebody, or act/behave in a way that causes them to become aggressive i.e. it is a spontaneously aggressive/violent situation, they may not have a goal/outcome in mind, and this is where de-escalation has its place.

If you’ve ever been in a heated/aggressive argument or confrontation, you may have had the feeling that the other party wasn’t listening to what you were saying – strangely enough, it is likely that they were feeling the same way. When people become angry/aggressive it is because they believe that they are in the right, and are justified to express themselves in the way that they are (even if this constitutes an assault – there doesn’t have to be physical contact for someone to assault you). By arguing back, and/or trying to make/state your case, you will be perpetuating this feeling in them, as they become baffled by the fact that you are not listening to them or taking them seriously i.e. you should be responding to what they are saying, not making a counter-argument. One tactic to get around this is to use a strategy known as reflective listening. With reflective listening, rather than trying to state your own case, you acknowledge your aggressor’s emotional state and position e.g. you say, “You seem really angry, why is that?” this gives an aggressor the chance to acknowledge their emotional state, and rationalize it. When they give the reason as to why they’re emotional, you may be able to validate it by agreeing that this would make you angry too…if that was in fact the situation; allowing you to start introducing some logic and reasoning into the confrontation. If they respond emotionally/aggressively to what you say, again you can reflect, by stating that you can see how they might see it this way, etc. De-escalation is a process. There are no silver bullets, but by helping the aggressor acknowledge their emotional state, there is a chance that they will respond positively.

One de-escalation strategy that has recently gotten a lot of attention is something called “Non-Complimentary Behavior”. This method involves responding to an aggressive individual, by acting/behaving in a way that doesn’t reflect the way that they are acting/behaving e.g. if somebody acts in an aggressive/nasty way towards you, you respond by being non-threatening and nice, etc. The aim of the strategy is to take away the aggressor’s justification for their angry behavior; it isn’t “fair” to be aggressive towards someone who is being nice/kind. The success of this strategy depends upon the emotional state of the aggressor, as well as the relationship they have with the person they are targeting i.e. they have to care about being seen to be fair, and to a certain extent reasonable, something that is more likely if they are still in control of their emotions, and care about how their target – and possibly those around them - perceives them.

It is important to note that ignoring someone isn’t a non-complimentary behavior. An example of a non-complimentary behavior, would be to bring in doughnuts to work, and offer one to someone who had been extremely rude and aggressive towards you – almost shaming them of their actions and behaviors. Ignoring someone at work who you had a dispute with, wouldn’t be a non-complimentary behavior, it would just be ignoring them, and if you actively and deliberately ignored them, it would in all likelihood make the situation much worse.

However, the concept of non-complimentary behavior has been used to justify an intervention strategy, that involves ignoring an aggressor, when intervening in a hate crime. There is a poster campaign around Boston at the moment, advocating that a person who witnesses an incident of religious/racist abuse should intervene by talking to the target about frivolous topics, such as the weather, movies they have seen, etc., until the aggressor/abuser gets bored and walks away. It’s a nice idea, but it is neither an effective strategy, nor an example of non-complimentary behavior. Just as with bullies, ignoring somebody who is invested enough in their view-point to publicly, verbally assault someone, is not going to see them go away, and may in fact escalate the situation.

Non-complimentary behavior can be effective, but usually only when that person cares about how they are perceived by others – not the case in most incidents of spontaneous violence, where de-escalation can be used.

Nothing comes with a guarantee, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution where de-escalation is concerned. Having a number of different tools in your toolbox, that can be applied in the appropriate situations, is your best survival strategy.