Here’s a common pattern in my house. See if it seems familiar to you. After my husband showers, he often forgets to put his dirty clothes in the hamper. This drives me batty, so I remind him to please pick them up. Again and again and again.
We’ve been married for 15 years now and the result of all my nagging appears to be exactly zilch. Half the time I go in the bathroom there is a ball of socks and underwear on the floor.
My husband is an otherwise thoughtful and considerate guy. So what’s going on? According to psychology research, the problem likely isn’t him. It’s my belief that nagging is an effective strategy to get another person to change their behavior.
The psychology of why nagging doesn’t work
“We have a perception that we won’t get what we want from the other person, so we feel we need to keep asking in order to get it,” psychologist Scott Wetzler explained to The Wall Street Journal. But rather than prompting change, nagging causes people to feel demeaned and withhold the desired behavior. The nagger then nags more and resentment builds.
This dynamic can kill a romantic relationship — studies find that, unsurprisingly, a lot of nagging is associated with low relationship satisfaction — but it’s equally useless between parents and kids, co-founders, or bosses and employees.
So what works better to get someone to actually change their behavior? A new study has a suggestion. But, be warned, if you’re stuck in a pattern of habitual nagging, it will probably feel counterintuitive.
The jujitsu mind trick that actually changes behavior
After years of low-level laundry conflict, I admit the last thing I feel inclined to do is thank my husband the one time in a dozen that his clothes end up in the hamper. But according to a new study out of the University of Toronto recently published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, when it comes to changing his behavior, gratitude would beat nagging.
The research was conducted by psychologist Natalie Sisson and colleagues and consisted of three separate studies looking at the connection between expressions of gratitude and behavior change in couples.
One study asked 151 couples to keep a daily diary of their interactions around some change sought by one member of the pair. These diaries showed that the more a member of the couple felt their partner was grateful for their efforts to change, the more likely they were to make further adjustments. After nine months, partners who felt their better halves were most grateful had made the biggest changes.
Taken together, all the findings “suggest that, if you ask your partner to change something about themselves or their behavior, and they say they are willing to try, being grateful will help them to develop their own motivation to make that change, making it more likely to happen,” writes the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, summing up the results.
Easy to explain, harder to implement
In some sense, that’s intuitive. When you praise someone for their efforts, even if they’re minimal, they feel positive about you and themselves. When you nag them the opposite happens. Which scenario do you think is more likely to result in someone putting in more effort?
But my personal experience at least suggests that, in the heat of the moment, this jujitsu mind trick — praising faint signs of improvement even when you feel like complaining — can be hard to muster. The last thing I want to do when I finally spot one of my husband’s socks in the hamper is to offer him kudos. It’s hard not to think about the hundreds I’ve had to deposit there before.
If you care about effectiveness more than venting, though, psychology suggests this is the way to go. Positive reinforcement works best to train a puppy. It also apparently works best to train people. Bigging others up with gratitude is more likely to motivate them to change their behavior than tearing them down with nagging.
What else can you do to help other people change their behavior?
This isn’t the first study to dig into this question. Experts have other ideas that may complement a liberal application of gratitude. BJ Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford, has suggested catching a ride on the other person’s “motivational wave.” When you notice the other party seems keen to make the desired change, step up and offer them concrete support.
If you want someone in your life to exercise more, that could mean going to tour gyms with them when they express an interest. Or it could mean sitting down with your perpetually disorganized employee and walking them through a new calendar system when they come to you for help.
Another idea, suggested by psychologist Devon Price, is digging into what barriers or obstacles might be preventing a person from changing. If my husband’s laundry delinquency is a result of being rushed in the morning, maybe we could switch around some chores to ease his time crunch. If your colleague is putting off a task because of fear of failure, additional training or support will probably work better than scolding.
Finally, time-use expert and author Laura Vanderkam says that, if you want others to change, you should first talk about your own self-improvement projects. If a direct report is struggling with time management, for instance, she advises walking them through your own diary as a way to get a conversation about tradeoffs and challenges started.
Step one: Give up the nagging
What all of these experts agree on is that if you really want someone to change their behavior, nagging might relieve some of your frustration. But it’s not going to actually work. Try gratitude, support, and open dialogue instead.
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