I think the two are basically the same. There are Wiki entries on both. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-statement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message I also found a resource for how construct them: http://www.traumacentral.net/i-statements.htm
An honest life is the best defense. Eventually, I think that no matter how skilled one might be in interpersonal communication, it still comes down to how one goes about one's daily life. If a person is, for example, irresponsible about their finances or secretly gets drunk, then this will likely cause conflict in their relationships. Good communication skills alone cannot fix such conflicts. Good communication and an honorable life go hand in hand.
It seems to me there is a misunderstanding here. How are you saying anything different from what I already said? You really think saying "You're an idiot!" is better than "I hate you!"? I think the central problem is that we are living more or less indecent, dishonest lives. If we'd all be nice and decent, there would be nothing to hide, nothing to feel ashamed of - and no need to pretend and fog things up in communication. There simply are some things that one cannot talk about in a nice way, because those things are not nice. It is possible that one's spouse does not care, or doesn't want to continue the relationship. This can be the simple fact of the matter. No amount of nicey communication can make the person love you and have a relationship with you. If you tell that to a spouse who doesn't care, you'll get a reply like "You're such a bigmouth" or get a blank stare.
Funny that. I am not from the US. From my perspective, considering the way Americans tend to phrase things, it would appear that they are extremely concerned about other people's feelings. Where I come from, we do not even a literal equivalent of "to hurt someone's feelings". (We have only "to hurt".) Here, one has to watch what one says because it is "important to be decent"; we refrain from swearing and calling names because it would reflect badly on us. But according to American culture, one is supposed to refrain from swearing and calling names because it would "hurt the other person's feelings". We have no such formulation/motivation.
They aren't for forcing relationships and alone would never be enough to fix a broken one. They are to prevent the need for every comment someone else makes from escalating into a war zone. In intimate relationships people may be angry with each other, but still care for each other and in that state of mind an innocent comment like, "You always leave your clothes on the floor." can become a full blown argument when there is no need for it to be. Most people don't like to fight with people they care about, so why start an argument over nothing? For those who do have broken relationships they can keep them more civil. Not everything has to be a shouting match. It can help them discuss problems in a clam and collected manner. Which is why clinical psychologists often have couples speak like this in therapy. Sentences that start with how "I feel..." are usually responded to with "I didn't know you felt that way" or "I'm sorry you feel that way" or just plain old "I'm sorry..." The point being it's harder to provoke a yelling fit when you talk to people this way even when they know that you are using "I statements/messages".
Well, from what I noticed about my area are people are very rude, and disrespectful. I cannot describe it at all. I really wish I could... I can totally understand how it would reflect on the person speaking badly.. But at the same time, hurting someones feelings, is to hurt them...
Okay, let's put this thread's topic into practice: What are you trying to communicate here to me with this post? I sense you are trying to disagree with me and correct me, but I am not sure over what. I suspect you do not like me.
Well yeah, in general. You can call a friend or family member an idiot because they did something stupid, and everyone understands. But you don't say you hate them for it. That's much more serious. That's an inevitable state of affairs in a civilized society. We're living in huge communities of anonymous strangers, so we don't have as much in common with each other as our ancestors did when they lived in extended-family groups of a couple of dozen nomadic hunter-gatherers. Every one of us has a few interests, activities, opinions, quirks, likes and dislikes that would deeply offend his next-door neighbor--something that he would call "indecent." So we don't talk about that stuff with our neighbors; in other words, we're "dishonest" with each other. It's not possible to be "nice" to seven billion people, unless they're all pre-programmed robots. I have already noted on this website that the "Golden Rule" is a relic of the Stone Age and would hardly work if applied literally, four Paradigm Shifts later. You should attempt to "do unto others as they would have done unto themselves," not "as you would have done to unto you." Try inviting your wacky vegan neighbor over for Thanksgiving dinner. Again, "nice" is relative, completely dependent on your culture. Well then at least your frank communication has helped you figure this out, so you can now decide if you need to hire a divorce lawyer. I don't know about you, but I don't make nearly enough money to be able to get along with a spouse who doesn't care about the correlation between income and expenditures. Although you'd probably hear that from my wife before you'd hear it from me.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Americans differ from one another as much as any people, and like any people they get together with people who aren't too different from themselves and form communities. New York is consistently rated the rudest city in the country, even by its own inhabitants. In contrast, I've been working in the Washington metropolitan area for several years and I find the people here to be remarkably "nice." Sure, but let's use our technology of language for analysis, and perhaps we can discover some useful distinctions that will improve our relationships with each other. If you get angry at someone and punch him in the nose, it's going to "hurt" for a significant period of time, and perhaps even bleed and require medical attention. No matter how sorry you are, or no matter how big a jerk he was, you can't fix that. But if you say something that "hurts" his feelings, you can talk about it, figure out why you're angry at each other, and look for a way to get along. Perhaps within a few minutes.
That's news to me. By "dishonest" and "indecent" I mean that we do things that we ourselves believe are wrong and are ashamed of. We are dishonest and indecent when we do not live up to our own values and principles. It has nothing to do with "hurting other people's feelings" or being concerned over how others will think of one. Well, that's one fine piece of modern, abusive pseudospiritual psychobabble. If some junkie in the street wants another hit - well, then you should by all means grant them that! And if Muslims want to take over the US - get out of their way! If you think he is "wacky", then what the hell would you be doing inviting them over, for anything? That doesn't matter. Regardless of the particular instance of "nice", there are things one cannot talk about in that nice way.
