Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Bogle bam here. Let's say someone
Speaker 1: cuts you off on the highway, so you flip him
Speaker 1: the bird. You're mad and now he's mad. You both
Speaker 1: get to where you're going and snap. But you're unsuspecting friends, family,
Speaker 1: or colleagues, who in turn flings some vitriol at others,
Speaker 1: and so the cycle continues. Rudeness is unpleasant, but it's
Speaker 1: also highly contagious and can affect your physical and mental health.
Speaker 1: That's according to Danny Wallace, author of f You Very Much,
Speaker 1: Understanding the Culture of Rudeness and What we can Do
Speaker 1: about it. Before the article this episode is based on
Speaker 1: HOS to Work, spoke with Wallace. He said, when someone
Speaker 1: has been truly rude to you and broken the rules
Speaker 1: of civilty, it's very confusing, which is one reason why
Speaker 1: people can't think of anything witty to say in the
Speaker 1: moment as a retort and big as you've been disrespected,
Speaker 1: you're trying to claw back some of that respect somehow.
Speaker 1: This is why Wallace said, you keep replaying incidents of
Speaker 1: rudeness over and over in your head, particularly when you
Speaker 1: didn't make the perfect comeback at the time, and rudeness
Speaker 1: is contagious, he notes in an article published in the
Speaker 1: January issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers cited
Speaker 1: three separate studies that showed that if someone was rude
Speaker 1: to you, you were more likely to behave uncivilly towards
Speaker 1: someone else. So if you were cut off driving to
Speaker 1: work later, you might open an email from a colleague
Speaker 1: that asks will you be at today's meeting and feel
Speaker 1: they're implying that you're going to skip it without a
Speaker 1: good reason. Even if you merely witnessed a rude interaction
Speaker 1: between two strangers, you became more likely to be nasty
Speaker 1: to someone else. Rudeness affects your brains frontal lobes, the
Speaker 1: area responsible for working memory, and those feelings can make
Speaker 1: your work stuff. Her research shows that your creativity and
Speaker 1: job performance knows dive when someone is nasty to you.
Speaker 1: That's because rudeness is emotionally draining. One of the most
Speaker 1: chilling aspects of uncivil behavior is that it can affect
Speaker 1: health and safety. Wallace says that a study on surgeons
Speaker 1: in Israel showed that rudeness made them fifty less effective.
Speaker 1: They didn't communicate well, picked up the wrong instruments, and
Speaker 1: missed changes that affected their initial diagnosis. Despite this alarming intel,
Speaker 1: there is hope the workplace rudeness can be addressed through
Speaker 1: plans of actions set up by management. In fact, some
Speaker 1: scientists are working on a rudeness fact scene for doctors,
Speaker 1: a video game that they could play when they come
Speaker 1: to work to take a breath and reset their minds.
Speaker 1: The simple awareness of incivilities contagion can help you monitor
Speaker 1: your own behavior so that you don't pass it on.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article why Rudeness is
Speaker 1: so Compagious on How stuff Works dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Melanie Redzii McManus. For more from Danny Wallace about rudeness,
Speaker 1: check out the podcast Part Time Genius. They interviewed Wallace
Speaker 1: for an episode titled Are We in the Middle of
Speaker 1: a Rudeness Epidemic? Rain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and it's
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clain. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.