445 - Yes, Some People Need Drama
Needing drama as a personality trait?
Did you know that the need for drama (NFD) is actually a set of personality traits defined as a compound personality trait involving interpersonal manipulation, impulsive outspokenness, and perceived victimhood.
Any of us can exhibit these traits from time to time, and this episode should be approached the way episode 436: What if You’re the Toxic One? was. You could recognize someone in your life who exhibits these traits sometimes, or you may recognize that you engage in these behaviors yourself.
Behaviors associated with NFD:
Interpersonal manipulation: A trait that is characterized by a person's willingness to influence other people to behave in a manner that would serve the manipulator's goals. For example:
“I like to argue with others.”
“It's fun to rile people up.”
“I do things to see how others react.”
“I play people against each other.”
Impulsive outspokenness: A trait characterized by a person's compulsion to speak out and share opinions, even when inappropriate and without regard to social consequences. For example:
“I wait before speaking my mind.” This example is reverse scored on the NFD scale.
“I pay for speaking my mind.”
“It's hard to hold my opinion back.”
Persistent perceived victimhood: The propensity to constantly perceive oneself as a victim of everyday life circumstances that many people would dismiss as benign. High NFD individuals may use this perceived victimization as a justification for manipulative behaviors. For example:
“Many people have wronged me.”
“I wonder why crazy things happen to me.”
“People are out to get me.”
“I hold my head high because no one will do it for me.”
“People talk behind my back.”
But why?
Why might someone resort to behaviors like this? We have to consider the external locus of control and power dynamics within society. Additionally, things like impulsive outspokenness can be signs that someone feels perpetually unheard or misunderstood, or feels worried that they may never be invited to share their thoughts and opinions, therefore they have to thrust them into the situation. Often, people who are high NFD see their behavior as self-efficacy and competence.
People who are high NFD also tend to have low self-esteem, and they may engage in impulsive or manipulative behavior as a way to compensate for feeling bad about themselves.
As for victimhood, it can be tricky, since we live in a society that is largely built on oppressing and victimizing at least someone at any given time. Many people live at the crossroads of constant victimization, sometimes enacted by individuals, sometimes enacted by systems of oppression at scale. What makes this even trickier is that often those systems actively gaslight the people who are the most negatively affected by them, so bear in mind that the purpose of talking about this isn’t to suggest that anyone’s pain or grievance is not real or legitimate. Exaggerated victimhood is one strategy for being heard in an extremely noisy and distracting landscape, such as the internet. Past traumatic patterns of being wronged or betrayed can create an expectation that the same pattern will happen again and again. This may come out of very real trauma.
What to do about it?
If these behaviors describe someone you know:
Generate some compassion, when you’re ready. Understand that these behaviors have an origin point either from trauma, feelings of powerlessness, or coping with pain. If it’s appropriate to the relationship (such as a romantic partnership or a close friendship), you could ask curious questions to seek understanding from this person about their history and inner world. But if you’ve been burned by this person repeatedly, it’s okay to have boundaries and take space. You don’t need to work on being compassionate right away if you’re working on healing.
Validate feelings, but don’t validate the invalid. For example, validating that your friend feels frustrated, unheard, and powerless versus validating your friend’s belief that everyone at work is in a conspiracy to gang up against her.
Have boundaries. For example, get clear about what types of conversations you’ll engage versus dismiss yourself from, and take space away from the relationship when you need to.
If they describe you:
Get someone who can be a vibe check for you. Be explicit with your friend or therapist that you’re wanting someone to give you a reality check about what might be going on.
This outside perspective can also help you get clarity on what it is that you actually want or crave.
Have a dialogue with your inner child. As children we often resort to weird behaviors because we don’t have as much power or agency. Do any of these behaviors go way back? Does it bring up any memories? What did you want as a young person that you may actually have more ability to access now as a mature adult?
Practice solution seeking rather than dwelling in offense. Solution-focused therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, or coaching can be great for this.
For outspokenness, slow down. Journal your thoughts first and consider your intention in speaking.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are diving deep into the world of drama. Have you ever met someone who just seems to thrive on it? Or maybe you've seen a bit of that drama lover in yourself? You could think of this episode as the sequel to our episode 436, where we unravel the behaviors, the whys, and even the science behind people who need drama in their lives.
If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. It covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at Multiamory.com/book, or you can get it wherever you buy books.
Dedeker: Who is a drama person? Do you know any drama people? I don't mean like all us theater kids, obviously, but someone in your life who's a dramatic person. You don't have to name names. I'm thinking more like archetypes.
Emily: Oh, archetypes.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Okay.
Dedeker: Unless you want to drag someone by name on the show, I won't stop you.
Emily: I'm not going to say their name and this person is no longer in my life. Actually, they were the subject of the episode that we did on friends kicking you to the curb. This is one of those friends, but this is also a person-- When you say a person who is dramatic and who loves drama, this is the person that I think of for sure.
We're going to talk about things like victimhood and feeling as though they're continually the victim and somebody who just wants to talk about all of the ways in which they were wronged, stuff like that, and then stirs up some shit over and over again, makes things, I feel like, into bigger things than they actually are. Doesn't have really good ways of expressing themselves. I don't know. Just all of those things to me are very much this person, and they're no longer in my life. After that person, I'm like, "I don't really know a lot of dramatic people anymore." It's actually nice.
