So my impression of this is that the problems you describe (particularly examples 1, 2 and 3) are the things I dislike about rationalism as an approach to life. In my experience it prioritises being right over getting things done. I’m not saying it isn’t a good cause, I’m just saying it isn’t always helpful—empathy is usually a far better way of dealing with people.
My experience of providing negative feedback and receiving it is that it is always helpful to phase things like they are your fault—it makes the criticised party feel less attacked, and puts you on their side, and if you are providing constructive feedback in an attempt to help them improve, this is what you are doing. You take on a level of wrongness which is inaccurate, and they don’t feel to bad, but move to help “weaklings like you” (I’m not saying you are a weakling, I’m saying having them think you are isn’t always unhelpful).
In example 1 (as is usually the case on AITA) I suspect the issue arose from poster mishandling things—they were correct, but they weren’t helpful. In order to deal with a situation like that, the correct thing to do is to try and be calm yourself, and be nice. Give ground, and (in that case in particular), say “Sorry I didn’t mean it in that way, it is delicious, I just wanted to try it with hot sauce”, and the upset person will usually realise, and apologise themself. It is important to realise that the gf was probably quite nervous about her cooking—see things from her perspective:
She just tried really hard to cook something she thinks is nice for her SO, but is quite nervous and self-conscious. The OP then eats a mouthful, and dumps a pile of hot sauce on the rest, before eating any more. She will naturally conclude that they didn’t like the food but was too polite to say, takes this as an ingratitude, as she didn’t have to cook but chose to, and a dishonesty, as they chose to hide the idea, rather than give advice.
From her perspective “putting hot sauce on the food doesn’t mean the food is bad” only makes this vision concrete, whereas “Oh, I’m so sorry I really didn’t mean it that way, it is delicious, I just wanted to try some hot sauce. I should have thought about it first. Seriously, thank you so much for making this for me” is conciliatory, takes the blame for the misunderstanding away from her (so she doesn’t have to admit she was wrong), and so resolves the situation.
I feel this is often the case on AITA, as people worry about being wrong, rather than what they could have done better (at least for posts like this). The posts also lack context, and fail to paint the other persons side of the story, which can result in biased views. They include excuses for themselves, but not the other party (for all we know, the gf’s parents were just both killed, its unlikely, but we don’t know).
In example 2, I feel (possibly without cause), that your high standards for yourself caused you to view the insinuation that you did something wrong to feel like an attack. Placing a high value on rationality makes you view your own irrationality as a flaw, when it really isn’t that bad. In reality you just hadn’t given much thought to the topic, and should have looked at it as a learning experience. You were hurt only because you expect better of yourself, in a way you can’t achieve. (This is more flaky, as it involves something where you clearly know way more than me). My advice would be to let yourself be human.
In example 3, I feel that phrasing your concerns as “I’m not that fit, so I can’t really do the normal warmups, but really need the 45 minutes” would allow them an easy out (Their warmups are fine, you are the problem), would argue for allowing others to do their own warmups, and could easily have reached a solution quite quickly. I don’t know about this, but I feel like you might have argued first for the flaws in their warmups, which would make you their enemies, and make the situation confrontational. Addressing the problem as your own makes them helping you feel accommodating, means that they haven’t done anything wrong, and everyone is happy. I again don’t know much about the situation, but I hope I’m not making things up.
I feel like the problems you are addressing are similar to cognitive dissonance—if you want to tell someone they are doing something wrong, and always have been, then you will struggle. If you instead try to tell them that they are right, but need something different in this case, then it doesn’t fight their preconceived notions, so they can introduce their new idea without scrapping everything.
For you to accept that the CDs might break, you first had to accept that you have been doing it wrong so far, and you might have broken some CDs. This then feels like the friend is saying that you break library CDs and are thus a bad person. They are not saying this, but what they are saying fights with the idea that you do good things, so you reject the new idea. This is counterproductive, and I feel this kind of internal rejection needs more attention.
For the martial arts place to accept that you need a different warmup fights the ideas they have that they know what they are doing, so it feels like an attack on their professionalism. If you instead phrase it as a problem with yourself, you can make the idea integrate with their previous mental model, so they will be more accepting.
When dealing with others, particularly surrounding negative feedback, you need to be keenly aware of how badly people naturally respond to negative feedback, and how we will reject it due to the conflict with our own models of ourselves as good. To deal with this involves both seeing these things in yourself, and trying to fight them, and trying to work around these things in others.
I didn’t include examples 4 and 5, as I feel there is a strong difference between negative feedback for the sake of the fed back to, and that which is for the sake of other consumers. If the feedback is for other consumers, my opinion is that the feedback should be published as is, without any polishing. If you run a customer facing operation, you have to deal with this. Get used to it.
