Can People Change

Can people change? It is fair to say that in the field of psychology there are many different views on this subject. Firstly, people need to understand that the human mind and behaviour is extremely complicated and any model or theory of the mind and behaviour is a simplification. The analogy would be trying to describe Australia. If we were to say Australia is an island continent that might be very easy to understand, of course such a description would be too simple because it doesn’t describe the major cities or any other features of Australia. If we were to describe the shops along every major street in every major city of Australia there would be too much information and it would be impossible to understand and get a sense of what Australia is. So it is in psychology, we need models that provide an overall sense of how human behaviour works but models that are not bogged down in detail. Sometimes the details we leave out might later prove to be very and the model might need to be changed, this is how theories of mind and behaviour are improved. It is true that sometimes different theories might seem to conflict with each other. So there is no complete theory of the mind, we need to take parts of various theories that seem appropriate at this time and use them.

So let’s start with personality. Although we all seem to understand what personality is personality is very difficult to define? The usual accepted definition is an enduring set of behaviours or attitudes, which causes its own problems as we will see later. Perhaps the most commonly know theory of personality is the Trait Theory of Personality; if you have ever done a personality test this would have been based on some form of the Trait Theory of Personality. The Trait Theory describes personality as a series of specific, independent traits that are combined in different measures to form personality. One very well researched model is The Big Five Model which uses five traits; Openness (to experience), Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism or OCEAN. So someone who is high on extraversion and low on neuroticism might be very outgoing and lively. Conversely, someone who is high on conscientiousness and neuroticism might do well in an area like research or auditing. No one trait is seen as any more desirable than any other trait and there is almost an infinite number of combinations of traits, so it can explain most behaviours. According to the trait model of personality, our personality is developed by mid-adolesce and is somewhat fixed for the rest of our lives. So as our personality is a description of our enduring set of behaviours or attitudes, we are saying that our behaviours are somewhat fixed. This does not bode well for a person’s ability to change. My personal opinion is that your underlying personality, in terms of attitude is not going to change greatly over your lifetime, if you are an outgoing person you will mostly remain an outgoing person. However the link between personality and behaviour is somewhat fluid. So the outgoing person who tends to talk over the top of people can learn to be more restrained and listen to what other people have to say.

When we are talking about extreme behaviour such as domestic violence it is worthwhile talking about personality disorders. Under the trait version of personality we are a simple combination of various personality traits. Although no one trait is intrinsically better than any other, if a person rates wildly high or low on a particular personality trait they might have difficultly operating in society. Let’s talk about neuroticism. If someone rated extremely high on neuroticism they might be afraid to talk to anyone or take any kind of personal risk at all, they might not be able to trust people and they might develop phobias. But rating very low on neuroticism can also be problematic. Being very low on neuroticism is associated with criminal activities, infidelity in marriage and even car accidents; people who rate low on neuroticism just cannot see the danger in their own actions. Personality disorders are rare in the community but research has shown they are statistically over represented in domestic violence cases. Personality disorders can be treated, but they are very difficult to treat and treatment usually takes a very long time.

Let’s get back to one of the problems of the Trait Theory. Say you are the high extroversion, low neuroticism person talked about above and you are at a funeral, it is likely you will be very subdued and quite. Does this mean your personality has changed? This is basic problem with the Trait Theory; every time we act out of character then we are saying our personality has changed. The alternative would be that the Trait Theory does not do a good job of predicting behaviour. As we know both of these alternatives aren’t true we have a problem. Let’s introduce the term situationalism. Situationalism suggests that our behaviour is also a function of situation variables not just personality variables. I am sure there are many researchers and auditors who sit quietly in a corner of the office all day beavering away and are the life of the party after work. Your trait personality is not the be all and end all of you as a person. So are there any other models of behaviour that might explain domestic violence.