Jase: It's interesting the way that I feel like I have more people in my life who would fall into the category of being dramatic by wanting to just stir up shit and see what happens, rather than being complainy or being the victim of things or saying they're being treated poorly, but more just that they want to throw some drama onto some other people and then step back and just see what happens. I feel like I see that behavior more often.
Emily: Whoa. Fascinating.
Dedeker: I see it. I think mine is a slightly different flavor when I think about particular people. Yes, I think about someone who maybe this is a little bit of the complainy thing, but more of someone who really telegraphs their problems and telegraphs the ups and downs of their life to the world. Most of the people that I think of as being the most dramatic are also people who maybe have an internet/social media addiction.
They're on there constantly talking about all of the twists and turns of their day. Maybe making big, sweeping statements. I know some people who have been like, "I'm quitting Instagram. Goodbye, world." Then, they're back on it a couple of weeks later because they can't-- That kind of feeling, someone who really wants to bring everyone along for the ride of all of the plot twists of their day-to-day life.
Emily: Yes, I do know people like that. For sure.
Jase: We have mentioned on the show before this, feeling sometimes like you need to create a press release on social media for every significant thing that happens in your life and in your relationships. I think that might be related to that need for drama of everything's got to be a big declaration, a big, "Oh, my gosh. I've figured out this thing and I need to share it with everybody, and I need to get people's reactions and be up in the thick of it."
Dedeker: I have been sitting on this episode for a while because of something that I came across when I was looking at research studies for a different episode like last year. I sat on it because I didn't know how to do this episode without it just sounding like I was vaguebooking or subtweeting somebody the entire time, or whatever it is when you do it on a TikTok or a podcast these days.
Because for me, and I think for all of us, there's very particular people who come to mind that I would label as a very dramatic person. We're going to dive more into what the science says about this, but I thought we start it out on maybe a fun note and hear what comedian Chris Fleming has to say about it. To give a brief intro to Chris Fleming, he's one of my favorite comedians right now. He made that song a few years ago called Polyamorous that was satirizing polyamorous relationships.
It starts out with a line, "Just because I have bad hair doesn't mean that I'm polyamorous." Which some people in the non-monogamous community were very offended by. I love it and think it's hilarious and think he's just way spot-on about a lot of the tropes. If you don't know who Chris Fleming is, that's who it is. If that sounds super offensive to you, don't Google him. If that sounds hilarious, go Google him. In the meantime, we're going to listen to just a little clip from one of his latest standups.
Chris Fleming: You know that thing or the most toxic person you've ever met over-relates to woodland creatures on social media? I call it Vibe Dysphoria.
She'll put up a picture of a mouse in a jean jacket and write, "It's me." That is not you. I don't know how you got under the impression that you are a mouse in that jean jacket. You are an eel with a gun. She'll put up a picture of a cute little toad running through the forest with a little basket of mushrooms and write, "Me doing my little things." Your little things? Oh, madam. There is nothing little about your things. You gave me psychosexual issues I'll carry to my watery grave.
Dedeker: I wanted to show that clip because I think there's another important piece to the dramatic person, which I think is also a complete unawareness of the drama. If anything, I think a lot of people who are the most dramatic will also be the first to claim that they hate drama. Have you found that?
Jase: I don't know. Not as much with the examples that I'm thinking of.
Dedeker: Really?
Jase: Yes.
Emily: The one thing that I've found with dramatic people is that it's difficult for them to keep relationships, meaningful friendships, especially in their life because somehow eventually they feel victimized by that person who's their friend and so they have to cut them out of their life entirely. Saying that they don't love drama, maybe they haven't said that or maybe they have secretly to themselves, and it's just a complete lie. It's not real.
Jase: I'm just trying to think about my example of people who their form of drama is more, "I want to stir up shit and see what happens." I guess sometimes I could see that being expressed of, "Gosh, I can't believe people are so reactive." Or, "Gosh, people get so bent out of shape over little things." They're constantly doing stuff to try to get that reaction from people and will even sometimes admit that that's why they're doing it and yet also be like, "It's their fault for reacting so strongly to these things."
Dedeker: Before we go too far down the rabbit hole of just complaining about dramatic people in our lives, I want to reiterate that this episode, it could be for helping to recognize someone in your life, or it could be for recognizing yourself. I like to think that this episode is maybe the spiritual sequel to episode 436 where we were examining whether or not you could be the toxic one in a particular dynamic.
I just want people to open their ears just a tiny bit to, you could also be the dramatic one in this particular instance. Don't worry, whether it's someone else in your life or whether it's you, in the last half of the episode we're going to be talking about takeaways and what we can do about all of this in order to help everyone feel a little bit more empowered, less victimized, more able to communicate effectively. With that said, I'm going to dive straight into the research because according to science, "need for drama" is a real personality trait.
It's actually considered a set of personality traits. "Need for drama," or as it's shortened to is NFD, it's defined as a compound personality trait that involves three factors, interpersonal manipulation, impulsive outspokenness, and perceived victimhood. Most of the information in this episode today is coming from a research study done by Scott Frankowski, and 16 other scientists as well, but Frankowski seems to be the one who's leading the charge on this particular field of study.
The study is called Developing and Testing a Scale to Measure Need for Drama, this was published in 2016 in Personality and Individual Differences. What Frankowski has been doing is literally trying to develop a scale so that we can measure someone, essentially put them up to a yardstick of how high is their need for drama, or how many of these particular personality traits do they have.
