Are You Dominated by Another Person?

It occurs to me, I've known several people who allow their thinking to be heavily influenced by someone else—that is, by a particular other person. In two cases it was a domestic partner, in one case a work colleague, and in one case the head or leader of a political movement.

This is apparent when the person's conversation is very heavily laced with "X. says. . . ." They make the person being quoted sound like an expert and someone qualified to expound on just about any and every subject, when you know they almost surely are not.

Why are the thoughts and opinions of that other person so important? You might think that Person B (the one doing the quoting) regards Person A as more intelligent or more knowledgeable. But I think that's too simple or too obvious an explanation.

I think it's a matter of strong or dominant personalities. Or at least of who is relatively more dominant. Some people seem to be naturally submissive or prone to assume a submissive posture. (We are talking thought here, not anything physical or sexual. There might be some correlation between the two, but I'm not including that within my scope here.) These submissive people might even seem to want to be told what to think. Or they have subordinated themselves out of any of several possible motives, such as trying to keep peace in the family (my father comes to mind: my mother was definitely a strong personality).

You just want to ask those people why the ideas of the other are so important. Why is he or she qualified to talk like and expert on that subject? Or, you want to ask, Why don't you think for yourself?

But—there is the dynamic going on which I'm trying to point out here, and you're not going to change anything—much as you might wish you could. Maybe you just get tired of hearing, "X. says. . . ."

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein