Arts / Faith and Humanities / People of SU

Seattle U in the news: Why do Seattleites complain so much?

September 12, 2019

Kathleen Cook, PhD, chair of the Seattle U Psychology program, was among those interviewed to answer this question in a replay of a SoundQ weekly podcast. 

Dr. Kathleen Cook: Doesn't it feel good? Don't you enjoy complaining a little bit and after you have shared your complaints and someone else has said I know totally or so right then you're like, oh we've just connected around this place or this thing that about which we both have concern and it validates your perspective and your view of the world. When someone joins you in that complaint. So in Seattle as a relatively liberal city if I were to throw out something you know read off a tweet or something that I just read from our president then I could get probably a lot of people going “Really! Yeah! Listen to this one” or something and we would automatically have community.

Deborah Wang: So people complain because they want that social connection, they want to create social connections?

Dr. Kathleen Cook: Paradoxically, yes. I think that very often when we are complaining we're throwing out a bid if you will to say this is how I see the world, this is what I think, this is what I find upsetting, do you join me in that.

Listen to or read the transcript of the KUOW-FM SoundQ podcast here.