The title suggests that what you need to do is appear to be making an emotional decision but the article seems to suggest that you need to actually make an emotional decision. The difference is between Dukakis quickly saying no and instead revealing all the feelings he'd have before choosing principle over vengeance.
I think it's also because people who feel strongly on an issue want at least to see that you take the issue with the same gravity they do, and the best way to demonstrate that is that you, too, have a visible emotional response to the topic, that it gave you as much internal turmoil to come to the conclusion you did.
The worst thing you can do is to make a weighty issue seem simple or that you regard it tritely. That's what Dukakis did wrong, even though I have every belief he actually did think the issue through.
> According to a recent study, people who make instinct-based moral judgments are perceived by their peers to be more moral and more trustworthy than those who rely on reasoning alone.
That's a depressing fact if true. Reasoning is a superior way of making a moral judgement, solely because we're wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else. It's only through reasoning that we can consider the true "big picture."
Well, if peoples' reason is perfect, than it is a superior way of making decisions. I'd certainly like it to be the case that we could do that.
However, one thing we might take away from your claim that "wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else" is this:
If people are motivated to come up with an incorrect decision, then reason can often give people a mistaken sense that they are being ration, when in fact they are using a rather large set of tools to get their preferred answer.
It actually makes total sense. If you make decisions based on emotion and not just reason, if we are close, you are more likely to make decisions in my favor. So of course I'd be more likely to trust you. Don't be depressed by human nature. Accept it for what it is, and realize that it's what's gotten civilization this far.
Do you have friends or family? Don't you have emotional bonds or attachment to them? Wouldn't you make decisions in their best interests over a stranger, possibly irrationally?
One might also say that moving above human nature is what's gotten civilization this far. Our nature for 99% of our time of a species have been to kill, rape, pillage each other. Emotions are never going to be superior to logic and rationality in decision making. At worst, they lead people to make very bad decisions. And they also lead to people being exploited. As far back as the Ancient Greeks Socrates wrote extensively on exploiting emotions to achieve success in argument. And today politicians, the media, advertisers, even individuals actively exploit emotional response for their own benefit.
Emotional control has become more important than ever in today's society. In times past people were not so widely adept in emotional exploitation and communication was limited in any case to a close physical proximity. But in today's society of global communication with vast numbers of individuals skilled in emotional exploitation, emotionality is like a leash that those skilled in pathos can drag people around by, to whatever end they seek.
We could argue forever about what is human nature. I consider is to have risen above only our animal nature in building things up instead of tearing them apart. Where animal nature may be unthinking selfish greed (there are certainly exceptions, but I think those are considered surprising cases of animals acting human), human nature is the ability to suspend that first level instinct to protect our provide for ourselves and those close to us. Human nature encompasses war and capitalism, and the rallying of others for a common cause or against a common enemy. Accept it and harness it instead of acting like it doesn't exist.
While I agree with you that reason is better than emotion for making decisions, we should be very aware that what we think is a reasonable and rational argument could be subconcious post-hoc justification of an emotional decision.
Think of it like this. Two men both have a condition where if they see flashing red lights, they go into a psychotic rage.
One man chooses to ignore the condition because going into a psychotic rage is bad, therefore he should pretend that he does not have the condition. He considers the condition impolite to talk about.
The other man chooses to acknowledge and confront the situation. He insists (sometimes rudely) that hosts and workplaces avoid flashing red lights at him.
This seems like an incredibly bizarre analogy. If somebody is going into a psychotic rage because they see red flashing lights, then they would be an extreme danger to both to everybody else and to themselves. This person would need to be institutionalized until we can be convinced they're not suddenly going to go on a murder spree because they saw a blinker.
More generally though, civilization is little more than people agreeing to work in close proximity under a shared code of laws. There is extensive written evidence of this going back to at least ~1800BC, though it's certainly been the basis for practically all civilization throughout our existence. People who cannot obey these laws are excluded from society. So for instance all civilizations have banned theft, yet kleptomania is certainly a thing - people who have no need to steal yet have an incredibly strong urge to do so. Nonetheless, they will face the same consequences as any other. If they cannot control themselves, they will not remain a part of civilization.
For issues with no clear right or wrong, such as flashing red lights, there's another issue. One individual has an irrational dislike of flashing red lights, another has an irrational like of flashing red lights. Who does society choose to adjust itself to? This is yet another reason why the onus of emotional control is on the individual, and not on society.
I understood you as saying that we should choose to "rise above" emotional persuasion. You have good intentions but your advice is bad: our susceptibility to emotional persuasion is not something we can consciously remove, no more than the man can choose to rise above his condition.
The analogy to the 2nd man would be: standing up against emotional manipulation. For example, demanding laws against emotionally manipulative advertisements. This, I propose, is the path to a better civilization. Not just ignoring the problem.
