“Hey, are you stupid?” yells a cyclist while narrowly passing a pedestrian on the sidewalk. She looks at him in shock, but doesn’t say anything. A woman pushes her way through the long line to the supermarket checkout. She just stands in the middle. Another woman says, “Excuse me, that doesn’t work like that,” otherwise nobody says anything. Honking, complaining, jostling – everyday life in a big city.
Why don’t we so often fight back when someone yells at us or pulls in front of us on the street? Katja Bertsch, psychological psychotherapist and professor for clinical psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich deals with emotions and social interactions, among other things. She explains why we so often do not stand up for ourselves when we experience injustice in everyday life.
Why is it that we so often put up with everyday injustices?
In the course of our lives we learn not to always behave aggressively, as this also has certain disadvantages. It’s always about an individual assessment of the costs and benefits, including the potential danger that I would put myself in if I stood up for myself. How I behave in such a situation is always a social decision.
Katja Bertsch is a psychological psychotherapist and professor of clinical psychology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.
(Photo: SZ)
Why is it so easy for some people to stand up for themselves and for others not so much?
There are various factors, for example personal sensitivity to injustice or whether I generally have the feeling that I am always being ignored. It also influences whether I can put myself in the other person’s shoes and understand their actions. This helps us control our impulses and think about it: did the person do it on purpose, is they stressed, is they in a hurry than I am? In addition, there is the ability to regulate immediate feelings and behavioral impulses. And many of us learned from an early age not to fight back ourselves, but to pass judgment and punishment on to others, for example to turn to educators – and later also to state institutions.
Are there certain moments or phases in life when it is easier for us to defend ourselves against injustice?
For example, you have to consider the proximity and distance, the dangerous situation that you see for yourself personally. If I sit in the car and honk the horn, the danger is further away, I’m relatively safe. When I stand right in front of someone and snap at them, the other person’s immediate reaction is much more direct.
What is actually better for your own psyche? Always stand up for yourself or endure small injustices?
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that acting out anger immediately brings us long-term relaxation. This may bring short-term relief, but it can also lead to other negative feelings, such as shame or guilt. You have to learn to deal with anger appropriately and to ask yourself: “Can I use the anger to do something meaningful?” But you also have to be careful not to suppress the anger and thus possibly drag it into situations where it is completely inappropriate.
And how do I do that?
The best solution is to perceive the feeling, understand it, and evaluate whether the strength of the feeling is appropriate. That doesn’t mean putting up with every injustice, but weighing up your own options for action and their consequences with as clear a head as possible. When I get into anger and focus my perception on it, I perceive many more injustices and threats and then feel even more unfairly treated.
The best counter sayings come to me anyway an hour later in the shower. And then?
make peace. You can’t get rid of anger by thinking about it 50 times and fantasizing about revenge.