This particular study, it's gone through many different iterations. It started with doing qualitative interviews with people asking them to, like we did at the top of the episode, to think about a person in their life, a friend, a family member, a classmate, an acquaintance who was very dramatic or prone to drama, and then having them describe that person in as much detail about their personality and their behaviors. Then from there, they started to extrapolate out, making a scale with more statements on it, and more points at it, fewer points on it, and really condensing down to what they found were these primary traits of a dramatic person.
We're going to get more into those specifics, but just to talk a little bit more about some of their findings, they found that someone who has high NFD, or high need for drama may be characterized by having a chaotic life, having difficulty maintaining healthy relationships, like you mentioned, Emily.
Emily: I was like, check, check.
Dedeker: Yes, check, check, check, having a very external locus of control. What that means is basically having a perception that there are very few things within your control that things happen to you, which can help to lead into some of that perceived victimhood, and that things outside of you are happening to you and you don't have a lot of power control to influence them. They found that high NFD personalities and individuals, it was often a predictor of things like cyber bullying behaviors, or a predictor of broadcasting problems on social media and also what they called, "workplace deviance behaviors," which involves things like manipulation or gossiping, or stirring up office drama, or getting really caught up in the office drama, things like that.
Emily: Much like what we talked about in our Are you the Toxic One episode, I think it's really important to remember that these are traits that any of us can and do exhibit from time to time. We can all be toxic. We can all be dramatic in our lives. There may be points in our lives, or people with whom we are more or less toxic, or dramatic, or whatever. That's perhaps just the way in which you may have certain friendships or may interact with your family members, or your mom, or whomever.
I think it's okay if you are one of these people, or if you see yourself perhaps within the traits that we're talking about in this episode. We are going to discuss ways to maybe change that or alter it if that is something that you want to do as well.
Dedeker: Again, I feel like I always want to balance out the alienation that can happen when we're talking about these things. I remember years ago, Kathy Labriola told me something, and I don't remember if she told me this one-on-one or if she mentioned this one of the times that we had her on the show, I don't remember, but she talked about being a therapist and working with clients and how doing that work there has to be a part of you that does love drama, and gossip.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: That was her opinion. I think it's true. It's definitely been true for me. It's like there has to be some of that in there to keep you interested in hearing people's problems day after day after day and not being bored by them. I've really thought about that a lot over the years especially as I've worked with more and more clients where sometimes that is what keeps me coming back is, of course, I want to help people but there is I think there's something in our human nature.
Emily: “So what happened this week?”
Dedeker: Yes, like, "Oh my God telling me the mess, I love mess."
Emily: “Give me the hot goss.”
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: It's funny actually because I was just having a conversation, well, just having. A few months ago, I was having a conversation with my little sister who was a sociology major. I was like, "Oh, hey, I think we're getting a little bit too gossipy or something in this conversation. I'm being a bad example as an older brother." She shot back immediately with like, "Gossip is how we survived as humans. This is how we got to where we are. Don't try to stop me from gossip."
Dedeker: It's true.
Emily: Amazing.
Jase: Dedeker mentioned the three behaviors that are associated with NFD personalities. We're going to get a little bit into each of those, including why they happen and what to do about it. The first one is interpersonal manipulation. This trait is characterized by a person's willingness to influence other people to behave in a manner that would serve them. We talked about this a little bit last week, in terms of communication types, where we talked about manipulative types of communication. I think this maybe falls into that category of really leaning into that especially much, if that starts to pervade a lot of your interactions.
I think a key difference here is that what we talked about last week was about manipulating to try to get what you want. This can sometimes be about manipulating people just for the sake of drama, not necessarily to get what you want. They come from a slightly different place. Examples from the NFD scale questionnaire, and these are all those types of questions with the Likert scale where you say how much you agree or disagree with those questions. Some of the examples are, "I like to argue with others," or, "It's fun to rile people up," or, "I do things to see how others react," or, "I play people against each other."
All of these come from this desire to manipulate other people into chaos, rather than just to do what I want, but it's to amuse me or maybe a little bit to get what I want, but there's this little extra, I just describe it as chaos that's in there.
Dedeker: It's funny you used that word because it's calling to mind a friend of mine, who I would not think of as a dramatic person. However, I do think of him as very high in this interpersonal manipulation. I always thought of him as true, chaotic neutral, honestly, where it's literally just about the chaos. It doesn't come from a bad place, but it doesn't necessarily come from a good place. It's literally just like I'm stirring things up. I'm kicking the hornet's nest. Sometimes that was really fun to be around, and sometimes that was really unpleasant to be around with this particular person.
The next trait is impulsive outspokenness. This is characterized by a person having this compulsion to speak out and share their opinions, even when it might be inappropriate to do so while disregarding the social consequences of that. Now, this is interesting because thanks to the internet and social media, we're at a time where I think social consequences for sharing your opinion has decreased. Hence, that has created the whole infamous sense of, "Oh, the internet is horrible, don't look at the comments section," is because people feel a little bit of this anonymity of, "I can say whatever inflammatory thing that I want."
