“If you can’t say anything good about someone, don’t say anything at all.” I can’t tell you how many times I heard this reprimand as a kid. Little did I know, but like so many motherly rebukes, I was receiving a positive social neurological directive.
It turns out that people consciously and unconsciously judge me by what I say about others; and positive thoughts tend to enhance neurological developments, while negatives tend to inhibit. Spontaneous Trait Transference (STT) is the scientific name for the phenomenon, and how the social component works, according to Ohio State professor John Skowronski and his colleagues is very much like this:
“politicians who allege corruption by their opponents may themselves be perceived as dishonest, critics who praise artists may themselves be perceived as talented, and gossips who describe others’ infidelities may themselves be viewed as immoral.”
What we say about others says more about us than it does about them, especially what we say about our kids.
Apocaholics R Us
As an Apocaholic in some kind of half-baked recovery, I constantly find myself thinking all kinds of bad thoughts these days. One of my recurrent ones is: the Evolutionary Biologists tell us that 99.9999% of all species that have ever lived are currently extinct. Why do we homo sapiens believe we will perpetually remain exempt? The lead-eating Romans of Empire-vintage thought they too, would rule forever.
Often these bad thoughts are in response to research I read: like the hedge funds organized by Michel Milken who apparently colluded to secretly keep an effective prostate cancer treatment off the market while tens of thousands of men got sick and died a painful death (Ironically, Milken himself managed to recover from prostate cancer). This kind of thinking exemplifies Spontaneous Trait Transference at its worst. Well, perhaps not quite. It’s probably worse to think of our kids as little Michael Milken’s in the making.
Mirror, Mirror in my Mind
Spontaneous Trait Transference is probably something that I can recognize and manage when it comes to partners, friends, frauds or kids – even when it comes to those self-centered and independent-minded, smushy-faced kitties, Archie and Lulu (“Who you calling self-centered, smushy-faced and independent-minded? Have you looked in the mirror lately, dude?”). Where I begin to have trouble with STT is when I begin to have it mirrored back to me from my computer and my power tools. I shouldn’t be surprised, really, since I’ve been trained in Sand Tray therapy and have long borne witness to healing as kids worked through grief and loss using STT in the sand box. So I know the phenomenon is real and can be used for good or ill, especially ill. So does sociologist Clifford Nass. In his book,The Man Who Lied to his Laptop, Nass provides all kinds of bizarre anthropomorphizing – people who don’t want to hurt their computer’s “feelings,” kids seduced by a machine that revealed some “vulnerable” information about itself and gets them to reveal more personal information about themselves, and people who rate their machines more pleasant to hang out with than real people. Or like these patients willing to have a robot be their doctor.
What You Think is Who You Are
In order to somewhat skillfully work with Spontaneous Trait Transference and my Apocaholism, I’ve long been a fan of the teachings of Ayya Khema. She is a specialist in training the mind so as to increase optimal Executive Function. 
One of her guidelines that has stayed with me over many years – probably distorted by my own untrained, smushy-faced, independent-thinking mind – is: Do not think bad thoughts. Catch them before they arise. But if you do think bad thoughts, catch them before you speak them. But if you do speak those bad thoughts, catch yourself, apologize and re-commit to not thinking or speaking bad thoughts in the future. As you might suspect, I’m one of Ayya’s poorer student.
And if you DO suspect that of me, thanks to Spontaneous Trait Transference, I can point my finger at you and know that you’re a bad thought-generating poor student as well! And of course, as Swami Satchidananda likes to point out, whenever I point my finger at you, there are three fingers pointing back at me. And back and forth and back Spontaneous Trait Transference seems to go. Sigh.
The Committed Parent 
I couldn’t believe when I read the opening of this post– it was my own father come back to say the words he spoke so many times to me. As a parent now myself, I consciously banished those words from my vocabulary, because to me they represent a dangerous squashing of emotion as well as a diminution of whatever thoughts I/the child might be having. With the benefit of almost 50 years of hindsight I can allow that perhaps my father probably only wanted to teach me good social graces. Still, I agree with those who have talked above about using those “bad words” as a catalyst to examine what is going on more deeply rather than throttling them before they arise.
