Claudia Hammond

Miksi luulet, että tämä trendi alkaa nyt? Onko se siksi, että nuorten ihmiset ovat enemmän sosiaalisia? Luulen, että se on todella mielenkiintoista, koska olemme eläneet pandemian aikana, joten nuorten ihmiset ovat pysyneet aikaa kouluun tai ehkä kouluun tai yliopistoon. He ovat vain ollut aikaa, kun he eivät voineet sosiaalistaa aikaa. Se voi tehdä sosiaalisuuden enemmän vaikeaa. Tiedämme, että on lisäämistä perfektiivisuutta. Nuorten ihmiset ovat enemmän miettineet, miten muita ihmisiä julkaistaan heitä.

So I wonder whether that might make people more shy of speaking to strangers, worried that the people will not appraise them in a good way. And so doing something like this to try to counter that might feel like a positive step to people that they're trying to do something. Also they're fun to watch.

Yes, it is different if you are inviting rejection in that way. We hate rejection. You can do brain studies where the brain centers of the brain are activated that would normally be activated for pain. We find social rejection really painful. You can just get people to play computer games where they get left out. People are throwing the ball across the screen, never throw it to you. And we start to show these pain responses because we really, really do hate rejection. Why is that? Why are we so afraid of rejection?

I think in one way we have evolved to be very social beings. We need to get on with other people. Humans do survive by cooperating. And actually by the willingness of strangers to do things and cooperate with me made me feel much more included.

Kyllä, joten itse asiassa sinut eivät välttämättä välttämättä välttämättä. Tällainen itseopetuksen idea, että se ei ole oikea terapia, se ei ole testattu, mutta idea on se, että olet useampi välttämättä välttämättä, mutta itse asiassa sinut löytyi, että useimmat ihmiset olivat hyviä sinulle, joten sinut ei välttämättä välttämättä välttämättä. Sinut löytyi, että ystävät ovat todella hyviä, mikä on juuri se, mitä tutkimus osoittaa.

Yes, so exposure therapy was developed across the 1950s and 60s. Sometimes it's called systematic desensitization. And the idea is usually gradually you get used to the thing you're afraid of. So I don't know if you're afraid of spiders, then you start looking at some pictures of spiders. And you are taught at the same time by a psychologist to deal with the stress of that reaction, perhaps taught some breathing exercises. And very gradually you might build up to seeing a real spider, a tiny one. And you might end up in the end maybe holding a tarantula in the end if you get there.

This can be done for social anxiety as well. It's often part of cognitive behavioral therapy, the behavioral bit that many people have these days. The behavioral bit is going out there and doing these things. But it would be done very gradually and with the support of a therapist. It's also very different from the TikTok and Instagram trend where people just put themselves out there completely on their own and film themselves asking things from strangers. We have been hearing from some content creators about their experience of rejection therapy.

So Claudia, what are some of the benefits of being rejected? I mean in a way I think the benefits are more the benefits of speaking to strangers and finding out that most people are nice rather than the hardening yourself to the rejection. In a way if you want to harden yourself to rejection a better way of dealing with it is to ask is there something else going on for people when they're mean to you.

If a friend cancels an evening out and you assume, this is clearly because they hate me and they're always going to hate me and everyone hates me. Actually, what's going on for them? Are they just exhausted? Have they had a really bad day? What's going on in their life? Or if someone is a bit rude to you offhand in a shop, you don't know what's going on for them. So I think a more effective way is to ask, interrogate why someone has rejected you.

There are real variations around the world in kind of what the social rules are about when you do and don't talk to strangers. So it will really depend on where you live and that you kind of need to get it right for the place that you live in. I want to bring it back to some of the weirder experiments that we have been seeing on TikTok and Instagram regarding rejection therapy in this trend. And, you know, the ethical...

Especially if the person is being filmed as well. As you say, sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. That makes them feel uncomfortable. But even just knowing the situation is being filmed might make people feel uncomfortable and suspicious. And also, we don't kind of want to stop people being nice to people. And if you realise that actually this was all just kind of done for a laugh, then people may feel it was slightly at their expense. Maybe they might feel you.

They might feel used and then not be as nice to someone who really does need some help the next time. So I think do it, you know, warily, you know, and think of, again, empathy. It's about thinking of how this might be taken by the other person at the same time. So maybe do it, but don't film it. Don't just farm it for content, as it were.