When You Play Monopoly, You Lose

The goal of the board game Monopoly is simple: make as much money as you can, and drive your opponents into bankruptcy.

When people apply the theory of Monopoly in their conversations, however, they drive others away. When Derber talks about people monopolizing their conversations, he reveals how much people talk about themselves at every possible moment. We, as Americans, are brilliant at this practice.

Conversational monopolizing occurs in many daily conversations and is conducted in disguise of false interest in what your partner has to say. There are two different types of attention responses that Derber believes is important to recognize. Those two include the shift-response and the support-response.

The shift-response is something that people should try to avoid. This short video demonstrates the shift-response:

This short video demonstrates the support-response:

 

During Joel's and Alyssa's first conversation, you will hear them monopolizing the conversation by turning attention away from each other and onto themselves. This is called the shift response.

In the second video, you will hear them practice the support response. The support response is underused in many conversations; but is ideal to relationship building and understanding.

Conversational narcissists overuse the shift-response, and they under use of the support-response (Derber). To determine if you are a conversational narcissist, try monitoring the conversations you have throughout the day. 

Due to living in an individualistic society, we learn to talk about ourselves as much as possible. According to Derber, this is driven out of self interest and a egocentric world-view. It's possible that we overuse the shift response not out of rudeness, but out of habit.

"I challenge everyone to use the support response in their daily conversations," Alyssa Robnik says. "I guarantee they will learn much more about their friends, family, and acquaintances."

The content of this post is thanks to Charles Derber and his book The Pursuit from Attention: Power Ego in Everyday Life