Beyond Feelings - Vincent Ruggiero.original_ [35]
For many people the need to save face centers around a particular role in their lives:
Sam thinks of himself as a very devoted father who sacrifices for his children and has a close relationship with them. One day during an argument, his son blurts out that for years Sam has been more concerned with his business and his own leisure pursuits than with his children; he has in fact ignored and rejected them. Sam turns to his wife and demands that she tell the boy his charge is untrue. His wife slowly and painfully replies that the charge is essentially true. Sam storms out of the house, angry and hurt, convinced that he has been grievously wronged.
Agnes regards herself as an excellent homemaker. One day her husband suggests that the stove is overdue for cleaning. She becomes angry and accuses her husband of a host of offenses, from insensitivity to her, to selfishness, to rudeness to her parents.
Jackie sees herself as an unusually bright and conscientious student. Whenever the teacher returns a test paper that Jackie has done poorly on, she challenges the fairness of the questions. If this fails to get her grade changed, she paces the corridors and lounges of the campus complaining to her classmate and friends that the teacher is incompetent or dislikes her because of her clothes or religion or point of view. Those courses from which she absents herself regularly, she tells herself, are boring or useless.
For still others it is neither the particular aspect of the image nor the role involved that triggers the face-saving reaction. It is the people who are observing. Are they friends or strangers? Parents or peers? Employers or co-workers? What some people think of us we may not care about at all; what others think we may care about beyond reasonable.
CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF FACE-SAVING
There are different theories as to why people feel the need to save face. One plausible theory, proposed by psychologist Alfred Adler, is that to some extent everyone suffers from feelings of inferiority. Building on this theory, Tomas A. Harris suggests that the early childhood experience, with the feeling of being dominated by adults, leaves everyone feeling somewhat insecure and unconfident in later life.1 This theory helps explain how some people feel such a need to maintain a favorable image that they become defensive about various situations, including not only those in which they do look bad but also those in which they might possibly look bad and even those in which their suspicion of their own inferiority makes them imagine they might.
As the foregoing examples clearly indicate, the face-saving process can block growth in self-awareness by locking us into a rigid and wishful view of our personalities. Less obvious but equally unfortunate, it can pose a serious obstacle to clear thinking. By indulging our fears of unpleasant facts, face-saving leaves us indisposed to inquiry. And by limiting us only to the conclusions that reinforce our self-image, it blocks out the full range of conclusions that deserve consideration.
Just how do these effects occur in real situations? Let's consider three actual cases. In the first, I was discussing a thought-provoking article on marijuana with a college instructor friend. The article, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported the results of a clinical study of marijuana use.2 The authors concluded that "contrary to what is frequently reported we have found the effect of marijuana to be not merely that of a mild intoxicant which causes a slight exaggeration of usual adolescent behavior, but a specific and separate clinical syndrome…" the principal effects they noted were "disturbed awareness of the self, apathy, confusion and poor reality testing." They presented the details of thirteen actual cases to demonstrate these effects.
My friend remarked