Another view of personality and behaviour is the Self-Regulation Perspective; in this perspective behaviour is defined as a series of goals with mental feedback loops monitoring our progress towards those goals. This perspective is very logical, we have an ideal sense of ourselves and we are continually working towards this ideal self and processing information to monitor we are on track to achieve this ideal self. Much of this processing is done automatically without us really being aware of this continuous mental processing effort. A key issue in the Self-Regulation perspective is expectancy, do we actually believe we can achieve goals; logically if we doubt we can achieve a goal then effort is decreased. Emotions are seen as a signal that this automatically processing is not achieving the required result and the automatic processing must be turned off and more conscious brain power must be employed to bring the person back on track. The analogy is the auto-pilot on a plane. So an emotion such as anger is not seen as intrinsically bad, anger is seen as a signal that priorities need to change to address a sudden unexpected situation. Of course the Self-Regulation perspective implies self-control. Quite often we have to suspend one goal in order to obtain another. Say we want to drive home after a dinner party this means we cannot drink alcohol.  So in this model change is about learning how to problem solve. Indeed people who enter therapy would talk about problems, how these problems relate to their life goals and what behavioural traits are problematic and need modification. Also in therapy people would talk about their belief (expectancy) in themselves, whether or not they can accept the challenges that might be required to achieve their ultimate goals. In this model change is quite a simple process of education and goal setting.

How does the Self-Regulation Perspective explain domestic violence? The answer lies in expectancy and what the aim of the offender is. Basically the offender has no confidence that they can achieve their goals. Often violent behaviour is a cover to blame other people for lack of success by the offender. The second problem is the offender’s goal; these are all scrambled, the offender really doesn’t know what they are trying to achieve. A common problem is obstructive type behaviour, where the only goal is to oppose other people and be obstructive. Domestic violence is associated with a lot of anger and other negative emotions. Above we described how emotions are a signal to the person that the person is no longer progressing towards their goals; of course if the goals are all confused then emotions will be breaking out all the time. Also if a person does not have a strong sense of their goals the self regulation process fails and self control is lost. The person simply does what feels good at the time. Regrettably, violence is what feels good. In order to change the domestic violence offender needs to completely re-build their sense of themselves; although it is possible to do this it is likely to take a very long time. One area that is very difficult to develop is confidence. Confidence is developed over years; years of trial and error, years of overcoming failure to ultimately achieve success, it is very difficult to gain confidence overnight.

So the basic question is can people change? I help people change all the time; change their eating habits or their exercise routines. Mostly I help people align health and fitness goals with greater life goals. So yes people can change but with domestic violence we are talking about extreme behaviour. If you are in a violent relationship you need to leave. Sure your partner might be capable of change but not in a time frame that would be acceptable. If you are reading this article and think ‘this applies to me’, or ‘I keep doing things that I regret later’ then there is a much greater chance you will be able to change. However if you are in a relationship and you are being violent I doubt if you will be able to change in time to save the relationship or in a time that does not do great harm to your partner.

Of course this article is general in nature and does not represent professional advice.

Charming But Dangerous

In previous articles I have spoken about the psychology of our behaviour, why we do things that are not good for use. In those articles I have applied those principles to health and fitness, why we eat junk food, why we don’t exercise etc. However, in this article those same principles will be applied to domestic violence. Now I am not apportioning blame, I am just explaining the psychology.

The basic theme is that when people begin to enter into relationships they do not chose partners who are violent (in most cases). In fact the partner who becomes violent can often be quite charming and it often comes as a surprise to people outside the relationship that there is violence in the relationship. So if these people can be charming why do they choose to be violent? This article will argue that these people don’t have a choice, as much as they might want to be good they simply can’t.

Let us consider something called Social Learning Theory. Basically, social learning theory says that when we are born we know nothing, we have no personality, we are a blank page; we have to learn everything about ourselves even learn our gender. Importantly we learn how to interact with other people, and this is a long process stretching all the way from the cradle, through kindergarten, high school, and our first job; in fact we never stop learning. Also we learn how to act in different situations, so as an example we might learn to act differently at school and at home. So the Social Learning Theory is pretty simple; violent people either learn to be violent (probably during childhood) or do not learn more appropriate ways to behave.

