Rights
Something to which people are entitled.
A right is something to which you are entitled. The most obvious examples tend to be in the legal sphere (consumers’ rights, rights of way, etc) but in addition to rights that are legislated for, you have behavioural rights. Rights are a central issue in being assertive, since a decision to be assertive, as opposed to aggressive or submissive, is in effect a decision to stand up for your rights in a way that respects other people’s rights.
Behavioural rights are more a matter of belief than legislation, since they tend to be based on conclusions you have reached about yourself in relation to others. You may believe, for example, that you have the right to speak your mind, and from this will follow certain ways of behaving that will differ markedly from someone who believes they have the right to remain silent. The problem with beliefs is that they can often be unrealistic and stubborn (see Beliefs), but reasonable behaviour rights are such things as the rights to:
- express your opinions, views and ideas
- be listened to
- have needs and wants that may differ from other people’s
- ask others to respond to your needs and wants
- say no
- express your feelings when you choose to
- be fallible, ie to be wrong and make mistakes sometimes
- be clear what is expected of you
- know how you are doing (feedback)
- know what you need to do to improve
- be consulted about decisions that affect you.
All these rights, reasonable in themselves, become unreasonable if you insist on standing up for them every time they are infringed.
You need to be selective and judge when it is appropriate to assert your rights. Another important implication of behavioural rights such as these is that if you believe in your own rights then, to be consistent, you must also believe that other people enjoy the same rights. In dealings with other people a balance needs to be struck, therefore, between standing up for your own rights while respecting other people’s. If, for example, you asked someone not to smoke in your presence (the right to ask others to respond to your needs and wants), you should respect their right to have different needs and wants and, much more difficult, their right to say no. This then becomes a classic case of conflict resolution (see Conflict).
The clearer you are about your behavioural rights, the better prepared you are to handle tricky situations assertively. For more details, see Assertiveness.