In Amy Sutherland's What Shamu Taught Me About Love Life And Marriage, the principle is "ignore the behaviors you don't like." I have a friend for whom this isn't working. In fact it has the opposite effect.

Overall, I've been having good results with Shamu techniques, but I've also seen many many cases where it doesn't apply. In the case of this one friend, my silence or non-response actually encourages his unwanted responses. This guy is wired to rile people up, and if you don't respond, he just doubles-down. And then later on, he brings up, "how come you're not responding to X?" which creates a situation where I have to respond. If I feign distractedness ("what did you say?"), it reinforces his attempts.

Of course, Sutherland included a good catch-all exceptional principle, "know your species." which probably works in this case.

Anyway, thought it'd be nice to mention that to those of you working through that book.