Maybe that's starting to change a little bit, but I do think that internet culture has encouraged a sense of, "Well, I don't give any fucks I'm just going to say what I want to say." They included this statement, "I weigh before speaking my mind," and that one was reversed scored. If someone said that they're likely to say, "Oh, yes, I strongly agree that I weigh before speaking my mind," that would decrease points on the need for drama scale. It also include statements like, "I pay for speaking my mind." Suggesting that, "I do speak my mind and there's negative consequences, and it's hard to hold my opinion back."
Jase: It's funny because I'm thinking about some people in my life who I would say fall into this area, this trait of this kind of, it's almost like, once I became aware of it, I'm able to even watch it play out where I see them have a reaction or an opinion about something, maybe I know that they have this opinion on this particular topic. If it comes up in conversation, whether that's at work, or with friends, or with their partner or whoever, I see them go through this moment of having the thought, having the thing, not having a chance to say it, and then being like, "Oh, no, okay, I've got to say it now."
Then maybe it doesn't get acknowledged enough so they say it again, maybe louder the second time, where it's like this. I do think it's a bit of a compulsion. It comes across that way of, "I can't rest. I can't calm down until I have expressed this thing, until I've said this thing." It's really interesting to see that on this drama scale because yes, there does tend to be a lot of chaos and drama surrounding them and some difficulty sustaining healthy relationships.
I wouldn't have immediately thought of drama. It does make sense. It does fit, actually. I wouldn't have initially put that label on them.
Emily: It is interesting to me how both last week's episode and this week's episode are a little similar in ways. It's talking about how this potentially dramatic person is asserting themselves or expressing themselves to the world. That sometimes that can be in potentially those more manipulative or passive-aggressive ways depending on the situation. With this one, the speaking their mind compulsively, I feel like that could be more manipulative or even aggressive at times.
Jase: Yes. I think there's an overlap. They're not quite the same. The motivation behind it isn't quite the same. With this impulsive outspokenness, I don't think is always related to needing people to do a thing you want or to agree with you. It's like, I just have to say it versus what we talked about last week was a little bit more about what lengths will I go to try to win and get the thing that I want? There could definitely be overlap. It could be both, for sure. That's really interesting to think about how that might be coming from a different place.
What you might want to do about it, which we'll get to in the second half of this episode, might be different depending on where it's coming from and what the motivation for it is.
Emily: The next behavior associated with NFD personalities is this persistent, perceived victimhood. Victim is a word that when I was younger was definitely a bad word in my family, like, don't be a victim, don't play the victim. Or you are playing the victim, don't do that. I have a really big negative connotation to that word. I don't want to be perceived that way, even though if at times maybe I do feel like a victim.
I'm sure we all feel like victims at times, but perhaps those who are more dramatic see themselves as a victim more often than not. When I think about the person who I have been talking about, who I really see as exhibiting these behaviors, they, across the board for 90% of the time saw themselves as a victim whenever I spoke to them. It is this propensity to constantly perceive oneself as a victim of everyday life circumstances, that many people would dismiss as just being fairly benign, and high NFD individuals may use this perceived victimization as a justification for manipulative behaviors.
There's that word again. Some of the things that were talked about on the NFD scale included, "Many people have wronged me," "I wonder why crazy things happen to me," "People are out to get me," "I hold my head high because no one will do it for me." Wow.
Dedeker: That was a weird one.
Jase: That's a weird wording on that question.
Emily: Yes. It's a weird wording. Goodness. Then, "People talk behind my back." Yes, that one's a big one. Gosh, I'm thinking of somebody who is a friend who I've worked with on a few projects who on social media especially, will talk about all the ways in which other people are talking about her behind her back, and I'm like, "Are they? Is this reality? Is this real life?" I don't even see that in anything that you're showing on social media. It's just strange that they present their reality in that way. It's weird to see the juxtaposition between what an outsider deems to be reality versus what the person who it's being done to sees as their reality.
Dedeker: Well, yes. That's the funny thing about this, right? Is that it's unlikely that this person is thinking, "Oh, I'm going to put on this air of victimhood and that's how people are going to feel sorry for me." I don't think these things happen at the level of conscious thought necessarily.
Emily: Yes. Probably none of them do, I'm assuming.
Dedeker: Yes. Probably none of them, really. It's funny though, because I think for a long time, anyone that I've followed online. Whether I know them in real life or not, or if they're just an acquaintance, anyone who talks about specifically for me, it's funny that for you, Emily, victim and victimhood is the trigger word. For me, anyone who talks about "fake friends."
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: Anyone who complains about fake friends that I'm just like-
Jase: They're saying, my friends pretend to be friends, but they're all talking behind my back and stuff.
Dedeker: Yes. Talking behind my back. Or they've all betrayed me. Or I don't have time for fake friends.
Emily: Chill.
Dedeker: Yes. That's a flag to me where I'm like, "Woo Boy, I don't know if your fake friends are the problem. I suspect that something else is going on here."
Jase: Yes. As you were describing this, Emily, what was coming to mind for me is almost like it's either a different facet of, or maybe the opposite of entitlement. There's this thing of the external locus of control versus internal. Am I in my situation because of things entirely out of my control? Or am I in my situation because of things that are in my control? I think that this, we're talking about it being skewed to saying, "Oh, it's all external." Right?
