I aspire to run and manage stuff. Yet I often find myself often using low-status communication methods even when medium to high-status communication methods are appropriate. I find it uncomfortable to express expectation that others should follow my lead or listen to me, and express thanks too much. I say, “is it okay if we go now” to a friend who gave me a ride instead of “Let’s go?”
I thus devised the following plan and am in the process of executing it.
Skill: Become comfortable with expressing high-status behavior.
Exercise: Ask women that are older than me out on dates. I will be forced to act high-status or I will be shot down, either in the asking or during the date.
For many more exercises exploring status behavior (both high and low), see Keith Johnstone’s Impro. (Here’s my review.) Johnstone’s theory of improvisation (and acting in general) is that most of the weight of convincing the audience is carried by relative status distinctions among the actors. He provides a detailed set of exercises for exploring and understanding subtle and extreme differences so actors can be comfortable on stage projecting whatever distinction is called for.
Johnstone’s theory of improvisation (and acting in general) is that most of the weight of convincing the audience is carried by relative status distinctions among the actors.
By my recollection (I don’t have the book in front of me) the status distinctions that he writes about are not among the actors, but among the characters that the actors are portraying (as you say in your review). I doubt if a theatrical company could long survive if the actors themselves were ceaselessly jockeying for position in the way Johnstone has the fictional characters doing. I am unconvinced of the usefulness of taking this as a key to human relationships in the real world. What Johnstone did was to take a single aspect of human relationships and use it as a cantus firmus on which to construct theatrical scenes. It convinces the audience not by resembling life, but by resembling a single idea about life, much as a cartoonist makes an instantly recognisable face with a few lines by concentrating on a single, simplified physical feature.
You could take any ubiquitous feature of real life and use it in this way as a key to theatrical composition. If Impro had been written in the 60s, the key that it presented might have been sex: everything the characters did would be constructed on the basis of being a negotiation, overt or covert, about whether, when, and with whom to have sex. Social class can serve as a key, from which one gets “stock characters” and comedies of manners. Pinter found a minimalist key: explain nothing and insert unnaturally long pauses between conversational turns. The audience fill the gap themselves by confabulating the characters’ thoughts, and wonder how Pinter made his dialogue sound so realistic. At least, they did at first, but this happens with all new theatrical techniques. They begin by being lauded as refreshingly realistic, but with time they are seen to be no less artificial than their predecessors.
If you have a friend who is willing, it shouldn’t be too hard to roleplay out using “high status” language. Just practice some dialogue and have them call you on it if you use language that’s lower status.
Personally, I’d have them call you on it if you’re rude too, but that’s because, in my experience, politeness is a useful skill at all status levels.
And, of course, ideally you should be calling yourself on it too. Recording the conversation might help, so you can replay it and evaluate yourself afterwards.
This is hardly useful if one is no longer in a position to be able to go on dates. My fiancee would probably object to me asking older women out on dates, no matter how much I insist it’s to train my rationality. What other exercises would train this without putting important relationships at risk (probably shouldn’t practice on bosses, family members, etc.)?
Attempt to obtain odd or ridiculous requests from service providers without saying “please”. I.e. Go to Mcdonalds and ask for “chips with no salt”. Lacks same impact as calcsam’s method though...
Unless I’ve misunderstood, I don’t recommend this. When I was a retail clerk, I would make extra effort to fulfil an unusual request for someone who was polite to me, but not for someone who wasn’t. You can say “please” and be polite without acting subservient. Asking for something strange seems fine, though.
(I usually think of people who don’t treat service workers kindly as low-status—like they desperately would like to have the power to order someone else around without regard for their feelings but have no other avenue to do it. )
Seconded. I’ll throw my two anecdotes on the table:
Anecdote 1: I used to work management, and routinely got good results via “please” and “thank you” because I was raised to be polite. Other managers in the same company often got poor results using rude/bullying techniques. That said, I’d estimate that “politeness” was one of the less significant factors to one’s success either way.
Anecdote 2: Working retail, I found that people who were especially rude were usually low-status. The exceptions were mid-status people who seemed to very badly want to be high-status, and people who had a pretty good reason to be rude due to previous experiences. (And the latter category was the only time I’ve ever felt rudeness was acceptable)
I’ll admit my method is flawed, but the idea was closer to asking for something beyond what is expected without acting as if it is a huge request, treating it casually.
The “not saying please” thing struck me as a good method for ensuring it stayed casual but I can see that would probably come off as rude—politeness is surely a charachteristic of most productive behaviour.
There’s actually some interesting psychological research that suggests people primarily evaluate based on how you present things: kids are only cautious when their parents seem worried, and will be much calmer and more accepting if the parents act like something is no big deal. If you present a request casually, it’s more likely to be casually accepted without thought. If you seem extremely anxious, people will pick up on that and get anxious themselves. Definitely a skill I have benefited from learning.
A sub-skill I would suggest is being okay with “no”. I’ve found that if I ask for a big favor, get a “no”, and just smile and move on, then people feel safer about me in the future—I didn’t make them feel bad, so they don’t have to be defensive about my future requests. It also makes it much easier for me to ask for the favor, and to come off casually, because I don’t have any particular investment in a “yes” answer.
I agree that it’s good to learn to date if you haven’t, both because the result can be good, and because it’s a good proving ground for social competence.
I think it’s good to not to roll over and accept unnecessarily low status—to not give it away.
It’s good to know how to please and attract, to cow and impress.
