Productive Teasing

I have never been very "tease-able."  I am a serious and insecure oldest child.  I grew up with serious and relatively insecure parents, who also weren't very tease-able (at least, not at home and with each other) and didn't engage in much teasing.  I spent a large part of childhood as an outsider, often subjected to taunting and physical punishment rather than teasing.  

So I've never been very good at the rough and tumble of good-natured teasing that makes up so much of normal human community.

Dacher Keltner offers four lessons from research to distinguish between the "productive" tease and "damaging" tease.  In an age where bullying is a primary behavioral concern in schools, offices and churches, this is important material.  You can read more about this in his New York Times article at
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/magazine/07teasing-t.html?pagewanted=all and in an article in
  Scholastic Magazine at http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3752630.

First, "harmful teasing is physically painful and zeroes in on vulnerable aspects of the individual's identity...Playful teasing is less hurtful physically, and thoughtfully targets less critical facets of the target's identity."

Second, the damaging tease is offered without any non-verbal qualifiers, things that Keltner calls "off-record markers."  These are the changes in tone, facial expression, cadence, timing and body position that indicate the tease to be good-natured rather than aggressive.

Third, "critical to the meaning of the tease is power," Keltner notes.  "Power asymmetries," he continues, "particularly when targets are unable through coercion or context to respond in kind--produce pernicious teasing."

Fourth, the older we get (at least as children) the more skilled we become at the productive tease.  Once children learn the use of irony and sarcasm, they seem to develop a mean streak, at least for a while.  Those who continue to mature move beyond that meanness and refine their teasing to be productive and relationship strengthening.  Of course, those who do not move emotionally beyond this emotional level carry their bullying into adult relationships.

Those four points are made regarding the one who generates the tease.  There is also the emotional condition of the recipient.  We all know how reluctant we are to respond to teasing when we are angry, sad or depressed.  We all know how likely we are to take the productive tease as a damaging tease when we are in such conditions.  And for those of us who are "tease-challenged," it takes real discernment, patience and a hesitation to react  in order to benefit from the productive tease.

Add to that the prevalence these days of bullying behavior in our major social institutions, and it's no wonder we can be so thin-skinned.  Nonetheless, the productive tease is a major element of relationship and leadership repertoires.  It is a skill to be practiced and refined if we are to be serve as good leaders, persist in good marriages and friendships, and raise resilient children.

Here's my internal dialogue as a result of this post.

• So, Hennigs, lighten up a bit!  
• But I don't like it when people make fun of me.
• You, Lowell, are quite a source of general amusement!  Enjoy it!
• Sigh...all right, if I have to.