This is all society's fault or other people's fault or whatever, that I'm struggling or that I'm feeling sad. Or whatever is difficult, that victimhood thing. Then we can see this other extreme where someone has it really good in life, and they can attribute it all to things that they did and not acknowledge the luck and happenstance and randomness that contributed to where they are in life. I almost see it as the opposite side, but of this similar trait of unrealistically, like not having perspective on how much is actually in your control versus what's not.
Emily: Yes. We probably have to acknowledge that all of us have certain sets of privileges and all of us have certain sets of disadvantages, and that there are many factors to how well we're doing in life or not.
Jase: We're going to take a quick break to talk about how you can support this show. If you love this content and want it to keep coming out for free every week, just take a moment, check out our advertisers. If any of them seem interesting to you, go check them out. It does directly support our show if you use our links and promo codes, stuff like that. Also, if you go to multiamory.com/join, you can get information about joining our private communities there and also support the show while you do it.
Dedeker: All right, folks, we're back, and we're going to be talking about why someone may resort to these behaviors or what context may produce this sort of personality trait. Again, this is all in service of trying to not tell the story that, "Oh, dramatic people, they're just evil and bad, and they're rotten to the core that's why." Again, these are all traits that all of us can exhibit at different times. I found this really interesting quote when I was researching this episode. This was by a journalist, Oliver Berkman. This was just a little editorial in The Guardian that only happened to slightly mention need for drama personalities. It wasn't really about that. He was particularly writing about politics, and I really liked this quote. He says, "If more and more voters seem to be choosing disruption or demagogues for the fun of it, maybe that's because causing drama is the last option open to those who feel powerless."
Again, I think that's the root of so many of these things. That if you feel powerless, if you feel there is no way that you can control or affect something that feels so huge and so painful, that sometimes stirring up some shit is the best that you got, or yelling about how persecuted you are is all that you have at the end of the day.
Jase: I see this show up in some of the frustration with things like capitalism or patriarchy or whatever, that result to this, we've got to burn it all down, revolt, violent uprising, let's destroy the whole system kind of thinking. I think there's a similar element there of, I feel so powerless in this situation against this thing that seems so huge, and that maybe me and my friends are the only ones who see this problem. There's nothing we can do besides just the most chaos we can. At the same time, I feel sometimes this makes sense. I talk about this a lot in my personal life.
If you keep running into the same problem over and over again in a relationship or even in your own personal life, sometimes just doing something dramatically different just to shake it up can actually be really helpful. I think that there can be this less productive, maybe more toxic, dramatic version of that. That's what's coming up here. On the subject related to that is that impulsive outspokenness may be a sign that a person feels perpetually unheard or misunderstood or worried that if they don't just jump in and state their opinions, that no one's ever going to ask for their thoughts or their opinions. They have to thrust those in or throw those out to the world or feel that compulsion to say it, because if I don't say it, no one else will. No one thinks this, and no one's going to let me say it if I don't jump in.
I think something that's challenging there is, if you are someone who does have that tendency to need to jump in with your opinions, people will ask for your opinion less because they know you're going to give it anyway. They're probably tired of hearing it because you felt that compulsion to jump in so often.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: I know that might seem harsh to say, but again, I'm thinking of some of my friends that fit this category. Where I'm like, "Yes, I'm not going to go out of my way to ask for their thoughts on something, because I know they're just going to give it to me whether I want it or not."
Dedeker: Wow.
Jase: It can lead to a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy or a little bit of a cyclical situation.
Dedeker: Interesting. I never thought about it that way.
Emily: I do find it interesting that that outspokenness is one of the things that people look at when they're trying to figure out the traits of people who are dramatic. I think people can be outspoken without being dramatic, but it is interesting that the most dramatic people do tend to often be very outspoken. They have to have their thoughts heard regardless of whether or not you ask for it or want to hear it, like you just said, Jase.
There was a study done by Lue & Frankowski in 2020 called The High Need for Drama Individuals May Interpret Their Manipulative and Impulsive Behaviors as Self-Efficacy. It was published in the North American Journal of Psychology. Now we've talked about self-efficacy before on this show, it's been a little while. Just to reiterate, it refers to a person's belief in their own ability to complete tasks and reach goals.
It is a self-evaluation of one's competence and capability to successfully perform activities and exert control over events. This study found that there was no direct correlation between NFD and self-efficacy. However, people with the most and the least dramatic tendencies felt higher self-efficacy than those in the middle on either end, yes. The researchers suggest that high NFD people may see their behaviors in coping mechanisms as competence. Getting what they want and getting shit done, which reinforces their behavior.
Dedeker: Getting shit done with my phraseology, not the researchers.
Emily: Love that.
Jase: Man, I wish that was in the study.
Emily: Wow, that's really interesting because this idea that drama is getting shit done, that these dramatic things to them feel as though, okay, I'm doing something I can assert control over. This thing that I'm concocting in my mind is happening or whatever. I'm just trying to wrap my brain around that.
Jase: I'm wondering if-- We've talked about where these behaviors would come from, right? If we call it drama, it's hard to think about, but if we look at these three traits, this interpersonal manipulation, impulsive outspokenness, and persistent perceived victimhood. That if you think about those as coming from these internalized feelings of an external locus of control, things are out of my control or no one wants to hear my opinion, or I'm powerless.