Your emotions are just another part of your body that you can control. It's an extremely important part of countless careers such as investment banker, fighter, lawyer, judge, doctor, clinical scientist or researcher, or even things such as an air traffic controller. It's not that the people in these fields do not have emotions, but that they consciously work to control them. I've achieved as much thanks to a career long in my past as well, and it changed me radically for the better.
I think we are quick to discount things that we cannot visibly see. For instance, if somebody of normal health told you that it was just physically impossible for them to bench press more than 100 pounds, you'd probably find their statement quite ridiculous. Of course the reason is that we can see our muscles and how they change and develop (or atrophy) in response to how we train them, and we can precisely measure changes in our ability to lift. With emotions you cannot so easily measure them, and it's not really clear how to train them. But that certainly does not mean it's out of your control.
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But on point here, consider the notion of trying to prohibit emotionally manipulative advertisements. The first question would be why? Apple's 1984 [1] is one of the most famous and effective bits of marketing. It's also almost entirely an emotional piece. You're certainly not excited about the specs there! I don't see why such things should not be allowed. And if you're going to try to ban emotionally exploitative marketing, why stop there? What of news, or even media in general? Politicians? Even individuals in our ever connected world? And on top of this how do you define what is emotionally exploitative?
It's just not a realistic solution, and sounds quite dystopic in any case. By contrast starting to help people learn to control and manage their emotions is something that seems entirely practical. Of course not everybody will achieve the same results, as in anything, but today we make absolutely 0 effort to teach this in any sort of way. For that matter, at times we even seem to be going in the opposite direction and, at least implicitly, encouraging emotional response.
We encourage emotional response when it's the "right" response, and discourage it when it's the "wrong" response. For example, buying Apple products is "right", while voting for Brexit is "wrong". Many people are currently calling for restrictions on the type of emotional ads which they claim led to the latter. I suspect your 1984 commercial would not be so beloved if it were an ad for Monsanto or Exxon or something.
Brilliant, you win the thread. Your post is like a koan.
Also consider that young children are almost purely emotional. It would make sense that we should be hard-wired to trust, and build trust with, our children.
I've heard worse from an interviewing course from a Human Resources veteran who left the field to care for family that has me conclude that much of humanity is frankly batshit insane by the definition of 'divorced from reality'.
In addition to paying 80% attention to how it is said instead of the content of what is said they tend to judge people who are better at putting on an appropriate 'mask' of confidence as 'trustworthy' when they all know that nearly everyone puts on a show for interviews anyway. That is believing that people who demonstrate better capabilities of actively faking emotions are more trustworthy. When aptitude is widely linked to practice. Saying you want a surgeon who can't stand the sight of blood so they'll make fewer unnecessary cuts is more logical than that.
That is beyond trusting your intuition and into flat out divorced from reality and putting on a heaping helping of cognitive dissonance on top.
The revelation was disturbing yet it also explains /a lot/ of societal dysfunctions and why high functioning sociopaths are disproportionate among CEOs.
I somewhat agree with you, but I don't think you're giving these intuitions enough credit. Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals. Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.
Humans may recently have found a better way but that remains to be seen; on the face of it, reason is much more abstract and hence more 'divorced from reality'. It certainly doesn't warrant an immediate switch of strategies.
>> Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals.
If you're going for a hunt on large mammals, gut feelings about your peers is probably a good way to judge a person. An interview for a job is (usually) an entirely different situation.
>> Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.
Oh my god, please don't tell me you trust people because they are looking good. If you do, you should consider establishing a different trust-metric, one that maybe has to do with the job a person is actually requested to do.
Yeah, that statement seemed odd to me as well. I've often heard of the halo effect as a description of something that happens unconsciously, not something we should actively strive towards.
I didn't read it as "we should trust people based on looks", but more as "we DO trust people based on looks" (I assume the "empirical evidence" refers to evidence of this being hardwired into us, not to evidence of it being useful).
I meant that the existence of the effect means it was selected as beneficial. If we want to override this response we should use our higher-level reasoning to (1) understand why it works that way (2) show that we can do better.
The burden of proof is on those proposing a new system. I doubt it’s as easy as many rationalists assume.
Well "how a thing is said" gives a lot of information about the intent of the person saying it. You can say nice things with a heavily condescending tone. Words alone are not the whole information.
Absolutely. Nonverbals likely bypass the rational forebrain and skip to the primitive reptilian parts of the brain that create emotions, judgements and snap decisions.
Some relevant books:
Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear
Well yes, it's something you discover at a certain point. But it's also something you may or may not want to use for your advantage. Because faking it once isn't enough, you'll need to fake it always. Just like these tricks to win over an attractive partner by putting on appearances of being way more confident etc. Sooner or later you face the question: is it worth it? Do I really want to live my life pretending someone I'm not? For some people, it's fun. For other's, it's just tiring.
