Sunita Sah

However, I also didn’t want him to know that I didn’t trust him. In fact, I felt more pressure to go along with his advice, just to avoid signaling my distrust to him.

In daily life, we often feel conflict between our individual preferences and prioritizing the wishes of others.

Often. In fact, there have been times in my life when I have felt it every day, from morning to night, slowly eroding my sense of self as I constantly prioritized other people’s interests above my own.

insinuation anxiety: the concern, worry, or apprehension most of us feel about signaling a negative opinion about another person to that person.

Insinuation anxiety encourages us to act against our values and preferences in order to protect another person’s feelings. We do not want to insinuate that we think the other person may be biased, corrupt, or plain incompetent. So we often comply with a suggestion, keep silent, or accept a bad piece of advice, just so that the very person who is hurting us, costing us, or putting us at risk can “save face.”

That’s because insinuation anxiety and the sales pitch effect rely on the power of social interaction. If that interaction disappears or is weakened, then so does your anxiety about signaling distrust or unhelpfulness. We can’t signal something negative if the other person is not present to send a signal to.

When we feel pressure to comply, the best time to make a decision is not in the heat of the moment.

research shows that talking to ourselves—even for a moment—helps us regulate our emotions so we can make better decisions.

Overcoming insinuation anxiety and the sales pitch effect is not about your level of intelligence or goodness, how courageous you are, or whether you are an extrovert. All of us—regardless of gender, age, or personality—can succumb to these pressures. It’s natural to want to maintain harmony in our relationships. But we can get so wrapped up in being polite that we forget who we are.

The point is that you become aware of it as a choice and feel empowered and able to say no.