Or I might get overlooked, that then the behavior of speaking out about that and talking about it on social media, broadcasting these things, talking about how much everyone's out to get me is a way of trying to exert some control when I perceive that I don't have any. Even if it might be coming from more internalized thoughts than actual reality. I think it does make sense if you look at it that way, of, it's not that they think having those thoughts makes them higher in self-efficacy, but it's doing something about those thoughts. Well, yes, I'm doing something about it. I guess that's good, right? I've learned to do that. That must be good.
Dedeker: Well it makes me think of the Chris Fleming clip about the vibe dysphoria where even have someone who thinks that they're just like sweet and harmless going about their day, just living their life when the impact on others around them is extremely negative. That's what it makes me think of that maybe this can be more of this aggressive, well, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks, so I'm just going to say my mind. That's me feeling like I'm being very effective and able to take charge and take life by the horns and get through a difficult situation, or what I perceive to be a difficult situation.
In that way I think it makes sense. Now, can y'all explain to me your theories about why people on the very low end of the dramatic scale may also have a high sense of self-efficacy? Can we put that puzzle piece together?
Jase: Based on the way that this Need For Drama is described, it seems like someone who would be low on this would actually be high in self-efficacy.
Emily: Truly, yes, because they don't need the drama to fuel that self-efficacy in any way. They just have it inherently, perhaps.
Jase: They might feel more in control and like they do have high efficacy. It said that there was no direct correlation between NFD and self-efficacy, meaning that whether you're high in NFD or low in it, there was no connection to self-efficacy.
Dedeker: It seemed like NFD wasn't necessarily a predictor of whether or not you would have high self-efficacy. I think because of this, because they found that people who were both high and low had the highest sense of self-efficacy. If you find that, I think if those are your findings, you can't make the conclusion, oh, someone who has a high NFD also has a high sense of self-efficacy because you have a lot of examples to the contrary.
Jase: I wonder if people who scored really low on the NFD, because if you look back at the questions that they were answering, things like, I like to argue with others. It's fun to rile people up. It's hard to hold my opinion back. People are out to get me. I could see if you answered very low on all of those that it feels like, yes, I'm so intentionally not dramatic, that must be because I'm high in self-efficacy, that I've really got this figured out that I'm not engaging in this drama.
I almost feel like when you score really low on that, maybe it's because you're really taking a stand on these things and that's what helps you feel like, yes, I have high self-efficacy, I'm making a strong choice here.
Dedeker: It makes me think of-- I'm going to blow my own horn here for a second, but well it makes me think of times when I've been really pissed off with somebody. Whether it's somebody online or one of my friends, or a partner, and I'm just really ready to fly off the handle with an outspoken opinion that's maybe inappropriate. Times where I have been like, whew, okay, I need to pause. I'm going to walk away because I know even though I'm pissed off right now, I know I have the skills to communicate this better. Or I know in this relationship I have a channel of communication where we can work this out in a better way.
As good as it would feel right now to just pop off on this person, I'm going to choose to not. Now, that's not always how that goes for me, but that's what it makes me think of. It's like the moments when I'm tapped into my own self-efficacy helps keep me out of trouble. I could also see on the other hand, if I really let someone have it, me being like look at what I just did for myself
Emily: I stood up for myself.
Jase: In the research, they've also found that people with a high Need For Drama tend to have lower self-esteem. That they often act in these manipulative and impulsive ways, which may be techniques to try to compensate for feeling bad about themselves. This relates to last week where we talked about some of the behaviors like passive aggressive coming from a place of feeling really disempowered. I could see in a similar way that this is showing up, but with low self-esteem of, okay, this is the way I'm trying to counter that feeling that I have.
Dedeker: I want us to talk a little bit more about victimhood. We probably should have said some of this earlier because I do think that talking about victimhood is tricky. We live in a society that is largely built on oppressing and victimizing at least somebody at any given time. There are many people who live at the crossroads of constant victimization, sometimes that's enacted by an individual. If you're in, let's say, an abusive relationship or a toxic workplace, sometimes that victimization is enacted by systems of oppression at scale.
Also what makes this tricky is that sometimes individuals or these larger systems can actively gaslight the people who are the most negatively affected by them. Classically, someone who is abusive can be really manipulating the situation to make it so that the victim questions whether or not they're actually a victim here, right? Same thing that can happen at a grander scale. Bear in mind that the purpose of talking about this perceived sense of victimhood, it's not to suggest that anybody's pain or grievance is not real or not legitimate.
I think anyone that we've been talking about, or any of our friends or acquaintances that we're thinking about, I don't think any of these people have just zero pain and they're completely making up the whole victim thing. I do think there's real pain there and there's most likely legitimate pain there as well. It's just that there's kind of this perfect storm where it gets really skewed and exaggerated.
Exaggerated victimhood in particular, I think it's one strategy, again, for being heard in an extremely noisy, busy, distracting landscape like social media or the internet, for instance, saying something like, "Oh, I had a friend who was really close to me and they behaved in this way that really let me down and really hurt my feelings." It may not get the same attention and care from others or from the algorithm as saying something like, "Oh, this fake friend betrayed me and they stabbed me in the back. They're dead to me now and if you want to stay my friend, you better stop being friends with them too."
That sometimes, unfortunately, the systems that we are living in online can encourage this exaggerated victimhood, yes. The algorithm really rewards this extreme level, like this hyperbolic level of not just victimhood, but any sort of opinion.
