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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
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...
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.
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)
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.
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