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Overconfidence May Be a Result of Social Politeness
An anonymous reader writes "Joyce Ehrlinger from Florida State University has researched this very phenomenon, and has led her to present a paper called 'Polite But Not Honest: How an Absence of Negative Social Feedback Contributes to Overconfidence' at the American Psychological Association's annual conference in Orlando on Friday. Social norms, Ehrlinger says, are the reason that we are averse to giving negative feedback. Her research recreated everyday social situations in which we hold back from giving our own negative views."
negative feedback is acceptable if given constructively and pleasantly
nobody's perfect
It's been just about impossible to criticize the religious beliefs of anyone for decades, and it's almost impossible to curb inappropriate and in-your-face religious behaviors because of the sacrosanct rule that religion is somehow immune to interference from the secular world, and that's why religious craziness around the world is on the rise.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Joyce Ehrlinger from Florida State University is stupid! She has absolutely no idea what she's talking about! Pure rubbish! She should just drop out of the American Psychological Association right now and save us all a bunch of pain and headache! She has no idea what she's talking about! None! Pure bullox!
Anonymous Coward: FROST PIST
What the Moderators do: -5 Off Topic
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This is not how negative feedback was supposed to work.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"Politeness" does not mean no negative feedback... and never has.
One can be polite, and even friendly, while still giving negative feedback. This "no negative feedback" bullshit is a result of those defunct social theories that we had to bolster kids' self-esteem at the cost of truth.
As far as I am aware, this is the first time this has been a significant problem. As polite as societies have been in the past, negative feedback has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a problem.
Then use sarcasm, which is a form of irony everybody understands. Be prepared to get your teeth knocked out regularly though, because good sarcasm usually insults the intended recipient a lot more than plain statements.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
But what's the alternative when you're running an empire? Faith in your friends?
I don't think so.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Joke aside, that's because your fellow slashdotters can destroy your comment reputation *anonymously*. You'd be surprised how ordinary, polite folks can turn into nasty, mean sonsabitches when they can hide their names and faces. TFA was dealing with people who know and see each other, and go out of their way to avoid social confrontation.
This said, you deserve your comment reputation ruined :)
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
No, I think it means that people are going to generally be nice and say good job when you did actually suck. Therefore making you overconfident.
This is why i always speak the truth, no matter how blunt.
That is where the phrase, "Honesty doesn't always win friends, but it influences people." comes from.....I think
"That's right...I said it."
You mean if no one tells me I suck, I won't think I suck?
Please tell that to Hillary Clinton
No, Hillary was his wife. You're thinking about Monica...
Relevant:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
I have noticed two things related to this:
1. The term `irony` is often used to refer to heavily-veiled passive aggression.
1a. I think Millon provides a great description of the sort of behavior we all have encountered, although no longer (as of DSM-IV) considered a personality disorder: "They cannot decide whether to adhere to the desires of others [...] or to to turn to themselves [...], whether to be obediently dependent on others or defiantly resistant and independent of them, whether to take the initiative in mastering their world or to sit idly by, passively awaiting the leadership of others; they vacillate, then, like the proverbial donkey, moving first one way and then the other, never quite settling on which bale of hay is best. [...] ...only one essential trait is specified in characterizing the passive-aggressive personality type, that of resistance to external demands" (Millon 1981, Disorders of Personality, 244-245).
1b. I think (1a) is part of the reason why you might say that "Americans don't get irony... [a]t all". You might be confusing their lack of appreciation for irony with their recognition of and consequent disregard for passive aggression. Also, irony is highly culturally dependent.
2. My preferred method of dealing with the chronically overconfident is to ask kind and honest questions. I do not use irony; I do not use passive aggression; I do not throw punches. Instead, I assume that these people are telling the truth or overcompensating b/c of some hidden anxiety. In the first case, I think they're wrong; in the second, I think they're in need of growth. For either, I've found that the best response is to be gentle and to learn about their presuppositions.
