I can’t present much in the way of evidence, but I think it is about status, and ‘you always want to be right’ is a more-specific way of calling someone a jerk.
It may be about status in a way that’s not immediately obvious, though—my model suggests that it’s less about who’s got higher status and more about something like equanimity, and that the question is whether or not Alice is trying to make a power grab; if not, the common wisdom is that she won’t consider it worthwhile to fight about something just for the sake of being right.
Actually on further reflection, this reminds me of a model I read about a while ago that suggests that uncertainty in relative status is important for group cohesion—that only the group alpha and the group omega can have approximately-known status, and between those two extremes someone making their relative status clear will be a destabilizing influence, for reasons that either weren’t presented well or I’ve forgotten. I’ll see if I can find that; it was a rather complicated model, of which this is just a small part, but it seemed potentially useful.
ETA: Found it. That’s actually the last post in the series, and it uses some specialized definitions for deliberately semi-offensive words, so it might be better to start at the beginning.
Agree it’s about status, disagree it’s only about status, or there’d be no reason for the way to be that specific.
Agree about egalitarian pressure.
It was Distracting wolves and real estate agents
. Do you mean that the correct response isn’t admitting the other person is right (what my mother advises), which loses the fight, but rather to drop the topic, making it unclear who won?
The first, second, and fourth of those are well served by noting the difference between being right and being known to be right, and not worrying about the latter in situations where the other person doesn’t value objective rightness. That basically describes my personal policy, anyway—I have a strong habit of going “oh, ok” and dropping the subject at the first sign of annoyance on the other person’s part in such cases, unless there’s something at stake beyond just their knowledge, and that seems to work well enough.
I can’t present much in the way of evidence, but I think it is about status, and ‘you always want to be right’ is a more-specific way of calling someone a jerk.
It may be about status in a way that’s not immediately obvious, though—my model suggests that it’s less about who’s got higher status and more about something like equanimity, and that the question is whether or not Alice is trying to make a power grab; if not, the common wisdom is that she won’t consider it worthwhile to fight about something just for the sake of being right.
Actually on further reflection, this reminds me of a model I read about a while ago that suggests that uncertainty in relative status is important for group cohesion—that only the group alpha and the group omega can have approximately-known status, and between those two extremes someone making their relative status clear will be a destabilizing influence, for reasons that either weren’t presented well or I’ve forgotten. I’ll see if I can find that; it was a rather complicated model, of which this is just a small part, but it seemed potentially useful.
ETA: Found it. That’s actually the last post in the series, and it uses some specialized definitions for deliberately semi-offensive words, so it might be better to start at the beginning.
Agree it’s about status, disagree it’s only about status, or there’d be no reason for the way to be that specific.
Agree about egalitarian pressure.
It was Distracting wolves and real estate agents . Do you mean that the correct response isn’t admitting the other person is right (what my mother advises), which loses the fight, but rather to drop the topic, making it unclear who won?
Actually I was thinking of something else (I ETA’d my last post with links), but that’s an interestingly similar example.
As to what’s ‘correct’, it depends on one’s goals and preferences.
What do you mean, then?
It’s rather safe to assume that anyone interested in the questions has the following preferences:
Not being thought of as a jerk who always wants to be right;
Being as right as possible;
Helping others be as right as possible;
Enjoying socialization (of which the first item is a subgoal).
The first, second, and fourth of those are well served by noting the difference between being right and being known to be right, and not worrying about the latter in situations where the other person doesn’t value objective rightness. That basically describes my personal policy, anyway—I have a strong habit of going “oh, ok” and dropping the subject at the first sign of annoyance on the other person’s part in such cases, unless there’s something at stake beyond just their knowledge, and that seems to work well enough.