Ask HN: How to avoid being arrogant?

I would say arrogance is using your power, wealth, prestige just to show others that you are powerful.

The secret to gaining respect is having power, but only leveraging it when absolutely necessary.

I myself can come off as arrogant sometimes, and believe me it's always involuntary.

Online I've taken to reading everything I type and trying to imagine reading it from another persons perspective. That way I often throw away comments before posting them.

In real life it's much harder because it often takes me a long pause before I can answer someone, that pause is filtering out unnecessary arrogance and "snide".

The most important thing to remember is the Golden Rule - treat others as you would wish to be treated in their situation. If being arrogant breaks this rule, then don't do it.

To me arrogance is conceited. It's assuming you're better than everyone else. It's assuming everyone else is worse than you, and making it shown.

Detecting arrogance is pattern-matching for multiple traits more than a single characteristic. Some examples that show arrogance:

- Thinking you always know best

- Similarly, thinking you're cleverer/funnier/N-er than everyone else

- Not listening or valuing others opinions

This can be verbal as well as non-verbal. Pretty much all of this boils down to two values: narcissism (self-conceit) and lack of respect.

Why people become arrogant is a tough, philosophical and behavioural question. Is it parenting? Is it consistent self-praise? Maybe not being challenged as a kid? It's hard to find a real answer. Sometimes people really excel at an early age and it might make them think they're better than everyone else. Then again, maybe the person didn't grow up to value other people in the right way.

And generally whether it's bad is a situational call IMO. It's bad if you don't have anything to back it up. Even if you're brilliant it's bad if you're a douche about it (and have no respect for others).

Could you blame Steph Curry for being arrogant about being (one of) the best shooter in history? Maybe not, but if he's a dick about it you probably won't like him.

And that's probably what encapsulates whether arrogance is bad: does it hinder your personal relationships — or your personal progression? If so, it's a bad trait. And I think that question can be asked of anything.

Some people below have posted great points in preventing arrogance. Part of the problem is ego: learn that other people do hard work and value them. Easier said than done. Assuming you're doing the easy part of a project is a good tip. Asking people about what they do and actually trying or taking interest in it is another. Working with smart people is even better, though it's not necessary — even not-so-smart people do tough jobs that people might not value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

i.e. you aren't growing as a human being, you're static, and have become comfortable there in your little niche, so you look down on others who are learning new things.

when was the last time you felt dumb? been a while? fix that. most arrogant people are afraid of feeling dumb so they just dismiss things they aren't good at as beneath them.

And yes, they're always much people better than you.

"Assume that your part of the project is the easy part." [1]

"Here’s a polite person’s trick, one that has never failed me. ... Ask the other person what they do, and right after they tell you, say: 'Wow. That sounds hard.'" - Paul Ford [2]

[1] http://beyondmanaging.com/2014/09/assume-yours-is-the-easy-p...

[2] https://medium.com/message/how-to-be-polite-9bf1e69e888c

Of course this advice assume you have already understood that 1) there is nothing to be gained but bad things by being arrogant and that 2) there is no reason to be arrogant.

Others have no real reason to expect to be successful, having never experienced success in what they are attempting.

So to me, the best way to avoid arrogance is to take an honest assessment of your experience and whether you have actually experienced success in the arena you are attempting to enter, and if you can't point to past successes, don't speak as if you expect to succeed this time.

This is something that comes with age, I believe. As you get older you gain more experience, so you understand that success is difficult to achieve. This does not necessarily mean approaching things with a defeatist attitude, but rather to take a more comprehensive look at the challenges and not merely rely on your own unproven abilities and proceed accordingly.

Everybody is stupid and broken in their own way which we can never see ourselves, yet we make a conscious and sometimes very difficult effort to like each other and get along anyway. Either you "get" that, or you're arrogant.

When arrogance becomes problematic is when it impacts your ability to work with others. The best type of person is someone who can bring others in to work with them, praise the people they are delegating work to. And share the success of a project, with those vital team players.

Three principles i live by

- Everyone lives in a reality were they are the hero - the smart, clever individual who got perfect reasons to do something and was misunderstood if something went wrong. Let them be this hero or you will be the villain.

- The root of every problem around you is ultimately you, yourself. You should have either fixed it, helped fixing it or avoided it. Blame the next person just delays this.

- We judge our own intellect with our own intellect. We cannot even understand how stupid we are (esp. in specific areas that are not interesting to us). Assume the worst in your own case and you are on the safe side.

From an appearance/soft-skills perspective, it is one possible mode of the assertion of social dominance based on skill/expertise. It is a more aggressive one, hence it is more likely to backfire. There are far better ways to assert social dominance based on skill/expertise which are more socially productive and far less prone to backfire.

From a mental functionality perspective, you're being arrogant when you are prone to false negatives when judging other people and their input and prone to false positives when judging your own.

how do you avoid being arrogant?

Humility. Spend time at the bottom of a learning curve. Truly take a deep dive into a different mental model of the world. Prove the null hypothesis. "If you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room." If it's the case that no matter what you try, you can't ever find your way to a place where you're mistaken, you missed some big facet of reality, or you're a beginner again, then congrats: You Are Arrogant!

I've also observed that there are generally two types of confidence: the brash, in-your-face type and the quiet, in-the-corner type. The point is not the type, the point is confidence. You need confidence in order to tackle problems, which might be wearing a mask of arrogance.

2 - Detecting arrogance in the self can be hard, but isolation is a good warning sign. If one finds oneself separate from the group, there can be a variety of factors, but check in your heart to see if arrogance is the cause first. To detect it in others, ask questions that deal with empathy and helping others.

3 - People can become arrogant if they are the "biggest fish in a small pond" for too long, and actually are the smartest person in the room for a while. This is one reason it's good to always put yourself in work and cultural situations that test the limits of your abilities and allow you to grow and teach simultaneously.

4 - Arrogance as commonly defined is probably always a "bad" trait, simply because it is anti-social, and an argument can be made that the only real ethical behavior is social behavior. That said, many many arrogant people have made significant contributions to society, but it's important to understand that their arrogance or anti-social behavior may have been a symptom of their brilliance, not the cause.

If you do not actually think of yourself as superior to others, you can accidentally appear arrogant by failing due diligence when communicating with other people, which in turn may be caused by lack of practice. Pay attention to what you say, and think of what you could have said to deliver your message better.

Especially in writing it's important to imagine how the reader may react to your words, and consider the benefit of terseness over the possibility that you may be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Going over your phrasing once or twice is a good idea as well. Also keep in mind that whoever you're talking to can not know everything that you know, and that this is often not their own fault.