I aspire to run and manage stuff. Yet I often find myself often using low-status communication methods even when medium to high-status communication methods are appropriate. I find it uncomfortable to express expectation that others should follow my lead or listen to me, and express thanks too much. I say, “is it okay if we go now” to a friend who gave me a ride instead of “Let’s go?”
I thus devised the following plan and am in the process of executing it.
Skill: Become comfortable with expressing high-status behavior.
Exercise: Ask women that are older than me out on dates. I will be forced to act high-status or I will be shot down, either in the asking or during the date.
For many more exercises exploring status behavior (both high and low), see Keith Johnstone’s Impro. (Here’s my review.) Johnstone’s theory of improvisation (and acting in general) is that most of the weight of convincing the audience is carried by relative status distinctions among the actors. He provides a detailed set of exercises for exploring and understanding subtle and extreme differences so actors can be comfortable on stage projecting whatever distinction is called for.
By my recollection (I don’t have the book in front of me) the status distinctions that he writes about are not among the actors, but among the characters that the actors are portraying (as you say in your review). I doubt if a theatrical company could long survive if the actors themselves were ceaselessly jockeying for position in the way Johnstone has the fictional characters doing. I am unconvinced of the usefulness of taking this as a key to human relationships in the real world. What Johnstone did was to take a single aspect of human relationships and use it as a cantus firmus on which to construct theatrical scenes. It convinces the audience not by resembling life, but by resembling a single idea about life, much as a cartoonist makes an instantly recognisable face with a few lines by concentrating on a single, simplified physical feature.
You could take any ubiquitous feature of real life and use it in this way as a key to theatrical composition. If Impro had been written in the 60s, the key that it presented might have been sex: everything the characters did would be constructed on the basis of being a negotiation, overt or covert, about whether, when, and with whom to have sex. Social class can serve as a key, from which one gets “stock characters” and comedies of manners. Pinter found a minimalist key: explain nothing and insert unnaturally long pauses between conversational turns. The audience fill the gap themselves by confabulating the characters’ thoughts, and wonder how Pinter made his dialogue sound so realistic. At least, they did at first, but this happens with all new theatrical techniques. They begin by being lauded as refreshingly realistic, but with time they are seen to be no less artificial than their predecessors.
I am actually reading that book now. Thanks!
Suggested exercise:
If you have a friend who is willing, it shouldn’t be too hard to roleplay out using “high status” language. Just practice some dialogue and have them call you on it if you use language that’s lower status.
Personally, I’d have them call you on it if you’re rude too, but that’s because, in my experience, politeness is a useful skill at all status levels.
And, of course, ideally you should be calling yourself on it too. Recording the conversation might help, so you can replay it and evaluate yourself afterwards.
This is hardly useful if one is no longer in a position to be able to go on dates. My fiancee would probably object to me asking older women out on dates, no matter how much I insist it’s to train my rationality. What other exercises would train this without putting important relationships at risk (probably shouldn’t practice on bosses, family members, etc.)?
Perhaps alternate exercises could include:
Attempt to obtain odd or ridiculous requests from service providers without saying “please”. I.e. Go to Mcdonalds and ask for “chips with no salt”. Lacks same impact as calcsam’s method though...
Unless I’ve misunderstood, I don’t recommend this. When I was a retail clerk, I would make extra effort to fulfil an unusual request for someone who was polite to me, but not for someone who wasn’t. You can say “please” and be polite without acting subservient. Asking for something strange seems fine, though.
(I usually think of people who don’t treat service workers kindly as low-status—like they desperately would like to have the power to order someone else around without regard for their feelings but have no other avenue to do it. )
Seconded. I’ll throw my two anecdotes on the table:
Anecdote 1: I used to work management, and routinely got good results via “please” and “thank you” because I was raised to be polite. Other managers in the same company often got poor results using rude/bullying techniques. That said, I’d estimate that “politeness” was one of the less significant factors to one’s success either way.
Anecdote 2: Working retail, I found that people who were especially rude were usually low-status. The exceptions were mid-status people who seemed to very badly want to be high-status, and people who had a pretty good reason to be rude due to previous experiences. (And the latter category was the only time I’ve ever felt rudeness was acceptable)
I’ll admit my method is flawed, but the idea was closer to asking for something beyond what is expected without acting as if it is a huge request, treating it casually.
The “not saying please” thing struck me as a good method for ensuring it stayed casual but I can see that would probably come off as rude—politeness is surely a charachteristic of most productive behaviour.
There’s actually some interesting psychological research that suggests people primarily evaluate based on how you present things: kids are only cautious when their parents seem worried, and will be much calmer and more accepting if the parents act like something is no big deal. If you present a request casually, it’s more likely to be casually accepted without thought. If you seem extremely anxious, people will pick up on that and get anxious themselves. Definitely a skill I have benefited from learning.
A sub-skill I would suggest is being okay with “no”. I’ve found that if I ask for a big favor, get a “no”, and just smile and move on, then people feel safer about me in the future—I didn’t make them feel bad, so they don’t have to be defensive about my future requests. It also makes it much easier for me to ask for the favor, and to come off casually, because I don’t have any particular investment in a “yes” answer.
I agree that it’s good to learn to date if you haven’t, both because the result can be good, and because it’s a good proving ground for social competence.
I think it’s good to not to roll over and accept unnecessarily low status—to not give it away.
It’s good to know how to please and attract, to cow and impress.
[edit: yes, your story is clear]
Edited. Is it more clear now?