One of the biggest problems in the world today and the root cause of every conflict, argument or fight that ever occurred, is a psychology called External Control. It has been stated that up to 90% of the world’s population may operate using this psychology as a basis for their thinking and relationships.
External Control is the belief that if only the “other”- he, she, it or they, would behave the way I/we think they should, then all would be well. It doesn’t take long to work out that there is a fatal flaw in this thinking, whoever the “other” is, will most likely not agree with the view that how they should think or behave is wrong and will resist that control.
Resistance can take many forms; it could be aggressive. When someone is pushed to act the way others want them to, they may well push back harder. This could even lead to ongoing arguments or at its worst, violent conflict. Stubborn refusal is another form of resistance. It is a bit like a mule being pushed to move forward, resistance is the act of planting the feet, leaning back and refusing to move. People tend to do this if they are not aggressive, but still don’t want to comply.
Less obvious are the other forms of resistance. Appearing to cooperate takes many forms. Smiling, nodding, agreeing but then doing nothing is a very common form of resistance to External Control, it is frustrating for those exerting control. The most subtle form of resistance is faux cooperation. This takes the form of cooperating to the minimum amount that can be got away with. Think of the recent “slow work” or “quiet quitting” movements as examples.
Individuals, organisations and even countries use External Control on each other, not always because they are bad people, but rather because it’s what they learned as they were growing up. When we are surrounded by such control from an early age, it is natural that we will tend to copy that behaviour.
Trying to control others leads to the worst outcome. We would be better off if we all used “Internal Control Psychology” This is the opposite of controlling others and focuses instead upon what we truly can control. I will discuss what this is and how to use it in the next column.