Three Types of Attention

by OnTheWayOut 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  OnTheWayOut

  I am working on a theory here. Please add your thoughts.

  When children seek attention from adults, they generally receive three types:

  No attention
  Positive attention
  Negative attention

  Of course they want positive attention, but many children will resort to poor behavior when they get no attention, so that they can receive negative attention- something they prefer over no attention. Example: Dad is happy that his two children play together peacefully on Sunday morning while he relaxes with coffee and the newspaper. Eventually, the children get bored and ask Dad to "do something" with them. He just wants them to go back to playing together and ignores them. Gradually, the two children can no longer play together, but start arguing and yelling at each other. Just to get to the point, if Dad had given positive attention to them and played with them, they could have gotten along all day, but now Dad has to send them to their separate rooms because they can't get along. When Dad goes back to his newspaper and coffee, the children keep banging stuff in their rooms and crying and acting up because they don't have Dad's attention nor each other's attention anymore. Dad must go to each of them over and over again and address all of their acting up.

  Children learn how to interrupt you. They learn how to control you. Negative attention teaches children how to tease, nag, and annoy. It teaches children to aggravate, irritate, and exasperate. We teach this by not paying attention to our children when they are behaving appropriately, and by paying attention to them when they are misbehaving.

  On JWN, many want to have their say. Some ask questions and starts many threads. Others jump in and make their thoughts known on other posters' threads or are quick with a WT reference for some discussion. They are not necessarily attention-seekers. They may just be people who enjoy JWN.

  JWN posters are anonymous. There is really no "punishment" in negative attention. Trolls come in and want to get negative attention right away. Many will say the wildest things to get such negative attention. Most are probably the teen and pre-teen children of JW's that will never become JW's. Others may have never been JW but stumbled upon JWN. Most of these move on quickly to something more interesting.
  
  But there are attention-seekers that manage a bit more negative attention than juvenile trolls. Some, like children, pretend to be pro-JW and tame their answers enough to seem legitimate despite the fact that WTS would never want them to post here. They are long-term trolls that jump into threads (or start their own) about doctrine and theology and state WTS beliefs. Even these ones will almost undoubtedly leave WTS or become totally inactive. Most of these ones are sharp-minded and manage to know just what to say to get people upset.

  But there may be a new breed of attention-seekers on JWN. There may be people who want positive attention like some posters may get for their well-thought-out comments. They may start "fluff" threads that have nothing to do with WTS or JW-issues. If they are good at that, they may get enough positive attention. BUT..... these attention-seekers may not be getting enough of that attention to satisfy their desire. It could be that they desire ridiculously high amounts of positive attention, or it could be that their thoughts are not so well-thought-out as to draw further positive comments. It could even be that they are busy at work during busy hours on JWN and post mostly at slower times when their comments just get overlooked and forgotten.

  These positive-attention-seekers might be the ones that flip to negative attention. If they don't get admired and praised for their comments or their threads just die with 2 or 3 comments, they start getting wilder with their comments. They might offer radical thoughts, but they were originally ex-JW's and don't enflame people with pro-JW comments. They just cannot go back to pro-JW. So their radical comments could be about the standard subjects that get reactions: religion and politics. It may be fundamentalism or contact with the spirit world, or extreme conservative or liberal points of view.

  Anyway, it's a theory I am developing. More thoughts would be appreciated, not that I am seeking attention. (or am I?)
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  garyneal

  Nobody's been giving me attention for a while... I think you might be onto something here.

  If I start a thread and tell the atheist that the Flying Spaghetti Monster said that you must go house to house and be a witness to him and tell them that if they do not then they may be destroyed by his servant (the giant killer tomato) at parmageddon, do you think I will get their feathers ruffled?
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  steve2

  OntheWayOut, you're onto something powerfully helpful here. There are lots of really good psychology books that discuss the "principles" of behavior modification. If you read them you'll see that your ideas have already been fully developed, tested and validated. Just google behavior modification or "principles of behavioral learning"
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  cyberjesus

  This is what i think. No attention is not a "type attention" its the abscence of it.

  I dont think there is negative attention. When you really pay attention to something you put your mind an heart into it. everything else is just an excuse to get rid of the person looking for attention. just to apeace them so you can continue doing your own things.
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  serenitynow!