Jase: It makes a lot of sense, and I think it also fits with a culture of not taking feelings seriously sometimes. We've talked about that before with wants versus needs. That there's a similar thing of, if this isn't a need, then no one's going to listen to me if I express it. I could see that show up in relationships when people talk about them online of, if I was hurt or betrayed or really disappointed by this person, saying that is not going to get as much as this person is a narcissist or they're an abuser or whipping out that stronger language in order to get the reaction and the support that in a better world, maybe one that wasn't so much focused on social media, but more actual communities of people that know each other, saying, "Hey, I was really hurt by this person and disappointed by them," would actually be received with the type of care that that person actually wants.
Emily: This whole thing makes me think about the moments in my life where people have said to me, "You're playing the victim or you're acting like a victim and it's not attractive or whatever." That there are moments when we can feel victimized and when we also can just be in a state of feeling a little sorry for ourselves. That, to me, I think that that's okay at times. We are just going to be in those states and we shouldn't make people feel bad about that. I don't know. Maybe I'm just saying that and I shouldn't play the victim, but whatever.
Jase: No, I think that's a good point.
Emily: This is so charged for me.
Dedeker: No. I should have said at the outset, like I said in the toxic episode--
Emily: This is not about you Emily.
Dedeker: This episode is not for you, Emily.
Emily: Thank you. I want to throw out there that I think it's okay for people to have moments of feeling sorry for themselves and to feel bad about something that happened to them, because things happen to all of us. There's nuance again, and it's okay to feel sorry for yourself at times.
Dedeker: Okay. Here's the deal. I feel like I'm unlocking more puzzle pieces of Emily right in this very moment.
Emily: Great.
Dedeker: I also think related to this though is that, again, there can be very real pain here. There can be these past traumatic patterns of being wronged or of being betrayed either by individuals or by your caregivers or by society at large, and that can create this expectation that the same pattern is going to happen again and again and again.
That can create this sense of paranoia, hypervigilance, a sense I can't really trust anybody, or if I do start to trust somebody and open up to them, I'm going to sabotage it in some way because I'm just scanning for when they're going to betray me and so I need to get rid of them. All these weird behaviors can come out of real trauma. I do think that that can be part of the constant perceived victimhood piece.
Emily: With all of this, we should be asking ourselves, what can we do about it? Are there any antidote? As Dedeker spoke about at the beginning, we're going to be talking about this in relation to if you're thinking that this whole episode described someone that you know versus if it describes perhaps traits that you yourself embody. If this describes somebody that you know, the first thing that you can do is generate some compassion when you're ready.
Now, I will say a person like me, for instance, sometimes generates a little bit too much compassion to where they can potentially be walked all over if they get into a situation where they're being really giving or giving a lot of their time, for instance, to a person who does tend to exhibit super high need for drama traits. I think that this is a balancing act to a degree. Maybe set some personal boundaries for yourself in terms of how to deal with that person or not, because I wasn't great about that with the person who I've been describing and it backfired in my face really badly at the end.
Just be aware of that, but understand also that these behaviors have probably an origin point from trauma or feelings of powerlessness, or coping with pain overall. If it's appropriate to the relationship, if this is a romantic partnership or a close friendship, you could ask curious questions to seek understanding from this person about their history and their inner world, but if you've been burned by this person repeatedly, it is really okay to have boundaries and take space. Truly, it's fine. You don't need to work on being compassionate right away if you're working on healing from what happened within that situation. I think this is so good for me to say.
Jase: It's related to something that we talk about a lot when it comes to breaking up in romantic relationships, of it's possible to have compassion and empathy for this person and to understand that this comes from a real place of pain for them or trauma and have compassion and also say, I can't be in this relationship because of how it's negatively affecting me, or having some boundaries where maybe it's not cutting off the relationship entirely, but putting some things in place so that you are not constantly being hurt by this person. There can be both of those things at the same time.
Going along with that is a concept of validating the feelings behind what they're saying without validating the invalid parts or the exaggerated parts. An example of this would be validating that your friend feels frustrated or unheard or powerless, versus validating their belief that everyone at work is ganging up against them. Maybe validating some of the experiences because maybe there's a little bit of truth in there, but not just jumping right into, "Oh my gosh, you're right. Yes, everyone is against you," and encouraging that way of thinking of this everyone is talking behind my back kind of way of approaching things.
Then, as we were mentioning, having boundaries for yourself. Being clear with yourself and then also with this person about what types of conversations you'll engage in versus which ones will you dismiss yourself from. Maybe that involves taking some space away from that relationship even on a short term just so that you can figure out what those boundaries are or get yourself regulated again so that you can engage with this person.
This is something that can be difficult, but the more you can communicate this upfront, the more you give them a chance to receive it and to understand it. It may still not land. They may go, "Well, if you're not going to be there for me for all of these things, then screw you. You're out of my life." There's nothing that you can do about that because your only other option is staying in a situation that is negative and bringing you down and harming you by continuing to engage in these things.
There is that possibility, but by trying to have boundaries that you express kindly to them, maybe they'll react badly at first, but they might eventually come around to understand, "Yes, I want to have this person in my life still, so I'm going to do my best to respect their boundaries." There's going to be a little bit of a push-pull there. It's not easy, but it is really important for your well-being, and I would say for theirs as well.