There are two ways to apply this theory. In the 1930’s a researcher called Sutherland at the University of Chicago developed a social learning theory called the Theory of Differential Association, and there are multiple research studies that support this theory. In this theory people learn crime, how to commit crime, how to profit from crime and how to justify crime from others skilled in crime. Being able to justify your crime is an extremely important part of committing crime; very few people would be able commit crime if they did not have a way of justifying that crime. Even criminals are worried that other people might think badly of them. In the case of domestic violence, it is my opinion that being able to justify violence is very important. To use a crude analogy, I read an article about a man who hit his wife because she burnt the toast. How could anyone justify this sort of action, you need to have some readymade justification at hand that you have learnt somewhere. Sure you might be able to invent a justification, but in my opinion it is much more likely this justification has been learnt, probably during a dysfunction childhood.

One feature of Sutherland’s theory is that people choose to commit crime. Now in the case of domestic violence it might be tempting to think that the offender chooses to be charming and then chooses to be violent. I would argue that the offender has learnt how to be violent over a long period of time without consciously recognising it. So people from violent or dysfunctional homes learn how to be violent and they revert to this behaviour under times of stress. It is not a matter of choice.

So what is the mechanism for this transformation from charming to violent? The offender might not set out to be violent, however this is not a position they can maintain. These offenders or potential offenders are able to interact with people when other people are at a distance, say work colleagues. However, close personal relationships put much greater stress on us and it is these stresses that the offender cannot handle. Also, as I stated above people can learn different behaviours for different situations, so the work environment and home are quite different. In a normal relationship partners have disagreements, but both partners grow and mature together and times of stress can even accelerate this process. In short they learn. People who have not learnt how to deal with people cannot cope with this process and revert to what they do know, which is often their dysfunctional upbringing. Then a second process that kicks in, normalisation. The violent person begins to introduce bad behaviour such as yelling into the relationship. Now if the other partner responds by yelling, then the behaviour of yelling is normalised. The process then progresses to physical violence, maybe not a level of violence that would leave bruises or would allow the police to act but violence none the less. After a little while this level of violence has become normalised. The process then continues to greater levels of violence. Now the violent person might not plan this out, but they fall into the process because they don’t know better. The violent person might even recognise that the behaviour is wrong but they just cannot help themselves. An analogy might be if you went on holidays to say China and you try to take a taxi somewhere. Now the taxi driver doesn’t speak English, the taxi driver only speaks Chinese. The English speaking tourist will continue to speak to the taxi driver in English trying to explain where they want to go to and the taxi driver will continue to speak in Chinese. Both the taxi driver and the tourist know that what they are doing is of no help at all, but they don’t know what else to do so they keep speaking in their own language. It is the same with domestic violence; the violent person does not know how to act in any other way.

The second way to apply Social Learning Theory is a process called Behaviouralism. As a child you are rewarded for good behaviour and punished for being bad; hence you learn that doing the right thing is beneficial for you. If you have every watched Super Nanny you will know how simple and effective this process can be. In a dysfunctional family this process breaks. There are several common problems; children are used as pawns by warring parents or there is a lack of structure in the home where children cannot tell what is good and what bad behaviour is. Such events can be very traumatic and learning and development can stop all together. This is the difficulty of a dysfunctional upbringing; people are often stuck in adolescence type behaviour. So you start life as a baby with your parents doing absolutely everything for you. Then you grow up a little bit and you are asked to do little jobs around the house for pocket money. Your parents let you go out at night provided you follow certain rules, such as being home by midnight. And so on, there is a continual process of exchanging responsibility for additional freedom. Importantly people learn how to learn.  In a dysfunctional family this simple process often stalls and people find they are continuously treated as children, so people enter adulthood with an emotional development of say that of a 15 year old. Of greater concern, people from dysfunctional upbringings have not learnt how to modify their behaviour; they have not learnt how to learn. The end result is people from a dysfunctional family not having the emotional maturity to function in a romantic relationship.

This brings us to the final question, is this process inevitable and can people change. Well this is a vexed question; my position is that all people can change to some extent. Indeed some people are able to mature and grow overnight. It is like there is a crossed wire in the brain, when the wires are uncrossed the brain works normally straight away. The problem with domestic violent is that violent person might not even realise their behaviour is wrong and they certainly would not be able to change without considerable professional counselling and support. If anyone is thinking that they can change their partner and continue in the violent relationship they may be putting themselves in mortal danger.

