How to Deal with a Know-It-All

You can begin training the person to be a calm, loyal companion by employing one or more of the following responses:

1. Fight to win.
If you're in a feisty mood and you're confident you can beat the know-it-all at the intellectual dominance game, you may decide to argue your rival into submission. This is what we're trained to do in school, but I use it only as a last resort, since it tends to leave both contestants growling, angry, and bleeding from wounds to the ego. Choose another method for know-it-alls you want to remain part of your immediate pack. If you do decide to exert dominance, say something like: "Laplace? Mechanist determinism? Oh, please. Unless you plan to ignore all of postmodernism, as well as both Heisenberg and Kant, it's incontestable that uncertainty and subjectivity are experiential absolutes. Ergo, I stand by my position: You never know what's going to happen."

2. Change the stakes.
If you want a know-it-all to stay in your pack, there's a better way to deal with a dominance challenge than wading into the IQ challenge. Approach your know-it-all at the level of EQ. Know-it-alls are weak as puppies in this area, so be gentle. In a soft, nonaggressive tone, say: "Pat, I think you're showing off your brain to get social acceptance. The thing is, that really doesn't work. Think how you'd feel about a rich person who wouldn't stop harping about their net worth."

The know-it-all will respond, "Don't you mean 'a rich person who wouldn't stop harping about his or her net worth'?" Say, "Pat, you're doing it again."

If a few such prompts have no effect on the know-it-all's behavior, you may have to consider an appropriate shelter, such as a research institute or a Tolkien convention, where the organization helps place know-it-alls in better homes. But don't do this without trying the next technique.

3. Put your know-it-all to work.
I've seen this gentle social training succeed on others and, more to the point, on me. That's right: By breed I am a know-it-all. But ever since a kindly teacher took me aside and explained that my behavior was the social equivalent of leprosy, I've tried hard to overcome my genes. Sadly, I passed on many know-it-all traits to my children—even my son with Down syndrome, who, when I corrected him for skipping numbers on a kindergarten counting assignment, gave me a withering look and said, "Hello, I was counting by fives." My kids and I are "useless factoid" know-it-alls. We rarely dress ourselves correctly, but we know all about, say, the mating rituals of penguins. It's not that we mean harm; it's just that we're a working breed, like German shepherds or bulldogs. What we want most is to be of service.

More Martha Beck Advice

• 6 types of emotional muggers and how to avoid them
• How to stop comparing yourself to others
• The perfect comeback for your passive-aggressive friends