This "be yourself" line of speaking is garbage. It makes the speaker sound wise while doing nothing to help the person who is desperate for a romantic partner. About as useful as telling a depressive person to cheer up.
Imagine we flipped it around and said it to entrepreneurs: "Do you really want to live your life as CEO of a successful startup knowing you got there by faking confidence?"
"Be yourself" is very vague statement, I wouldn't tell anyone that; it's also meaningless without a context. What I mean is that there is a whole business of people telling other people they can do anything if they start acting some different way. For some, it works. For others, it's a source of frustration. Some people discover it quite early in life - that they can fake some feelings to take advantage of others. They start playing all these little games, especially in relationships, instead of being frank with the other person. My friends are telling me these stories all time.
That's radically different from deciding to make a change in one's life, to make some effort in order to change bad habits and so on. The key difference is how you feel once you succeeded. Are you 100% happy? Then everything is fine. Are you always anxious, tired of acting (e.g. like you care or you don't care), and something doesn't really feel right? You may want to rethink your priorities in life.
“Keep doing what you’re doing” would certainly be bad advice for someone unhappy with their current prospects.
But some combination of “improve yourself” and “examine your expectations” will work better than “pretend to have qualities you don’t” as a long term romantic strategy.
E.g.: instead of faking confidence, work on improving actual confidence.
I would tend to agree with them since nearly all of most people’s worldviews, experience and information is carefully-manufactured chicanery via mass-/social-media so they take up certain preferences and attitudes. Libertarianism is a perfect example of a faux political centroid that cherry-picked from utopian views and sentiments against communism, but leads inexorably to unworkable, corrupt, extractive, inverted totalitarianism like the US has at present (ie public-private partnerships, destroyed govt departments, hundreds of vacant diplomat posts).
I would agree with sociopaths /narcissists skew towards seats of power because such people are more willing to take big risks, feel entitled to more and DGAF other than themselves. Also, the amount of wealth and prestigous title/s someone has tends to change them to behave similarly.
The main ways to bring balance back are to:
- forcibly remove the cancer of and vigilantly guard against corrupt political-wealth complex from all areas of government
- sensible wealth-redistribution; having millions of people whom are homeless living on the sides of highway on-ramps or can never retire is obscene
- more co-op businesses, employeee ownership and workers on the board of directors
- stronger unions that work
- US: single-payer
- more minimum vacation time
- even in times of hyper-mobility, community rebuilding, across all demographics, in a standard format people know about: something to replace church/atheist “church”... it’s unhealthy to have an anonymous, closed society of mostly lonely people with only fb friends and few/no one to talk to regularly.
You are attempting to pull politics into a largely unrelated discussion and based on the downvotes, most people here would agree with me that you should probably stop.
Because of this I am not going to respond to your entire point however I would urge you to do some research on the origins of libertarianism, communism, and socialism. It may surprise you that they all tend to be mischaracterised and traditionally set out to resolve the same issues in similar ways.
I think quite often when people make a quick "moral" judgement it's more about what they feel is right.
Reasoned morals can be the opposite, sometimes they can feel wrong and often require people to stop and think about why a certain thing is in fact moral.
When someone makes an instinct based moral judgement the instant message is that the person is concerned with morals ( whether it be reasoned or not ), which does send this message that the persons fundamental nature is to do the right thing ( whatever 'right' is doesn't matter so much as the desire to do it)
Where someone who takes time to figure out moral questions, it feels like they aren't inherently moral. Even worse when their reasoned moral judgement doesn't "feel" right. You may have to know that person more intimately to realize that they thoughfully moral.
I feel maybe this has lot more to do with social cohesion rather than morality.
The working definition for instinct based moral judgements in the study is to have an absolute position on things (ex: kiling is wrong, whatever the circumstances), and I can see how it can be easier attribute morality, and cooperate and trust people with consistent believes. As long as they don’t kill people you can say they kept their moral views, it’s very simple.
On the other hand, people who take moral decisions depending on the situation and the context are unpredictable in a way. And the result will be more difficult to judge as moral or not. People who stick with them long enough might come around to trust them and see them as moraly sound, but there is a higher barrier to entry.
The study was about partner choice, and for me the takeaway would be that it’s easier to trust people that are also easier to understand
Once the logic argument is formulated, the part the decides to act or not act on it is still the emotional part. If someone chooses interests of humanity over their selfish interests, it's because the level of their understanding, which they attained after spending time thinking about, makes them feel better about this choice.
Well, sorta. Research has shown that emotion is vital to 'good behaviour'. It is not the case that we should hope to craft humanity into unfeeling robots. [0]
At the same time, you're clearly right that we should be more rational when it comes to trying to act morally [1]
Actually, no it's not--for me. I'm very analytical yet instinct and intuition are far more trusworthy in general as a human source of contact than any reasoning my poor material brain can concoct. It depends on your understanding of the world, granted HN skews disproportionately to your view.