Normalisation, Domestic Violence

Although I write about fitness there is a wealth of research that shows it is the total environment that contributes to a person’s wellbeing. So it will be difficult to be fit if you live in an environment where healthy food is not seen as important and diets are poor. It is difficult to have mental health issues and be fit or eat healthily. It is difficult to navigate times of stress or grief without social support. If a person is trapped in an unhealthy relationship then all other aspects of their lives can be compromised. There is a well researched area of psychology called social psychology, how individuals behave in a social context, and I will apply this to domestic violence rather than health and fitness as I have done in other articles.

So how do we come to live in environments that are not healthy? There are several mechanisms for this and today we will talk about normalisation. Normalisation, when used by psychologists, refers to the process where certain ideas or actions are seen as being normal. We can see this on a global scale or at the personal level. So when random breath testing for alcohol was introduced in N.S.W. overnight drink driving was no longer seen as normal. The introduction of R.B.T. was a big global event. Normalisation can also be seen on an individual level. If you go out for dinner with people who do not drink this will impede your level of alcohol consumption. If you continue to associate with people who do not drink alcohol, over time your level of alcohol consumption will decrease. So normalisation can also occur with very small events that happen time and time again. There are thousands of people who get married or form romantic partnerships every year, and when you form a close bond with another person it is likely your behaviour will change. Say one partner might be very neat and the other a bit of a slob, so one or both partner’s behaviour will change and become more accommodative. Being a little bit neater might become normal behaviour, if not the partners would not be able to live together.

So let’s turn our attention to domestic violence. Say you went out on a date with someone, say to dinner, and half way through the meal your date threw a glass of wine at you. It would be very unlikely that you would ever go out on a date with that person every again. No, there is a set mechanism in domestic violence of gradually exposing the partner to increasing levels of violence. So initially when an issue arises both partners will discuss the issue and concessions will be made. Surprisingly, it is partner who becomes violent who is usually the most accommodating. Healthy discussion eventually gives way to heated discussion and eventually to yelling at each other. Now at some point in time both partners will end up yelling at each other. Yelling has become normalised. The process continues to the next stage; whereas the violent partner might have been able to get their way by yelling, yelling no longer works. So the next stage is physical violence, maybe not throwing a glass of wine, or punching the other person, it might be standing over the other person in an aggressive way, but physical violence none the less. This is the danger point; if this violent or even overly aggressive behaviour is normalised the cycle will just keep progressing. The end point can be very violent behaviour where one partner is at great risk. I am not saying yelling at each other is acceptable, but physical intimidation is a red flag. I have not included emotional abuse for simplicity in this article and I will cover it in later writings, because this is much more complicated.

Sure there will be other factors involved in domestic violence, such as financial entrapment or isolation  and the explanation above is a little simplistic. But the above it is valid explanation.

So all this starts with the potential partner giving the appearance of not being violent. If fact these people can often be very charming. The police have a brochure called “Charming But Dangerous”. This raises the question ‘if these people can be charming, why do they choose not be charming’? The answer to this question is relevant to both parties. Firstly, the partner who is potentially violent is hiding their true self. As much as they would like to yell and lash out they are able to control their emotions, but this control cannot last; they are a boiling kettle struggling to keep the steam in. Alternatively, the potentially violent partner has difficulty operating in social situations. In situations involving little stress these people can operate but they will crumble under stress. Although a new romantic partnership can be a great thing it can be very stressful.  In other blogs I will discuss this in more detail.

You might say that this is all pretty obvious. However herein lies the danger, people get sucked in because the process is so subtle. It is like people drowning in shallow water at the beach, they cannot perceive they are in danger. Very few people begin a relationship with someone they think might be violent and we all think we are able to spot people who might be violent. However, when someone starts off as being very charming and we want to retain this opinion. This also applies to people outside the relationship such as family and friends. People get confused when this charming person begins to act badly and we are likely to excuse this bad behaviour rather than change our opinion. Before people realise what has happened the normalisation process has sucked them in.

So the theme of this article is that domestic violence is a process. People are drawn into unhealthy relationships. People are introduced to increasing levels of violence and violence becomes normalised.