Responding firmly and effectively to actual attacks may preserve status and discourage others from abusing or taking advantage of you. Being emotionally upset is not an important part of that response.
I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen lots of cases of manipulation where being emotionally upset was the whole focus. Genuine distress evokes sympathy from onlookers and persecutors alike.
Attempting to evoke sympathy by displaying distress is another kind of response I suppose. But its success depends entirely on the reactions of your onlookers and persecutors: they may be amused and encouraged, for example. And even where successful, its success still doesn’t depend on actual internal loss of emotional equilibrium.
Whereas being aware of and in charge of your emotions in a stressful situation is always a winning strategy.
Just as for an aggressive offended response, a manipulative whiny offended response can still lose you respect and social advantage if it is misjudged. And you are more likely to misjudge it if you are acting in a poorly controlled way out of emotional upset, rather than in a conscious attempt to communicate clearly.
BTW, I don’t particularly rate the argument that because you’ve seen people easily manipulated by displays of distress, it’s an advantage to be genuinely distressed by things. Obviously it stops being an advantage for the manipulator if the onlookers are able to control their own distress at seeing someone else apparently upset.
But I think we’re wandering away from the topic a little. Being offended isn’t the same as being distressed, except for pathological narcissists.
Attempting to evoke sympathy by displaying distress is another kind of response I suppose. But its success depends entirely on the reactions of your onlookers and persecutors: they may be amused and encouraged, for example. And even where successful, its success still doesn’t depend on actual internal loss of emotional equilibrium.
In theory people could try faking emotional reactions, hoping for a similar effect. In practice, they run into the cheat-detection mechanisms in other people’s brains. If they get found out, there’s a risk of getting a reputation for “faking it”. In many cases, its easier and simpler to be genuinely offended, upset—or whatever.
I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen lots of cases of manipulation where being emotionally upset was the whole focus. Genuine distress evokes sympathy from onlookers and persecutors alike.
Attempting to evoke sympathy by displaying distress is another kind of response I suppose. But its success depends entirely on the reactions of your onlookers and persecutors: they may be amused and encouraged, for example. And even where successful, its success still doesn’t depend on actual internal loss of emotional equilibrium.
Whereas being aware of and in charge of your emotions in a stressful situation is always a winning strategy.
Just as for an aggressive offended response, a manipulative whiny offended response can still lose you respect and social advantage if it is misjudged. And you are more likely to misjudge it if you are acting in a poorly controlled way out of emotional upset, rather than in a conscious attempt to communicate clearly.
BTW, I don’t particularly rate the argument that because you’ve seen people easily manipulated by displays of distress, it’s an advantage to be genuinely distressed by things. Obviously it stops being an advantage for the manipulator if the onlookers are able to control their own distress at seeing someone else apparently upset.
But I think we’re wandering away from the topic a little. Being offended isn’t the same as being distressed, except for pathological narcissists.
In theory people could try faking emotional reactions, hoping for a similar effect. In practice, they run into the cheat-detection mechanisms in other people’s brains. If they get found out, there’s a risk of getting a reputation for “faking it”. In many cases, its easier and simpler to be genuinely offended, upset—or whatever.
Easier, simpler, still not a great idea, for all the reasons I gave above.