So my impression of this is that the problems you describe (particularly examples 1, 2 and 3) are the things I dislike about rationalism as an approach to life. In my experience it prioritises being right over getting things done. I’m not saying it isn’t a good cause, I’m just saying it isn’t always helpful—empathy is usually a far better way of dealing with people.
My experience of providing negative feedback and receiving it is that it is always helpful to phase things like they are your fault—it makes the criticised party feel less attacked, and puts you on their side, and if you are providing constructive feedback in an attempt to help them improve, this is what you are doing. You take on a level of wrongness which is inaccurate, and they don’t feel to bad, but move to help “weaklings like you” (I’m not saying you are a weakling, I’m saying having them think you are isn’t always unhelpful).
In example 1 (as is usually the case on AITA) I suspect the issue arose from poster mishandling things—they were correct, but they weren’t helpful. In order to deal with a situation like that, the correct thing to do is to try and be calm yourself, and be nice. Give ground, and (in that case in particular), say “Sorry I didn’t mean it in that way, it is delicious, I just wanted to try it with hot sauce”, and the upset person will usually realise, and apologise themself. It is important to realise that the gf was probably quite nervous about her cooking—see things from her perspective:
She just tried really hard to cook something she thinks is nice for her SO, but is quite nervous and self-conscious. The OP then eats a mouthful, and dumps a pile of hot sauce on the rest, before eating any more. She will naturally conclude that they didn’t like the food but was too polite to say, takes this as an ingratitude, as she didn’t have to cook but chose to, and a dishonesty, as they chose to hide the idea, rather than give advice.
From her perspective “putting hot sauce on the food doesn’t mean the food is bad” only makes this vision concrete, whereas “Oh, I’m so sorry I really didn’t mean it that way, it is delicious, I just wanted to try some hot sauce. I should have thought about it first. Seriously, thank you so much for making this for me” is conciliatory, takes the blame for the misunderstanding away from her (so she doesn’t have to admit she was wrong), and so resolves the situation.
I feel this is often the case on AITA, as people worry about being wrong, rather than what they could have done better (at least for posts like this). The posts also lack context, and fail to paint the other persons side of the story, which can result in biased views. They include excuses for themselves, but not the other party (for all we know, the gf’s parents were just both killed, its unlikely, but we don’t know).
In example 2, I feel (possibly without cause), that your high standards for yourself caused you to view the insinuation that you did something wrong to feel like an attack. Placing a high value on rationality makes you view your own irrationality as a flaw, when it really isn’t that bad. In reality you just hadn’t given much thought to the topic, and should have looked at it as a learning experience. You were hurt only because you expect better of yourself, in a way you can’t achieve. (This is more flaky, as it involves something where you clearly know way more than me). My advice would be to let yourself be human.
In example 3, I feel that phrasing your concerns as “I’m not that fit, so I can’t really do the normal warmups, but really need the 45 minutes” would allow them an easy out (Their warmups are fine, you are the problem), would argue for allowing others to do their own warmups, and could easily have reached a solution quite quickly. I don’t know about this, but I feel like you might have argued first for the flaws in their warmups, which would make you their enemies, and make the situation confrontational. Addressing the problem as your own makes them helping you feel accommodating, means that they haven’t done anything wrong, and everyone is happy. I again don’t know much about the situation, but I hope I’m not making things up.
I feel like the problems you are addressing are similar to cognitive dissonance—if you want to tell someone they are doing something wrong, and always have been, then you will struggle. If you instead try to tell them that they are right, but need something different in this case, then it doesn’t fight their preconceived notions, so they can introduce their new idea without scrapping everything.
For you to accept that the CDs might break, you first had to accept that you have been doing it wrong so far, and you might have broken some CDs. This then feels like the friend is saying that you break library CDs and are thus a bad person. They are not saying this, but what they are saying fights with the idea that you do good things, so you reject the new idea. This is counterproductive, and I feel this kind of internal rejection needs more attention.
For the martial arts place to accept that you need a different warmup fights the ideas they have that they know what they are doing, so it feels like an attack on their professionalism. If you instead phrase it as a problem with yourself, you can make the idea integrate with their previous mental model, so they will be more accepting.
When dealing with others, particularly surrounding negative feedback, you need to be keenly aware of how badly people naturally respond to negative feedback, and how we will reject it due to the conflict with our own models of ourselves as good. To deal with this involves both seeing these things in yourself, and trying to fight them, and trying to work around these things in others.
I didn’t include examples 4 and 5, as I feel there is a strong difference between negative feedback for the sake of the fed back to, and that which is for the sake of other consumers. If the feedback is for other consumers, my opinion is that the feedback should be published as is, without any polishing. If you run a customer facing operation, you have to deal with this. Get used to it.