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Behavioral Healthcare

Dr. Ellen Langer: How to help someone change their behavior



Dr. Ellen Langer: How to help someone change their behavior

Tired of how someone else’s behavior is impacting you? 🤔

Harvard psychologist, Dr. Ellen Langer, is widely known as the mother of mindfulness. Dr. Langer is the author of 200+ research articles on human behavior and its consequences, as well as 13 books including Mindfulness, On Becoming An Artist, and Counterclockwise.

Dr. Langer’s research with people in businesses, schools, and nursing homes, as well as other everyday scenarios, has significantly advanced the literature on positive psychology, health, and human performance.

Full episode:
🎬 https://youtu.be/B-kcQN35vLE

View 41 Comments

41 Comments

  8. @ceceliadavis471 on

    If you are trusting you are going to be gullible because you are no longer guarded against what people are capable of. Thinking that way comes from having experiences that were not good that you do not want repeated again.

  10. @edsic12 on

    (Comments are solely based on the statements made in this video)

    Pedantic as she may often sound, underneath the subtexts of her statements like “ behavior makes sense from the actor’s perspective” and “ for every negative understanding there’s a positive alternative” is a message with potentially harmful interpretations . As an example , some “people pleasers” may feel more encouraged to give unwarranted importance on other people’s interests at the expense of their own (following the logic of the statements just cited). .
    As I just chanced on her video (thru the Algorithm), I trust to access some scholarly work, publications from Dr Langer that would further expound on this issue and possibly explore any evidence based culturally sensitive suggestions, solutions

  12. @annsmithwick264 on

    Oh. I try not to be judgemental, though I fail at times. However, some people's (actor's, here is an operative definition which can be utilized in my situation) behavior which they may think makes sense, may be interpreted by the receiver (me!) in the way it does impact me negatively. I want to believe that this person's motives are pure, though there is too much confusion, chaos, lies, theft to be able to * blindly* trust this person, the way I would need to to move this strange relationship forward.

  17. @SDMeadows1111 on

    Reframing for the positive is so helpful so long as we are not rationalizing or minimizing abusive or unhealthy behavior. It is interesting to see why we label toward the negative as opposed to supporting and encouraging the goodness in ourselves and others. Thank you for this reminder. 🙏

  19. @RyanGross-m9f on

    This makes a lot of sense I have a friend who is the most gullible person I’ve ever met. He will literally believe anything anybody says to him. I guess it’s because he just values honestly so much he doesn’t think anybody would ever say something not true

  26. @iluminameluna on

    My adult children have finally understood what I mean when I say that I'll trust someone completely only once, but if they betray that trust, it's like they cease to exist in my heart.
    I can still love someone, but it doesn't mean I will like them.
    Also, wanting to understand someone's behavior, no matter how terrible it is, doesn't mean I seek to approve of it. It's almost an intellectual exercise. I'm not wanting to get close to that person, I just want to know the WHY of their action or behavior. It may be fruitless, which is fine, but it's interesting to me.
    ❤

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