Thanks for another thought-provoking article.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for this post! I am married to an engineer whose father is an engineer. Neither of them is a terrorist, but both of them lack the social skills and empathy critical in forming and maintaining close relationships with others. Married life has been difficult as a result.
We have two children, and my toddler boy has shown traits that have made me fear him becoming an engineer. But now I have some ideas on how to temper the engineering with other activities. My son likes drawing, coloring and painting, so now I know to continue to cultivate those activities, along with the engineering-type things he likes, such as legos, puzzles, disassembling and assembling objects, etc. Down the road, I can encourage other activities such as martial arts. I will consider the efforts to be a gift to my future daughter-in-law. 🙂
With my husband, I had already talked to him about taking ballroom dancing together, with the hopes that it might improve communication between us. This blog posting makes me feel like I have good instincts.
Thank you for giving me hope!
I’m with Marla and others about the importance of acknowledging our real feelings and noticing the source of them. But the context here, what Mark is talking about, is what he calls “Apocaholic”-ness, which I take to mean focusing on how the world is rapidly going to hell in a handbasket , and telling everybody about it. I find myself doing that a lot these days, and I tend to forward bad-environmental-news articles to my son, who does pay attention to such things, but I think they just depress him. Not a result I really want.
So it’s good for me to remind myself to pay attention to the effect of my Apocaholic words on others…and to pay attention to what Mark points out about people’s perceptions of those who carry negativity. If I paid more attention, I could focus on words and actions that might bring a more positive result.
Thanks, Mark!
Since we know the mind shapes the brain, I am more inclined to lean with the “think good thoughts approach.” That does not mean I have to deny what I am feeling, however, perspective is everything. I do have control over how I wish to think about something that seems “bad.” Or for that matter, a person who seems, in my opinion, “bad.”
Thanks for a great post Mark. Always good to have a conversation arise from it.
Hi Marla, me too! Yes, its been the same for me.
Blessings
Hilary
Hilary, I am a part of a Diamond Approach group and so really agree w/ what you’ve so skillfully written. The practice of choosing TO BE w/ whatever my experience is instead of trying to choose what I think my experience SHOULD be has been revolutionary for me.
Yes I am not sure if the catching bad thoughts thing is so positive.
For me, it is more useful to enquire into them and see whats being triggered in me. Also, I honour that all feelings are a valid part of the human experience and I think if I am constantly trying to snuff them out I lose an important opportunity to tune into something true going on for me. If you can build your enquiry muscle, its amazing where these things can lead if you go with them.
Mark, I’d like to point you to the Diamond Approach based on the work of A H Almaas for another perspective.
Warmly
Hilary
I’m a bit stuck on what is meant by ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. I think anger is a positive when it is used to destructure a frustration. I think we can use it to address a problem – even in a relationship without denigrating persons. But anger is often put in the ‘negative’ bag.
I think acceptance is the path to transformation. Which gets tricky – to acknowledge the negative thoughts may be done as a welcoming of our judgements and even vulnerabilities or as a punishment of the part of ourselves we don’t approve.
I’m with Maria here on the value of looking under the hood if we’re backfiring or overheating. Still, I also believe that people who feel good about themselves are generally kind, so that when we find ourselves being unkind it serves to ponder what it is that’s got us feeling bad about ourselves.
Ultimately, I find my mind drifting to Carl Rogers who suggests that it’s all about authenticity: when what we think, feel, say and do all line up in an honest row.
And even if I’m not trying to get other readers to think well of me, I will go ahead and be honest and say, “nice blog.”
“Do not think bad thoughts. Catch them before they arise. But if you do think bad thoughts, catch them before you speak them. But if you do speak those bad thoughts, catch yourself, apologize and re-commit to not thinking or speaking bad thoughts in the future.” I think there is a danger in this way of thinking in that it can be more about bypass/transcendence than transformation. It seems to me if the psychological/emotional work isn’t done (why do i think and feel this way? what wounding might be at its root? what do I need to face/feel in order that I deal w/ it at a causal level?), that the imperative to not think bad thoughts becomes the voice of the Spiritual Super-Ego. And then these bad/negative thoughts/feelings might come out sideways in unconscious actions or speech.