My interpretation: Social politeness did not spring up out of nowhere accidentally. There are good reasons for it. One is: The expected value to myself, if I were to correct some total stranger -- and risk their displeasure, argumentation, lost time, possible hostility -- is pretty much nil.
What do I care if some doofus loudmouth on the bus, or a convenience store, or a random psychological experiment I got thrown in, thinks they're funny or has nutjob political or religious beliefs? The chance of my opinion changing them is close to zero. Aside from that, the time and hassle expense to my day is probably significant; the chance of their reacting in a defensive and hostile manner is pretty high. Aside from that, my chance of running into them again ever in my life, such that I receive some later benefit is also nil. Hence the politeness protocol of smiling noncommittally and getting the hell away from them.
(Side issue: I've never understand "road age" of the ilk "I'll teach that bastard a lesson!". Given someone that cuts you off, you'll never see them again, so any lesson you could conceivably give won't generate you any benefit. Let 'em go and maximize your distance from the crazies.)
Now, if someone is being truly irrational and is an intimate of yours, such that you have to deal with them all the time, then the equation changes; being honest with them will hopefully improve your mutual relationship and time spent together. Conjecture -- Perhaps a society which increases mobility, depersonalization, and time spent with strangers has a propensity to become more and more dishonest and delusional.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Any conversation over the internet should quickly solve that problem.
Always? That's a good way to end up unemployed and with no friends to be blunt with.
Which is why he's obviously lying.
I agree with always being honest, but disagree with the need to be blunt. I have learned over the years that it is better to work with people than against them.
George Carlin totally warned us.
In my experience this overconfidence as a result of politeness is true in my workplace, and in past workplaces as well.
Being generally polite, and not giving explicit negative feedback to annoying, unfunny, awkward, disrupting people finds justification in a kind of tacit, unconscious consent to be accepting and tolerant of everyone.
This works kinda all right, and makes it for a peaceful, sometimes even happy environment, and reduces the chances for conflict.
I have witnessed two scenarios where this politeness strategy fails utterly to both create a pleasant environment and to avoid conflict.
One scenario is that of a massively disrupting individual, who is not aware of the consequences of his words and actions.
Sometimes, like a current temporary colleague of mine, the guy is actually not a bad person at all, he is just not very perceptive of subtle signals (like awkward silences etc), looks very much emotionally vulnerable and unstable, which makes it undesirable to confront him about the issue, and has probably never been explicitly and seriously criticized for his disruptive behavior, resulting in a combination of fragility and overconfidence.
Responding to such an individual seems to cause problems whichever strategy is employed (honesty, politeness, etc).
The other scenario is that of a smart, socially-aware, perceptive, self-serving truly evil person.
These people analyze these social situations carefully and are able to detect these weaknesses in the social construct, and take advantage of them. They are therefore able to belittle, disrupt, take advantage of, subvert, out-compete their co-workers, because they know that if they are subtle enough, if they target their attacks carefully enough, nobody will directly accuse them of anything.
Note that I know that I myself have issues with detecting more subtle messages, and I know that my ego is vulnerable to lack of negative feedback as well. I try to ask people around me for truthful advice when in doubt, but in general I profit from this tolerant, polite social construct as well.
I am not sure about how to organize a better social construct that is both honest and peaceful and tolerant, and I am not sure it is possible to do it in a perfect way for all situations and for all compositions of individuals.
It seems to be a long standing problem with establishing and enforcing norms in societies.
In every office, standing by the water cooler, there is a person. Let's call him Joe. Joe tells stories about his weekend, followed by jokes about his in-laws, and everyone politely laughs as they shuffle around him to get their cup of water. "Why does Joe continue telling these jokes?" everyone wonders.
That's the first few lines of TFA.
Later:
Since society has taught us not to hurt other people's feelings, we rarely hear the truth about ourselves, even when we really deserve it. And sometimes that politesse can have negative ramifications.