I believe you said that these types of sentences only work in certain relationships. I think they work for everyone regardless of their relationship status. No one said all conversation topics are "nice" to talk about, but they can be discussed in a civil manner . Using these I messages can help people to do that by keeping heated yelling and screaming to a minimum.
Really? Would you say to your boss "When you yell at me like you just did and when you call me an idiot, I feel very much scared." -?
A friend or family member may not like being called an idiot, but that will usually go over a lot better than saying that you hate them. Well okay, but I think we've veered off the topic a little. How does that relate back to "I" and "you" statements? Of course you have to consider anyone's desires in the context of morality. But the essence of civilization is more-or-less a consensus on the moral standards of the entire community, and we don't have the right to superimpose our own personal preferences on top of that. As a civilization we've decided that junkies don't have the right to procure another hit. But if your neighbor's dog is drowning and he needs help pulling him out of a creek, the fact that you don't like dogs doesn't make it acceptable to refuse to help him (assuming there's no risk to yourself, etc.) American culture treats dogs with a certain minimal level of respect--or at least claims to in a rather complex way. If you have some bit of eccentricity that prohibits you from touching a dog, even in an emergency, then you won't get along very well in this country. Our Constitution prohibits us from plotting to overthrow the government by force, or assisting anyone else in that effort. That's a fairly explictly stated morality, if you ask me. I have a lot of wacky friends and we have great fun. Don't you? You just learn what the boundaries are and define the relationship around them cooperatively. They think I'm just as wacky. Again, we're getting off topic. The context of the O.P. was a family relationship, and that is indeed the context in which "I" and "you" statements are more often discussed. In an intimate relationship there can be no taboos, you have to be free to talk about anything, no matter how painful or embarrassing. Family even supersedes the morality of the surrounding culture to a great extent, at least in America, a culture founded on contempt for authority. Once again, we're off topic. Touchy-feely psychology is meant for friends and loved ones. Its application to the workplace is limited, although it has certainly made great strides in the past fifty years, with Myers-Briggs profiles, Model-Netics, sensitivity training, and so forth. The fifth Paradigm Shift, the Industrial Revolution, and even more so the sixth, the Age of Electronics, have redefined the relationships between people who work together. We've almost come full circle back to the Paleolithic Era, before the first Paradigm Shift (agriculture), when people lived in small family units, trying to hunt and gather enough food for survival. Everyone depended on everyone else, literally, for their life. Many workplaces resemble a family. But to take your question seriously for a moment, are you suggesting that it would be better to simply tell your boss that you hate him?
If you wanted your boss to stop scaring you, how else could you approach the topic? Just the other day a co worker of mine told her boss that she did not like it when he called her "cutie/sweetie" because it made her feel like he doesn't take her seriously. Problem solved. I still think it works for most relationships.
It's in relation to the expected efficacy of I- and you-messages and in which contexts they are useful. The OP asked right away - "Do you use them when you are debating? Do you use them at home?" You sure have a gift for twisting things around ... Personally, if my boss would yell at me, I would never dare to bring it up directly. I would try to improve, or consider leaving. My experience with authority figures and seniors is that they do not care about their inferiors, and that no matter how justified and well-formulated the complaint, it would only lead to bad consequences for myself.
That isn't fixing a problem that is avoiding it. I statements only work for people who actually want to address a problem.
Well, perhaps you are too young to understand that some problems can be solved only by avoiding them. f you study psychology or anything related, there is a standard section on problem solving in introductory psych textbooks. "Going around an obstacle" is one of the ways to get past it, you don't have to bull down everything that stands in your way.
Depends on where you work. Owners of small entrepreneurial companies, especially in this bad economy, have to do whatever is necessary to be successful. If that means changing their own attitudes and behavior, so be it. So what it comes down to is deciding whether your criticism is strictly personal, or whether it affects the business. If a manager is simply poor at communicating with, encouraging and cooperating with subordinates, then the organization is in trouble. The type of organization you describe, in which managers feel no responsibility to establish rapport with their subordinates, is typical of civil service, where there are no measurable performance goals. Paradoxically, since government offices tend to draw their staff from the left-liberal segment of the population, many managers are touchy-feely types who have had years of psychotherapy, give the Myers-Briggs test once a year, and regard their staff as family. Walking from one organizational unit into the next can be like crossing a national border. Yes, I may be exaggerating a little to make a good story better, but having spent most of my career in government service, I know whereof I speak.
Someplaces that do bidding's for jobs, tho they mean well, if they pay commission for the people doing their work, screws over their workers even tho they mean well.. I told the owner of a job I did for a bit about what her workers where telling me (as an experienced worker to a newbie), and she didn't even take me seriously. Yet, when you have people scaring off your new workers, its not a good thing. I told her how everyone felt, and I told her how I felt about it all, and the lady didn't even seem to care. I know she was meaning well.. But also at the same time, she was screwing over her employees and her business.. I may have had been new, but I know what It takes to keep a bus. afloat..
How one chooses to deal with their problems is up to them. But if avoiding conflict is your preferred method (albeit not the best way to handle conflict, since it doesn't fix anything) then you would have no use for I statements in those situations that you choose to avoid. I statements are for people who wish to discuss their conflicts.
