Ep. 191: Kipling Williams - The Silent Treatment: A Weapon of Mass Destruction

Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function

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There is no impulse more natural than the desire to protect ourselves and our loved ones from pain. When we experience social-emotional pain, we activate the same instincts as a mama bear who jumps to protect her cub as an effort to dial down emotions of distress. An unhealthy emotional pain management can lead to actively taking steps to inflict pain on others through the acts of withholding affection, interactions, or reciprocity. The “silent treatment” or social exclusion is one such powerful tool that delivers insurmountable distress to others providing individuals with only temporary relief.

On this podcast, a pioneer and world-leading expert on social and psychological dynamics of ostracism, author, and a distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University, Kipling Williams, discusses how the silent treatment can damage relationships, sometimes irreparably and provides effective and meaningful ways we can manage our own disappointments, let-downs, or hurt by engaging personal growth and emotional agility.
About Kipling Williams
Kipling Williams is Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. He earned his B.S. from the University of Washington—Seattle (1975) and his PhD at The Ohio State University (1981). Prior to coming to Purdue, Williams was on faculties at Macquarie University and University of New South Wales (both in Sydney, Australia), University of Toledo (Ohio), and Drake University (Iowa). He is a pioneer and world-leading expert on social and psychological dynamics of ostracism. As well as his authored book, Ostracism: The Power of Silence, he has edited ten books, including The Social Outcast, and the soon-to-be published Frontier Handbook on Ostracism, Social Exclusion, and Rejection. He has been an associate editor of Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, & Practice, as well as Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. He was the editor of Social Influence from 2010-2019.
His research interests include ostracism, social influence, and motivation in groups. He has published over 180 articles and chapters, with articles in Science, Scientific American-MIND, Psychological Science, and other top journals in the field of social psychology. In 2012, he was a Lorentz Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies. He was a co-winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Socio-Psychological (AAAS), and Purdue University’s College of Health and Human Sciences Research Achievement Award. He is past president of the Society for Australasian Social Psychologists and the Midwestern Psychological Association.
Website: http://williams.socialpsychology.org
Book:

• Ostracism: The Power of Silence

About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.

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