I don't think this is depressing, for the reasons that you find it depressing.
This says "on reasoning alone". I wouldn't trust someone who didn't reference their instincts/emotions for moral decisions. There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions. And I'm not just talking psychopaths, but also people who's emotional centers have been damaged. This is unsurprising to me, because our emotions and our morality are both part of the system that makes us social creatures (e.g. empathy). Morality is essentially a meta-structure that helps hold societies together.
Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct.
There are some nice explanations of this by people like Jonathan Haidt.
> There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions
> Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct.
Can you give an example of these studies? I’m interested in how they assign a qualifier of “good” or “bad” to various moral decisions. Are subjects not consistent in their moral decisions, or do their decisions disagree with the moral priors of the researchers? How do the researchers establish that their moral decisions are correct? That’s the essence of ethics itself.
Unless these studies are exceptionally careful in their setup, I think it’s probable they’re begging the question implicitly. A more reserved conclusion might be that people with less empathy, in the aggregate, consistently make moral decisions which are different from those who have more empathy. But I think this conclusion might be kind of vacuous to anyone who has read a philosophy book or two on ethics.
I don't have any specific studies to mention, I am afraid, as I've only had them through third party sources. They will be in the books Waking Up by Sam Harris, The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The last two more specifically.
TFA doesn't differentiate between types of emotion. What if it's anger, exasperation, or some other negative emotion?
I've worked with people who tended to display these emotions when making decisions, interacting with people, and carrying out their work. Far from persuading me, it was more likely to make me think that the quality of their decision-making (and other aspects of their work) was compromised.
"Emotional" in this context is generally understood as "appealing to the audience's emotions."
Displaying anger at your audience may not be convincing, but if you want your audience to be angry about something else, then displaying the anger you want them to share can be quite effective.
Beep bop beep! Instructions unclear; angrily shouted at Trump supporters for, in my master's view, supporting evil.
Didn't seem to work! Initiating testing on MUM protocol: "Look hurt and worried about Trump supporters' well-being while asking them if everything is alright at home."
"Do you really hate me? I don't hate you. I'm sorry. Can I do something to help? You want me to listen. Alright. I want to learn from you. I'll hush and listen. You're right. What was the point of me criticizing you if that only made us not listen to each other? You're right, almost nobody ever says you're right anymore!, but it makes the other side feel understood, and feeling understood makes them want to listen to us as well, even if just a little bit. Maybe it's my fault, too. I'm not perfect. I'm sor-- I guess a heartfelt apology isn't going to help you. I will change what I do for the better."
Instinct IS superior to abstract reasoning on creating scalable, functional, understandable moral codes. This "weakness" of the masses is their subconscious reliance on emergence over self proclaimed intellectuals' rationales, and they are the wiser for it.
I've done A/B/C testing to see how likely someone is to install Telegram when they get surprised that I don't have Whatsapp. Those to whom I explain in a straight-faced manner that Whatsapp is intrusive, almost never install it. Those to whom I whine that I don't like the intrusiveness are very likely to install it. The third group, to whom I whine that I just don't like Whatsapp, are also likely to install it.
In short, don't give someone a reason to do something. Just whine.
That recipe may only work with a specific target audience. I know a few grown-ups who are highly allergic to whining. With them, you'll achieve the opposite effect.
Some but not all of them might just do it to appease/shut up the whining one. So there is still a higher conversion rate from taking the whining approach.
So why don't we all whine?
This I have asked of shouting. Normally I politely ask people to do things with a friendly tone of voice. However there have been moments, e.g. on-coming car catastrophe, where I have shouted at people and been surprised at how quickly people move or do as they are told. Shocked at being heard and being 'obeyed' I have wondered why I don't do it more often. I dismiss the idea as it is not me and contradicts many aspects of my upbringing. But you can see how it is that some people get what they want in the world by shouting/whining or being a general narcissist.
I think it just triggers something in us. Both whining and shouting. They suggest some form of distress and that waffling may not be a good idea. Just like we're kind of hard-wired to think babies are cute.
I believe that's because we reserve shouting as a signal during dire situations. It's kind of like the color red, where we give it an inherent dangerous meaning naturally, but see it enough everyday and your heart will no longer instinctually flutter when exposed to it.
Having lived with a person who is hearing impaired, the effects of shouting on reflexive action will dissipate after the first week.
On a related note, I noticed that it's a bit socially looked down upon to be privacy conscious. This is pretty much a 180 from what the public perception was 20 years ago.
Everyone is fine with you being privacy conscious to some degree. It's when you start telling them that they should be too that it tends to get a negative response.