Emily: Now, if all of this that we've talked about in this episode feels like perhaps you're on the side of being a dramatic person maybe if you find that this all describes you a little bit, that's totally okay, but you could take some tactics to at least examine that a little bit, especially if you find that, "Hey, maybe I want to start easing into the other side of the scale to be not as dramatic of a person."
The first thing you can do is get someone who can be a nice little vibe check for you. Like we said in the Toxic Episode, be explicit with a friend or a therapist that you're wanting someone to give you a reality check about what might be going on in your life. Also, this outside perspective can help you get clarity on what it is that you actually want or crave.
A really nice thing to do, I know that this is something that's probably said in a lot of self-help things and an overused concept, but have a dialogue with your inner child. The need and the feelings of being dramatic I think often come from a lot of childish and younger tendencies that creep up when we feel like we're super powerless or have no agency in our life.
We might have weird behaviors that were similar to what we did as kids. Maybe you can look at some of those behaviors and ask yourself, "Is that something that I did as a young person? Do these feelings bring up any memories from the past? Am I remembering something that felt really toxic or traumatic as a kid that I'm playing out over and over again in my life?"
Maybe what you wanted as a young person is something that you can actually aspire to have more in your adult life or that you have more agency over in your adult life even though it can often feel like we don't. Ideally, as adults, we do have more power and we do have the ability to change things that were once really challenging for us into something that can be easier and ultimately heal from those toxic times or those challenging times that we had as kids.
Dedeker: Something I think I've learned about myself. The times that I think I slip into the most drama or dramatic behavior is when my toes have been stepped on in some way or when I perceive that someone has slighted me. How dare they? Where sometimes it's hard for me to let that go. It can be easy to really dwell in the offense, whether that's a perceived offense or a real offense. I think it is helpful. It's the same way that Emily, you're talking about, like I think it's okay to sometimes have a little pity party for yourself, or to feel bad for yourself.
I think sometimes it's okay to have a little bit of tantrum time on your own in a controlled dosage. I don't mean tantrum time, like just go off on all the people that are around you, but I do think it is okay to sit with the hurt. If you feel like someone has said something mean to you, or they disregarded you, or they were rude to you, it's okay to sit with that hurt because that sucks.
Again, I think the theme here is it's okay to acknowledge the real pain and feelings that are going on, but once you've given yourself that time, then it's time to practice the solution-seeking muscle and things like solution-focused therapy, or acceptance and commitment therapy, or specifically, coaching, working with a coach can be really great for that. This is something where sometimes it can be helpful to give yourself a container to feel mad and sad into.
It could be like, okay, for the next hour I'm going to let myself get so pissed off about how this person slighted me, or wronged me and then after that, I'm going to put it to the side, and then I'm going to think more about what do I do now, or maybe do I need to just let it go now? That's an option as well.
Jase: If you find that you're identifying with some of the impulsive outspokenness attributes, examples of this, again from the questions are things like, "I pay for speaking my mind. If you do recognize that there's this pattern that people will get mad at me or upset with me for speaking my mind, or that I have a hard time holding my opinion back when I realize, maybe part of me realizes that there's going to be consequences for that." Some things that you can think about there is one is just finding ways to slow down your process.
Journaling your thoughts, I know we've talked about that a lot, and that might not seem practical in all situations, but by doing it when you can, an example would be if this were an interaction in social media or through email, maybe there was a work email or in your group of friends on your text thread or something where you're not face-to-face with someone, and you do have a little time to first get those thoughts down somewhere else that you can't accidentally press send on.
I will sometimes start writing my reply in the email and then be like, "Oh God," and I'll select it all and cut and paste it into Notepad or some other program that doesn't have a send button just to protect myself from myself, to have that moment to get it out first, so that then you can think about, "What are actually the key parts of this that I want to express, and if I do want people to listen to this, how can I express it in a way that will be easier for them to listen to?" That's maybe a whole other topic relating to some of the other communication tools and things from our book and that we talk about on this show.
Related to that is, considering your intention in speaking is to ask yourself that question of why do I want to share this? If you really don't have an answer besides just, well, I just want to be sure they hear what I think about this thing, or they need to know this opinion, maybe that's a cue to go, "Okay, why might I do this in general?" Again, to go back to that thing of, "Okay, can I write some of this down and figure out why do I feel like I have to share this? Is it because I feel like I'm not being listened to? Is it because I'm worried that they're going to do something wrong if they don't hear my opinion, or might this be something about how I was raised?"
Again, going back to that, talking to your inner child, of was this something that was either encouraged or was never allowed? I feel like, well, now that I have the chance, I finally need to do it. Then, to go back to Multiamory episode 430 about honesty and looking into how we can communicate in a more compassionate and clear way rather than just stomping on people with these opinions.
Dedeker: Now, lastly, if you are not sure if this is you or if it's someone else, or you feel like maybe this is sometimes me, maybe sometimes it's the other person in the dynamic, or if you're just in a dynamic where you know there's a lot of drama but you can't quite pin these behaviors down to a particular person, we really recommend that you go in the way back archives of Multiamory.
Go listen to episode 187. That was when we did a deep dive into a concept known as the Karpman Drama Triangle, especially if you're in a situation right now where there are three people, common to see this playing out with triads or people who are in certain dynamics with their metamours, three-person dynamics, a lot of drama can show up in particular. Go listen to that episode because that may give you some more clues about what's actually going on there. Folks, we want to hear from you.