“You seem to have misread his comment—he said ‘bowing out now,’ not ‘for now.’”
If so, can you explain why? Whether you do or not, what significantly worse result would you expect from that response, as opposed to teasing him about it?
Whether you do or not, what significantly worse result would you expect from that response, as opposed to teasing him about it?
Perplexed visibly gained respect and rapport using his response. Yours would probably have just been given no response. This is just an instance where Perplexed is just better able to read the social landscape than you and so better able to calibrate his response toward gaining social capital. If he wasn’t familiar with the situation, less tuned in to the social dynamics, then he would have been well served by ‘playing it safe’. Presuming too much rapport would have been a risk—politeness is a better default.
Hmm—my goal is to inform the other person of the error. This does not require them to respond.
Your goal is a lot more than pointing out an error. You have social ends you wish to achieve—hence your whole participation in the thread. It is that element of communication that is not mere information that we are all discussing.
In actual practice I behave the way I described; I like to think that if this were drastically counterproductive for my goals, I would have noticed by now.
At any rate, the goal under discussion was informing the other person of the error in a way that didn’t result in defensiveness or aggression.
At any rate, the goal under discussion was informing the other person of the error in a way that didn’t result in defensiveness or aggression.
I am comfortable with the relevance of my statements to the goal under discussion as described by yourself, above. I can attest to the superiority of Perplexed’s approach to precisely said goal. When done well it will produce less defensiveness and aggression.
What you do personally in your life isn’t a subject that I have or would comment on—I speak only to the specific context here wherein Perplexed presented a near-optimal solution.
Do you find this condescending?
“You seem to have misread his comment—he said ‘bowing out now,’ not ‘for now.’”
If so, can you explain why? Whether you do or not, what significantly worse result would you expect from that response, as opposed to teasing him about it?
No. That is fine too. The teasing was inessential.
Well, that’s as much politeness as I was talking about, so I still think it’s no worse than bluntness would have been.
Perplexed visibly gained respect and rapport using his response. Yours would probably have just been given no response. This is just an instance where Perplexed is just better able to read the social landscape than you and so better able to calibrate his response toward gaining social capital. If he wasn’t familiar with the situation, less tuned in to the social dynamics, then he would have been well served by ‘playing it safe’. Presuming too much rapport would have been a risk—politeness is a better default.
Hmm—my goal is to inform the other person of the error. This does not require them to respond.
Your goal is a lot more than pointing out an error. You have social ends you wish to achieve—hence your whole participation in the thread. It is that element of communication that is not mere information that we are all discussing.
In actual practice I behave the way I described; I like to think that if this were drastically counterproductive for my goals, I would have noticed by now.
At any rate, the goal under discussion was informing the other person of the error in a way that didn’t result in defensiveness or aggression.
I am comfortable with the relevance of my statements to the goal under discussion as described by yourself, above. I can attest to the superiority of Perplexed’s approach to precisely said goal. When done well it will produce less defensiveness and aggression.
What you do personally in your life isn’t a subject that I have or would comment on—I speak only to the specific context here wherein Perplexed presented a near-optimal solution.