I'd argue that this is why the GP succeeds in their B/C tests - because they made it about their own choices. In A it's trying to convince the other party of a position on privacy instead which is, unsurprisingly, a lot harder
I found this to be the case when I was telling people I’d like to communicate via Signal. For the most part my explanation of why was not compelling for them, so I compromised and use Signal for a subset of friends and iMessage for everyone else.
My experience does not bring me to the same conclusion as the article or your comment. I don’t think it’s about whining or an emotional appeal. Rather, I think it’s a matter of not giving the other party anything to argue with. If I enumerate the many reasons which have convinced me to not use Whatsapp, the other person has a lot of...”rhetorical surface” with which to attack. They may or may not be successful, but they can probably launch a decently cogent rebuttal.
On the other hand if I simply say, “I don’t like it”, and follow up with, “I don’t know, I just don’t”, there isn’t enough substance with which to find a logical flaw. Your friends might judge you for it but, in my experience, it won’t stick out enough in their memory for them to really focus on it one way or the other. They are sort of forced to concede because your reasons are inscrutable. Disengaging can be its own form of victory, because it forces a draw (so to speak).
Obviously that isn‘t persuasive; it’s defensive. Likewise, I used to compete in Speech & Debate tournaments at the national level. In that context you have to engage, by design. My team (and rivaling teams) had a philosophy that we’d impart to all new recruits: when you’re formulating your point, deliver it forthrightly and concisely. Support your position with the minimum that will suffice and provide further support as needed, to parry the rhetorical attacks you encounter. This gives your opponent less material to refute, which means each individual point you deliver is harder to detract. When you’re trying to persuade someone (especially if you have an audience) a reasonable point delivered confidently, and with one or two strong reasons or citations, is far more privileged than many “passing” reasons which can made the focus of a rebuttal.
I've found this is entirely dependent on your audience's biases.
An appeal with facts, reasonable viewpoints and what not is effective if your audience is already heavily biased towards your viewpoint.
Appeals based on emotion and whining are likely to be called out by an audience that's inherently skeptical or believes very specific ideals surrounding the nature of discussion (the "debate to reach a higher truth, not to win" crowd).
Unfortunately, I've found what you said to be true with audiences who remain on the fence or don't really care about whatever issue is at hand.
Many posters here fall into the camp to whom discussion is an attempt to reach the truth so they fail to see the rhetorical forest for the trees.
That's not to say we don't have our blind-spots when it comes to emotional appeals, however. That's just human nature.
Persuasion seems like a pseudoscience , much like hypnotherapy, telekinesis, speed reading, ediic memory, etc. If were as effective as the people claim, you could just persuade a million people to give you $1 and be a millionaire. That example may seem contrived, but how hard should it be to persuade someone to give someone as little as $1, especially with special persuasion techniques? Surely that shouldn't be too hard. But that is what panhandlers try do, so I think much of persuasion is just begging, or begging is the most effective persuasion technique. If you keep pestering enough people to do something, some may capitulate. There's not much science or any sort of special 'social engineering' techniques involved in that. People think that there is a science or special skill to being persuasive, but 4-year-olds and beggars seem to excel at it.
People who are reasonably intelligent and competent are not going to fall for these persuasion techniques...it's better to learn how to be more competent than waste time trying to learn persuasion. Yeah, you can probably persuade a stranger to give you a few dollar, but it won't work in situations where the stakes are higher. Regarding Dukakis and the 1988 presidential debate, attributing his loss to his answer is an example of the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Because he lost, pundit needs to work backwards to try to find a reason why he lost, but that does not prove that his answer was why he lost. Scott Adams (and this is where I disagree with him) attributes Trump's win to special persuasion techniques, but Trump was going to get about 50% of the vote (just by virtue of being that GOP nominee) regardless of any special techniques. And also, if pursation were so effecvie, he why not just purade everoyne watchign his Periscopte to give him a few dolalr.s Surely that shoudl not be too hard.
In the absence of historical data, receiving information from another person, without any quick way to verify what has been communicated, coupled with a necessity to decide/act, has long required/used a shortcut.
You look in that person's face, you make the call. You'all remember that stuff. Maybe not so common now, but it's still on TV.. "My word is my bond." and all that.
If that utterance doesn't come with a hardcore look of sincerity playing across the face, well then it's not believable. Looking emotional doesn't mean looking distraught. It means not looking like a mannequin.
Even with data, logic, reason, and an armful of facts, imagine two people with equal amounts of the aforementioned, trying to convince a 3rd party, but one of the individuals throws in expressions/mannerisms that communicate "trust", "sincerity", and "competence"...
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadThe worst thing you can do is to make a weighty issue seem simple or that you regard it tritely. That's what Dukakis did wrong, even though I have every belief he actually did think the issue through.
That's a depressing fact if true. Reasoning is a superior way of making a moral judgement, solely because we're wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else. It's only through reasoning that we can consider the true "big picture."