Now, let's translate them to other people who do not share your understanding of Islam:
In every office, standing by the water cooler, there is a person. Let's call him Achmed. Achmed tells stories about his religion, followed by assumptions about how it is a religion of peace, and everyone politely agrees as they shuffle around him to get their cup of water. "Will he cut my head off if I tell him I think that is total BS?" everyone wonders.
[...]
Since society has taught us to expect our head to be cut off by any muslim we disagree with, we rarely hear the truth about ourselves, even when we really deserve it. And sometimes that fear can have negative ramifications.
Except that you didn't read TFA and just shat a comment out of your hate filled mouth (keyboard).
Why should I care (and why am I feeding the troll)?
I'm not a muslim/theist anymore, but I was born muslim and have some family and friends who still are.
None of them have ever cut my head off or that of any other person who disagreed with them. Nevertheless everyday I see scum such as you spewing hate left and right about shit you don't even care to try to understand and getting ignored (at best) or modded +1 I-too-hate/fear-muslims.
(Yea I'm new here, I expect people to RTFA)
"It's been just about impossible to criticize the religious beliefs of anyone for decades"
Try millenia, "blasphemy" at least in western Europe is very old, with punishment varying depending on the century & country.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Or you'd end up with politicians who reluctantly take upon themselves a big responsibility instead of a sociopath's powergrab.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This is especially annoying when learning a language. I *want* people telling me all the time when I'm saying a word wrong or phrasing something poorly. But for most people, if they can understand what you meant to say, they just leave it at that. I just found out recently that after all this time, all of the times I had meant to say "I have been (verb-ing)" I'd instead been saying "I had been (verb-ing)". That's not a little mistake! Geez, people, why didn't anybody call me on it until now?
The chloride owes the sodium money.
I hate to bring up something like Americal Idol (and its predecessor Pop Idol) in somewhere like Slashdot, but I think it's relevant.
In the UK Pop Idol, the judges were always honest - if they found someone who couldn't sing, they told them they couldn't sing. They told them to not give up the day job, to abandon their dream of being a pop star. On the flip side, if they were good, the judges said so - and because of that it really meant something.
In the few bits of American Idol I've seen, it's totally different. The judges (I seem to remember Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson in particular) when presented with someone who clearly didn't have a hope in hell of becoming a star of any kind, tied themselves in knots trying to say something positive. They just didn't ahve it in them to say "You're not a singer, forget about it". They'd say "You need to work hard to improve your rhythm" or " You're great but you're just not what we're looking for", and so on. Simon Cowell gave much more honest opinions and built a huge business out of doing it - but he was seen as Captain Negativity, the joke one, with the other two encouraging the no-hopers to keep their dream.
The result? People in the UK who got that negative feedback accept (sometimes reluctantly) that they won't ever be a star and go back to singing in the shower and leading a normal life. People in the US don't have that reality check, so keep on trying, making themselves look more and more ridiculous, desperate and above all untalented.
This may be US specific. As a French student in the US, I was amazed at how much attention was paid to feelings, and how little was paid to, you know, tangible reality, such as who was right or wrong in clear-cut cases where there *was* a right and wrong answer.
Constant praise and tip-toeing around issues not only inspires overconfidence, it also deprives people from a chance to correct their mistake, and to learn to handle failure. And since people are not *that* stupid, it also gives them a strong sense that everything is fake. Constant praise is very much like no praise.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
When I first started learning Japanese (not my current language of study) and was traveling in Japan, I was taught an important rule by another person learning the language: you know you're getting good at the language when people *stop* complimenting you on how well you speak it.
Over here, the rule is a bit different: you know you're getting good based on how often strangers try to switch the language of the conversation to English.
The chloride owes the sodium money.
Yes there is. You can verb a noun, and you can noun a verb.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
The US is perhaps a good place to be polite. Robert A. Heinlein noted, "An armed society is a polite society." Okay. That may be a bit of hyperbolic humor. But, whatever the reason, in my experience your cross-cultural observation is correct.
