Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

by Adam M. Grant

It is in their reliance on reasoning, explanations, suggestions of ways to remedy the harm done, persuasion, and advice that the parents of rescuers differed most. . . . Reasoning communicates a message of respect. . . . It implies that had children but known better or understood more, they would not have acted in an inappropriate way. It is a mark of esteem for the listener; an indication of faith in his or her ability to comprehend, develop, and improve. While reasoning accounted for only 6 percent of the disciplinary techniques that the bystanders’ parents used, it accounted for a full 21 percent of how the rescuers’ parents disciplined their children. One rescuer said her mother “told me when I did something wrong. She never did any punishing or scolding—she tried to make me understand with my mind what I’d done wrong.”