However, one thing we might take away from your claim that "wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else" is this:
If people are motivated to come up with an incorrect decision, then reason can often give people a mistaken sense that they are being ration, when in fact they are using a rather large set of tools to get their preferred answer.
Stern or at least unapologetic and unwavering support of company and process the worker bees all bitch about.
“Owning” their role when the reasoned mind might question what they really own?
Don’t think some mid-level director has their name on the right paperwork.
CEOs drink the kool-aid. They control the spec to which people build. Reasoning around that is verboten.
They all think they have good reason, but it’s usually “abide the cultural meme”.
Only belonging works in your favor, everything else emotional is against.
Emotional control has become more important than ever in today's society. In times past people were not so widely adept in emotional exploitation and communication was limited in any case to a close physical proximity. But in today's society of global communication with vast numbers of individuals skilled in emotional exploitation, emotionality is like a leash that those skilled in pathos can drag people around by, to whatever end they seek.
One man chooses to ignore the condition because going into a psychotic rage is bad, therefore he should pretend that he does not have the condition. He considers the condition impolite to talk about.
The other man chooses to acknowledge and confront the situation. He insists (sometimes rudely) that hosts and workplaces avoid flashing red lights at him.
Which of these is the path to civilization?
More generally though, civilization is little more than people agreeing to work in close proximity under a shared code of laws. There is extensive written evidence of this going back to at least ~1800BC, though it's certainly been the basis for practically all civilization throughout our existence. People who cannot obey these laws are excluded from society. So for instance all civilizations have banned theft, yet kleptomania is certainly a thing - people who have no need to steal yet have an incredibly strong urge to do so. Nonetheless, they will face the same consequences as any other. If they cannot control themselves, they will not remain a part of civilization.
For issues with no clear right or wrong, such as flashing red lights, there's another issue. One individual has an irrational dislike of flashing red lights, another has an irrational like of flashing red lights. Who does society choose to adjust itself to? This is yet another reason why the onus of emotional control is on the individual, and not on society.
The analogy to the 2nd man would be: standing up against emotional manipulation. For example, demanding laws against emotionally manipulative advertisements. This, I propose, is the path to a better civilization. Not just ignoring the problem.
I think we are quick to discount things that we cannot visibly see. For instance, if somebody of normal health told you that it was just physically impossible for them to bench press more than 100 pounds, you'd probably find their statement quite ridiculous. Of course the reason is that we can see our muscles and how they change and develop (or atrophy) in response to how we train them, and we can precisely measure changes in our ability to lift. With emotions you cannot so easily measure them, and it's not really clear how to train them. But that certainly does not mean it's out of your control.
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But on point here, consider the notion of trying to prohibit emotionally manipulative advertisements. The first question would be why? Apple's 1984 [1] is one of the most famous and effective bits of marketing. It's also almost entirely an emotional piece. You're certainly not excited about the specs there! I don't see why such things should not be allowed. And if you're going to try to ban emotionally exploitative marketing, why stop there? What of news, or even media in general? Politicians? Even individuals in our ever connected world? And on top of this how do you define what is emotionally exploitative?
It's just not a realistic solution, and sounds quite dystopic in any case. By contrast starting to help people learn to control and manage their emotions is something that seems entirely practical. Of course not everybody will achieve the same results, as in anything, but today we make absolutely 0 effort to teach this in any sort of way. For that matter, at times we even seem to be going in the opposite direction and, at least implicitly, encouraging emotional response.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA
I'm guessing you meant Plato, Socrates was likely illiterate.
Also consider that young children are almost purely emotional. It would make sense that we should be hard-wired to trust, and build trust with, our children.
In addition to paying 80% attention to how it is said instead of the content of what is said they tend to judge people who are better at putting on an appropriate 'mask' of confidence as 'trustworthy' when they all know that nearly everyone puts on a show for interviews anyway. That is believing that people who demonstrate better capabilities of actively faking emotions are more trustworthy. When aptitude is widely linked to practice. Saying you want a surgeon who can't stand the sight of blood so they'll make fewer unnecessary cuts is more logical than that.
That is beyond trusting your intuition and into flat out divorced from reality and putting on a heaping helping of cognitive dissonance on top.
The revelation was disturbing yet it also explains /a lot/ of societal dysfunctions and why high functioning sociopaths are disproportionate among CEOs.
Humans may recently have found a better way but that remains to be seen; on the face of it, reason is much more abstract and hence more 'divorced from reality'. It certainly doesn't warrant an immediate switch of strategies.
If you're going for a hunt on large mammals, gut feelings about your peers is probably a good way to judge a person. An interview for a job is (usually) an entirely different situation.
>> Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.
Oh my god, please don't tell me you trust people because they are looking good. If you do, you should consider establishing a different trust-metric, one that maybe has to do with the job a person is actually requested to do.
The burden of proof is on those proposing a new system. I doubt it’s as easy as many rationalists assume.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17668937
The existence of the effect really means that it wasn't selected against.