  Funny you should start talking about attention seeking right when the "MadJW" started bumping his threads up.
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  cult classic

  You can tell you're dealing with an attention seeker if they begin several conversations or threads with "I know I'm gonna get it for this but..." Or if they throw in a statement(s) they know to be controversial and then act hurt at the controversy.
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  zannahdoll

  OnTheWayOut

  It seems to me that children who are generally well adjusted had someone who wanted to spend time with them.

  I might agree with cyberjesus that no attention isn't a type of attention, but I still see that it does have an effect. (maybe re-title your concept as something other then 3 types of attention) ... then again: is the absence of something still a type? Example: Black is considered the absence of color while white is all colors combined... yet both are considered a color. So maybe no attention/lack of attention is still a type of attention...

  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060801040143AATQkFQ

  What is the color of absence of color?

  Technically, black is the absence of color. Color is determined by what we see reflected off of an object. For example, an orange is orange because it absorbs all other colors(light), but reflects orange back to our eyes. White is a combination of all colors being reflected off of an object. Black is THE ABSENCE OF ANY COLOR being reflected off of an object.

  Source(s):

  8th grade science

  So I don't know if no attention is a type of attention or not. I would suppose that if someone is consciously ignoring someone else then there is some level of attention going on. I think to ignore something you are aware of the thing that is being ignored to ignore it in the first place. - However if someone isn't ignoring another person because they have no knowledge or concept of the person to be ignored... then that could be absence of attention. Would ignoring someone be negative attention? Neglect?

  I do believe that there is negative attention. I don't understand cyberjesus saying that there isn't... people can put their heart and mind into paying attention to someone in a negative way: in the extreme: rape, murder, hitting, abuse, calling names, belittling, insulting... etc... OnTheWayOut, I have always thought, to do the reverse of the dad in your story, when children do something you don't like: don't give them attention. Put them on a time out and "ignore" them for one minute of their age. I have to be aware of them that they don't run amuck. I use this when I babysit. It's very effective. I play with children and give them lots of attention when they are well behaved. For the most part they are! I think it's because I'm spending time with them.
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  LongHairGal

  CYBERJESUS,

  Yes, there is such a thing as "Negative attention" and I don't mean "No attention". The reason I know because is because I received it. I came from a dysfunctional family and my parents would take turns picking on me in one way or another. It was really sick to see.

  So, yes, there is (1) "No attention" (where somebody is ignored);

  (2) "Positive attention" (where somebody is praised, etc.);

  then there is (3) "Negative attention" (criticism, fault finding, etc.)
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I saw this thread in "similar threads" and noticed that I never returned comments. So sorry.

  Garyneal, it depends on the tone your thread takes on after you post. If people think it is just a joke, like some used to say they were followers of THOR on this forum, they will agree and get some laughs. But the typical fundamentalist Christian, no matter how strange, usually has a great enough amount of seriousness to it for it to bother someone and make them comment with negative attention.

  steve2, thank you for confirming that I am on to something. I have read some philosophy but still haven't gone into reading psychology. It may be an area that fascinates me.

  cyberjesus, I think I understand you. You are referring to the actual part of passive "paying attention." I am including the reaction of a parent or person to clarify the difference between an interaction where everyone is enjoying the interaction and one where at least one party is upset during the interaction. I think I am trying to be applying terms in a less literal way. Otherwise, thanks.

  serenitynow, as I don't recall 5 years later why I started this thread, I will assume you hit the nail on the head.

  cult classic, I think you have the thought exactly right.

  zannahdoll, I suppose we can get all literal and I could say there are 3 basic types of reactions we can have when someone is seeking attention: NO reaction, a perceived POSITIVE reaction, and a perceived NEGATIVE reaction. But I hope you can see how that is already bogging us down with a quantity of words and qualifiers. And I hoped it wasn't necessary to say that "NO reaction" on a forum is quite different from keeping yourself from reacting in front of (or near) children who are misbehaving in order to draw attention. A poster on this forum may assume you are reading their comments and ignoring them, but they have no way of knowing that you haven't chosen to skip reading them altogether or that you read them and then refuse to comment.

  LongHairGal, thanks for your thoughts. You seem to be in harmony with me on not being so literal and focusing on the thoughts behind the "3 types."
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  OnTheWayOut

  ......and I am not really seeking attention by resurrecting a 5 year old thread. I just noticed it, that was all.