Making Decisions Together Not in Opposition
When you have to make decisions with your partner, you should make sure you are on the same side. After all, you are a team, no? That’s why sitting together, next to one another, has been found by scientists to be better and leads to more collaborations. It makes people feel closer and less reserved, as sitting across or diagonally can end up creating a rift between you, a disconnect that can also affect the way you communicate. If you find yourself not reaching any conclusions when you have to make decisions, with your partner, your kids, or any family member, try sitting on the same side of the table. What’s there to lose?
Furniture Circles
Opposed to the idea of sitting on the same side when the situations require a certain level of seriousness, you should make sure that you are arranging the furniture so that at any point you are facing everyone. A British psychiatrist noticed in the 1950s that the people they were treating were more social when they were facing one another, rather than when they were side by side.
This apparently works for social settings too, and we are sure we all have noticed that most of us manage to be more social when we can face the people we are talking to: that’s why we have the instinct to turn to others when we address them. If you want your family gatherings to be communal and not have others feel excluded, make sure you can sit in an O formation, rather than a V or an L one.
Three Minutes to Argue
We all hate that moment where even the slightest disagreements can escalate to high decibels. And do not even remind us about dealing with teenagers that think they know better. A researcher from the University of Washington discovered that the most important points in any argument will be found in the first three minutes of it: afterward, people get heated, start to repeat the same ideas only in a raised voice and people start feeling like you are not listening. That’s why you should only give yourselves three minutes to argue and also try to keep all disagreements level-headed, without any party getting heated. Harder said than done, we know…
