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The Science of Incivility
An anonymous reader writes: Stress causes health issues — we've known this for years. But what's harder to figure out is what exactly qualifies as stress. It's easy to understand that working as an EMT or police officer can be stressful. But as medical researchers are beginning to learn, minor stress events common to all workplaces eventually add up — the cumulative stress from workplace incivility can have huge consequences for both health and performance. "A study published in 2012 that tracked women for 10 years concluded that stressful jobs increased the risk of a cardiovascular event by 38 percent. ... In [another] study, the experimenter belittled the peer group of the participants, who then performed 33 percent worse on anagram word puzzles and came up with 39 percent fewer creative ideas during a brainstorming task focused on how they might use a brick." Many people brush off efforts to be civil, saying they have too little time, or too much on their mind. But further studies have shown it takes very little — a smile here and there, or the occasional "thank you" — to have surprisingly strong effects on how people are perceived. The article argues that it's worth the effort, given the costs for failure.
Be nice to people on the way up, because you're going to meet them again on the way down :)
so NSA will wonder what you're up to.
And one might want to look at how the nastiness of Internet forums contributes to this as well. What happens when an entire society is constantly bombarded with the kind of crap we see every day?
So next time you decide to post some trolling bullcrap, remember that your behavior does, indeed, have a real effect on the other people involved.
Don't be a dick. It's not that hard and we're all better off.
Love sees no species.
The reasons for being people incivil seem rather petty. The most common reason I find myself getting short with people in working life is when they aren't listening or are otherwise ignoring reasonable questions and requests. Unfortunately a lot of people feel that if they blow someone off politely and then that person repeats the request or question in a more direct manner, that person has some kind of personality defect or "communication issue".
Typical conversation that is sure to end in problems:
I can't be the only one who has experienced this. Workplaces seem to be full of delicate snowflakes who either ignore any criticism of their work, and when they can't ignore it interpret it as 'incivility'. The article alludes to this though: it says there's often an inverse correlation between perceived politeness and competence. Perhaps people understand at some deeper level that people who are polite often don't get results, or don't tell it like it is.
There are other things that can make your life worse off, even though it might not seemingly cause any harm at all.
Feelings of negativity lead to negative health issues, namely being subjected to annoying, boring or outright enraging activities.
"Cringe-watching", the act of watching something you hate so much just to see how awful it is, has even been linked to health issues pretty damn well despite being a recent-ish thing.
But it just follows the same principle of being in a negative environment and having to do it regardless of your opinion or feelings.
On that note as well, boredom, boredom can lead straight to depression if you leave yourself in that situation for long periods of time.
Keep check of your overall mood every day. You'll probably be very surprised even if you thought you knew yourself.
All those negative and "neutral" feelings build up. Don't let them become the basis of your personality.
Get hobbies, make your job more fun, optimize how you work, do anything and everything to make your place of work better, everyone will benefit, including yourself.
It might seem fruitless, but things will tend to become better if everyone were to pitch in.
Even people that hate each other can open dialogue with each other in a calm environment and come to agreements.
It ain't no hippy dream, it can work. You just need to try.
Most people don't want to be dicks. They just do it out of necessity.
Doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, applies at all classes.
I prefer to eat statisticians. I can't tell you how much better that makes the world.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Eeew! Do you know how long it takes to clean the shit out of a politician? It's just not worth it.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Ah, good, a live subject! Can you please tell us the causes of your incivility in this post? Your input will extend the boundaries of scientific knowledge and humanity will be most grateful. Thanks.
Something that has been in the news a few times is how some places are better to live than others.
I regularly see people from the USA strongly disputing this. How can anywhere possibly be better to live than the US? You have your Constitution, various amendments and some of you have a lot of money.
If this is right, perhaps it is to do with manners. So often your countryfolk seem brusque at best and just plain rude a lot of the time. This is definitely not all of you and not everyone in Denmark and Bhutan are amazingly polite at all times. What is evident though is that rudeness can be taken as a badge of honour in some places. In others politeness is seen as the target.
Example: A couple of years ago, I was taking part in a discussion about the treatment of transgender people. My attitude is that if someone has gone through all "that process", it is just good manners to call them what they want to be. This was taken by some that I am somewhere in the LGBTIQ... spectrum. I'm not. I'm straight white Northern European but also a (usually) polite Brit.
It would be interesting to compare where is supposed to be good and bad places to live with their local norms of politeness.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
And it's not like the "research paper" (i.e. the New Testament) has been lost to history, like so much other scientific data gets lost. Flawed as it is due to translation errors and redaction, "love one another" and "treat thy neighbor as thyself" hold up pretty well in 2015 AD as well as it did in 1,000,000 BC.
And it's not like he is the only in recorded history or philosophy saying this.
I guess my point is that while it's interesting to have actual data confirming the correlation between office environment and productivity is good to have, we already knew this to be true. Why are funds being wasted on such when there are so many gaping fiscal wounds in the world of education to be filled?
Not too long ago, a company spent US$100K or more to hire me and move me across the country to work for them. It was on a project I really believed in and wanted to make a serious contribution to. Unfortunately, my supervisor turned out to be a jerk, lacking in basic civility, and as soon as I could, I moved on. In principle, that company should be appalled, but in practice, they have no real monitoring to detect this sort of thing (and I'm certainly not going to tell them).
These days, when it comes to hiring, or being hired, I look for the basic ability to get along with people. Technical skill is a distant second. Lack of skill can be a problem, but jackasses are just boat anchors, dragging down the entire team.
"Words like 'please' and 'thank-you' are like the air in your bicycle tyres -- they cost nothing but make your journey through life much smoother"
I recall being singled out by the leader on a training course many years ago where we had to role play asking someone to do extra work when there was no direct management chain of command -- i.e. persuasion rather than authority. In a room of about 30 people I was the only one who said 'please' during the request and 'thank-you' at the end. I don't think the others were necessarily rude or lacking civility - but that, at the time, 'macho demanding' was all the rage when it came to management.
Honestly - how hard is it to be polite?
I completely disagree that politeness is more important than technical correctness. If I know that somebody was born a male and used modern technology to turn into w female looking person ai still consider that person a male and will not change my definition of them for their sake. It is just not going to happen. I don't mean to be in their face, I believe in live and let live to this absolute. But I will not change nomenclature for anybody's sake.
You can't handle the truth.
So the AC is stating that a person is more likely a sociopath than someone who honestly is polite and grateful that people do what they say, rather than having some sort of expected entitlement over others.
That does indeed say something about the society they have grown up in.
You seem to be verifying what I said.
There is a serious difference between saying negative things to/about someone and being rude. Learning that is one of the things that happens as people grow up.
Telling someone to their face that you don't like them does not show that you have anything other than a severe lack of tact. That is not honesty. At times, it can be straightforward stupidity.
There are very few people that I/we loathe. There are certainly plenty around that I would rather be somewhere else than next to but that is not the same thing. Loathing implies a wish to harm. One of the last times this country wished anyone harm, our prime minister obediently followed your president into Iraq. That was one of the most amazingly stupid things ever done by a British leader in centuries. We are now living with the consequences. I want us to go back to not loathing as soon as possible!
As for the empire, my ancestors gave it back to the peoples that their ancestors had taken it from. On the whole, we are still on good terms with most of them.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.