Coping With People You Don't Like - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 2000

Can't stand your in-laws, but have to deal with them for the sake of your spouse and children? Do you work with people you despise, yet have to work closely with them in order to get the job done? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you're not alone. Most people are forced to deal with people they dislike either in family or work-related situations on a daily basis. So how do people deal with their disliked partners? A study by Jon Hess, a University of Missouri-Columbia communication professor, provides some answers.

The respondents reported trying to distance themselves from their disliked partners and demonstrated more than 30 ways of doing this. For example, some said they engaged in an activity so that the focus was on an external event, rather than the two individuals involved. This worked well for disliked family members. Some reported interacting with that person only in a group, so that there was less direct interaction with the disliked person. These behaviors are just a couple of ways people distance themselves from disliked family members and co-workers. Other distancing behaviors people use include:

* Avoiding asking the other person questions

* Deceiving the other person, especially on information about oneself, in order to avoid intimacy

* Treating the other person as eccentric in some way and merely tolerating his or her behavior

* Ignoring the other person's presence

* Rejecting an individual from a conversation

* Avoiding jokes and lighthearted conversation

* Speeding up interactions and getting them over with as quickly as possible.