Some relevant books:
Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear
Blink (looks almost like Freakonomics)
Imagine we flipped it around and said it to entrepreneurs: "Do you really want to live your life as CEO of a successful startup knowing you got there by faking confidence?"
That's radically different from deciding to make a change in one's life, to make some effort in order to change bad habits and so on. The key difference is how you feel once you succeeded. Are you 100% happy? Then everything is fine. Are you always anxious, tired of acting (e.g. like you care or you don't care), and something doesn't really feel right? You may want to rethink your priorities in life.
But some combination of “improve yourself” and “examine your expectations” will work better than “pretend to have qualities you don’t” as a long term romantic strategy.
E.g.: instead of faking confidence, work on improving actual confidence.
I would agree with sociopaths /narcissists skew towards seats of power because such people are more willing to take big risks, feel entitled to more and DGAF other than themselves. Also, the amount of wealth and prestigous title/s someone has tends to change them to behave similarly.
The main ways to bring balance back are to:
- forcibly remove the cancer of and vigilantly guard against corrupt political-wealth complex from all areas of government
- sensible wealth-redistribution; having millions of people whom are homeless living on the sides of highway on-ramps or can never retire is obscene
- more co-op businesses, employeee ownership and workers on the board of directors
- stronger unions that work
- US: single-payer
- more minimum vacation time
- even in times of hyper-mobility, community rebuilding, across all demographics, in a standard format people know about: something to replace church/atheist “church”... it’s unhealthy to have an anonymous, closed society of mostly lonely people with only fb friends and few/no one to talk to regularly.
Because of this I am not going to respond to your entire point however I would urge you to do some research on the origins of libertarianism, communism, and socialism. It may surprise you that they all tend to be mischaracterised and traditionally set out to resolve the same issues in similar ways.
I think quite often when people make a quick "moral" judgement it's more about what they feel is right.
Reasoned morals can be the opposite, sometimes they can feel wrong and often require people to stop and think about why a certain thing is in fact moral.
When someone makes an instinct based moral judgement the instant message is that the person is concerned with morals ( whether it be reasoned or not ), which does send this message that the persons fundamental nature is to do the right thing ( whatever 'right' is doesn't matter so much as the desire to do it)
Where someone who takes time to figure out moral questions, it feels like they aren't inherently moral. Even worse when their reasoned moral judgement doesn't "feel" right. You may have to know that person more intimately to realize that they thoughfully moral.
I feel maybe this has lot more to do with social cohesion rather than morality.
On the other hand, people who take moral decisions depending on the situation and the context are unpredictable in a way. And the result will be more difficult to judge as moral or not. People who stick with them long enough might come around to trust them and see them as moraly sound, but there is a higher barrier to entry.
The study was about partner choice, and for me the takeaway would be that it’s easier to trust people that are also easier to understand
At the same time, you're clearly right that we should be more rational when it comes to trying to act morally [1]
[0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-smart/201502... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/06/against-empath...
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/most-psychology-papers-cant-...
This says "on reasoning alone". I wouldn't trust someone who didn't reference their instincts/emotions for moral decisions. There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions. And I'm not just talking psychopaths, but also people who's emotional centers have been damaged. This is unsurprising to me, because our emotions and our morality are both part of the system that makes us social creatures (e.g. empathy). Morality is essentially a meta-structure that helps hold societies together.
Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct.
There are some nice explanations of this by people like Jonathan Haidt.
> Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct.
Can you give an example of these studies? I’m interested in how they assign a qualifier of “good” or “bad” to various moral decisions. Are subjects not consistent in their moral decisions, or do their decisions disagree with the moral priors of the researchers? How do the researchers establish that their moral decisions are correct? That’s the essence of ethics itself.
Unless these studies are exceptionally careful in their setup, I think it’s probable they’re begging the question implicitly. A more reserved conclusion might be that people with less empathy, in the aggregate, consistently make moral decisions which are different from those who have more empathy. But I think this conclusion might be kind of vacuous to anyone who has read a philosophy book or two on ethics.
I've worked with people who tended to display these emotions when making decisions, interacting with people, and carrying out their work. Far from persuading me, it was more likely to make me think that the quality of their decision-making (and other aspects of their work) was compromised.
Displaying anger at your audience may not be convincing, but if you want your audience to be angry about something else, then displaying the anger you want them to share can be quite effective.
A common enemy is among the oldest tricks in the book.
Didn't seem to work! Initiating testing on MUM protocol: "Look hurt and worried about Trump supporters' well-being while asking them if everything is alright at home."