I once had a French boss. An editor to be exact. He was blunt to the point of cruelty from my point of view. Others also found him so -- especially the Americans. But we published a damned good magazine. And I learned a lot from him. And, to be fair, he was as hard on himself as he was on us. Brits are also a bit more blunt than Americans I have observed.
Personally, I make a distinction between constructive honesty and brutal frankness. That said, people in a workplace need to develop a thick hide or standards never get raised. However, create too much of a negative atmosphere and potentially good ideas are suppressed. Finally, when finishing a product you need somebody in charge with a sharp eye and a sharp tongue.
"Woolman, if you don't come in Sunday and fix this copy, then don't bother to come in Monday. Now get out."
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
An interesting implication is that, since people expect to be praised for a mediocre job, actually getting criticized means you must have done something beyond terrible. Basically you have to calibrate your response according to how people will perceive it. If the person did an slightly bad job, show disappointment. If they did a really bad job, show disapproval. If they did a really bad job, criticize it. If they did a catastrophically terrible job, then it's time to let lose hell.
But... the future refused to change.
IMO the problem starts with a generation of parents that were told to only give positive feedback and encourage every little effort by their child to improve "self esteem". These children grew into adults that don't know how to handle *any* criticism, even when constructive. This resulted in social norms against being critical, even in a constructive way, because too many people were getting butt-hurt over every little criticism.
And that's how we get a generation of jerks who think they are perfect.
Makini Brice, I know you can write better ... if only someone would deliver the sad news: you have no brain, or your choose not to use it. You can't even come up with "bell the cat" or "free rider problem" while you pussy-foot through the bullshit slough? Not even the five-bell go-to cliches handed out as black-tie MSM fig leaves of faux decorum by the maitre-d' at the Michelin-rated nudist resort? Shame on you.
I've belled more than my fair share of cats in my day, including some with a history of emergency admission into psychiatric care. What happens when you offer a concerned a thoughtful glimmer of reality to a person who knows, deep down, that their own reality is a little thin on the ground? In simple terms, the person usually goes binary: either you have to sign up to provide the reality augmentation service 24x7 or they want you to fuck off as promptly as possible. These people crave little windows onto a stable system of reality like Heroin junkies. They aren't in it for a once-a-week booster shot. All or nothing, not much in between.
I've done this, too, at the other end of the spectrum: with fantastically sane and competent people who might have some bright ember of self-destruction that turns a small removable discontinuity--a pinhole of infernal blackness--into a swollen vortex of life sucking creosote-toffee. In this world, as you approach the center, the shortest distance between any two points is a spiral of infinite length. You kind of have to make a fire break by cutting down a lot of healthy trees and tossing them into the inferno, which will surely curl your toe hairs in response to the insult. Bonus: if you don't flinch, they come back for more. You have to stand there in the cross-hairs of the flame thrower attached to a gasoline pumper truck and go: let's get rid of the knife. What knife? The folded knife in your back pocket. What pocket? The back pocket that prevents your ass from bursting right through those insanely tight jeans. When dealing with the flame-thrower that burns like hell, you need to bear in mind that even a small penknife can cut your balls off. The trick is to fight over the knife and not the flame thrower. This is difficult and fraught--you need to dial your asbestos underwear up to 11 and keep it there for weeks at a time. At the end of the day your affection is carried off to the burn ward with 3rd degree burns over 80% of its body, but sometimes after it all blows over, a very nice memorial wreath is erected in your honour at Vimy Ridge.
I'm a bit of a writer at heart, so I sometimes dabble in the occult arts where "what's in it for me" has no answer a sane person would recognize. A sane person laughs at water-cooler Joe's latest bad joke and gets the hell out.
I like people who speak their mind, it lets me know who they are. No surprises, no backstabbing, you get what you see.