"Do you really hate me? I don't hate you. I'm sorry. Can I do something to help? You want me to listen. Alright. I want to learn from you. I'll hush and listen. You're right. What was the point of me criticizing you if that only made us not listen to each other? You're right, almost nobody ever says you're right anymore!, but it makes the other side feel understood, and feeling understood makes them want to listen to us as well, even if just a little bit. Maybe it's my fault, too. I'm not perfect. I'm sor-- I guess a heartfelt apology isn't going to help you. I will change what I do for the better."
Empathy is hard work for a robot.
Relevant - https://i.imgur.com/yN2l1Cp.png
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17662135 [How to tell the difference between persuasion and manipulation]
In short, don't give someone a reason to do something. Just whine.
So why don't we all whine?
This I have asked of shouting. Normally I politely ask people to do things with a friendly tone of voice. However there have been moments, e.g. on-coming car catastrophe, where I have shouted at people and been surprised at how quickly people move or do as they are told. Shocked at being heard and being 'obeyed' I have wondered why I don't do it more often. I dismiss the idea as it is not me and contradicts many aspects of my upbringing. But you can see how it is that some people get what they want in the world by shouting/whining or being a general narcissist.
Having lived with a person who is hearing impaired, the effects of shouting on reflexive action will dissipate after the first week.
Where I live, the exact opposite seems true. If you are an ardent user of social media, you are more likeley than not to be under a bit of scrutiny.
I'd argue that this is why the GP succeeds in their B/C tests - because they made it about their own choices. In A it's trying to convince the other party of a position on privacy instead which is, unsurprisingly, a lot harder
My experience does not bring me to the same conclusion as the article or your comment. I don’t think it’s about whining or an emotional appeal. Rather, I think it’s a matter of not giving the other party anything to argue with. If I enumerate the many reasons which have convinced me to not use Whatsapp, the other person has a lot of...”rhetorical surface” with which to attack. They may or may not be successful, but they can probably launch a decently cogent rebuttal.
On the other hand if I simply say, “I don’t like it”, and follow up with, “I don’t know, I just don’t”, there isn’t enough substance with which to find a logical flaw. Your friends might judge you for it but, in my experience, it won’t stick out enough in their memory for them to really focus on it one way or the other. They are sort of forced to concede because your reasons are inscrutable. Disengaging can be its own form of victory, because it forces a draw (so to speak).
Obviously that isn‘t persuasive; it’s defensive. Likewise, I used to compete in Speech & Debate tournaments at the national level. In that context you have to engage, by design. My team (and rivaling teams) had a philosophy that we’d impart to all new recruits: when you’re formulating your point, deliver it forthrightly and concisely. Support your position with the minimum that will suffice and provide further support as needed, to parry the rhetorical attacks you encounter. This gives your opponent less material to refute, which means each individual point you deliver is harder to detract. When you’re trying to persuade someone (especially if you have an audience) a reasonable point delivered confidently, and with one or two strong reasons or citations, is far more privileged than many “passing” reasons which can made the focus of a rebuttal.
An appeal with facts, reasonable viewpoints and what not is effective if your audience is already heavily biased towards your viewpoint.
Appeals based on emotion and whining are likely to be called out by an audience that's inherently skeptical or believes very specific ideals surrounding the nature of discussion (the "debate to reach a higher truth, not to win" crowd).
Unfortunately, I've found what you said to be true with audiences who remain on the fence or don't really care about whatever issue is at hand.
Many posters here fall into the camp to whom discussion is an attempt to reach the truth so they fail to see the rhetorical forest for the trees.
That's not to say we don't have our blind-spots when it comes to emotional appeals, however. That's just human nature.
To defend yourself from manipulative psychopaths, ignore emotional signs in discussion.
People who are reasonably intelligent and competent are not going to fall for these persuasion techniques...it's better to learn how to be more competent than waste time trying to learn persuasion. Yeah, you can probably persuade a stranger to give you a few dollar, but it won't work in situations where the stakes are higher. Regarding Dukakis and the 1988 presidential debate, attributing his loss to his answer is an example of the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Because he lost, pundit needs to work backwards to try to find a reason why he lost, but that does not prove that his answer was why he lost. Scott Adams (and this is where I disagree with him) attributes Trump's win to special persuasion techniques, but Trump was going to get about 50% of the vote (just by virtue of being that GOP nominee) regardless of any special techniques. And also, if pursation were so effecvie, he why not just purade everoyne watchign his Periscopte to give him a few dolalr.s Surely that shoudl not be too hard.
You look in that person's face, you make the call. You'all remember that stuff. Maybe not so common now, but it's still on TV.. "My word is my bond." and all that.
If that utterance doesn't come with a hardcore look of sincerity playing across the face, well then it's not believable. Looking emotional doesn't mean looking distraught. It means not looking like a mannequin.
Even with data, logic, reason, and an armful of facts, imagine two people with equal amounts of the aforementioned, trying to convince a 3rd party, but one of the individuals throws in expressions/mannerisms that communicate "trust", "sincerity", and "competence"...