What you’re describing sounds to me like it might essentially be social intelligence… almost everybody does this in some form (realizing that not everything is literal, but context dependent), and some highly socially intelligent people are much better at figuring out what people mean than others.
An additional step you might want to add in to your process is confirming fhat what you think they mean is what they actually mean by restating it in your own words, and saying something like, “so you’re saying that...” This skill is essentially active listening.
One step further than this is also reaffirming their emotion (wow, it sounds like you’re really (happy/angry/passionate/etc)… and one step further than that is reaffiriming WHY they said it (It seems like you really care about how this post comes across).
Of course, I’m just inferring what you mean here, without confirming, so I could be totally off base :).
Yes, social intelligence is the core of it, but a lot of the time it’s not so much a matter of innate ability than of mindset and values. For a long while I had this strange idea that the overly-literal way of discussing, which assumed the form but not the function of rationality, was the right way of discussing, and the huge majority of people were just doing it wrong, and needed to be informed of the rules of ~rational~ debates. Looking back, I might have been rather frustrating to talk to. :)
But then I changed my mind and reframed debate as an action undertaken by some agents with primary motivations other than debating for the hell of it, like voices in the dark. And started to look at the motivations behind what has been said, with the goal of having the most accurate model possible of how and why the other person actually generates those ideas. The chains of reasoning that output the goals the other person wants out of the debate are not terribly hard to go through, even for a self-identified social “extraterrestrial”.
Those particular debate tactics aren’t, however, the best idea for improving the dialogue. I’ve had them used on me, or rather against me, even here on LW, mostly for disingenuous purposes. They’re very easy to corrupt. In particular, “so you’re saying that...” seem to be the code words that herald the arrival of the Straw Man. Okay, I get it, the other person might be genuinely trying to understand your alien (to them) mind. However, when there’s disagreement, in trying to assemble a coherent mental picture of you, they choose, out of the traits you could possibly have, the ones that depict you as farther away from where they come, rather than closer to that. The bottom line seems to be ”… so that’s why I disagree with you, because I’m too reasonable to believe all the crazy things implied by your expressed beliefs”. If you’re looking for feedback, it may be best if you ask rather than propose interpretations.
As well as that, telling people what their emotional states seem to be is more often than not a bit offensive. For some reason people like to come across as less emotional and more cool-headed in debates rather than the opposite. The natural reaction would be mildly defensive (“Who, me? Nah, I’m totally chill”). Even if they might be feeling a certain way, emotions aren’t often consciously credited as origins of one’s behavioral output. If you’re using this, then a “buffer” statement might be needed, to reassure the listener that you’re not considering their thoughts less legitimate because they have emotional sources, or their emotions less legitimate because they’re intense (“of course, I see why you might be happy/angry/passionate about this, and that’s totally okay”).
The core is empathy… you have to show that you genuinely accept and make space for the other persons idea and emotions, it’s the mindset behind the strategy of active-listening. If you simply use the strategy of “so you’re saying that” without genuinely trying to understand the other person, it comes off as straw-manning. Similarly, if you are telling someone else what their emotions are, instead of making space for their emotion, it comes off as judgmental.
I think something else you’re getting at here is that this is something that’s very hard to do with a stranger over the internet—the requisite body language, rapport, voice tone etc all get lost (and therefore more useful in most real-world cases of trying to change someone’s mind)
Edit: one final thought on this is that active listening isn’t much used in debate. It’s much more useful for dialouge and rapport building than trying to convince someone with facts.
I agree that what I’m describing is a subset of social intelligence (I’m sure that’s what you meant). But I’d like to distinguish the ability to infer what other people mean from the sense to try to do so. The former is definitely a type of social intelligence, but I’m not sure if the latter is. My thesis really is that it’s beneficial to do the latter.
As for reaffirming the emotion, I think that that’s a good point—it’s probably a good and underutilized thing to do. I haven’t thought much about it though and don’t think I have any useful thoughts on it.
It’s almost what I meant… i actually meant that the sense of WHEN you should do it is a subset of social intelligence… on the extreme edge of this, people who are autistic are notoriously bad at understanding sarcastic humor—they have no ability to seperate content from subtext, so take everything literally.
Hey Adam,
What you’re describing sounds to me like it might essentially be social intelligence… almost everybody does this in some form (realizing that not everything is literal, but context dependent), and some highly socially intelligent people are much better at figuring out what people mean than others.
An additional step you might want to add in to your process is confirming fhat what you think they mean is what they actually mean by restating it in your own words, and saying something like, “so you’re saying that...” This skill is essentially active listening.
One step further than this is also reaffirming their emotion (wow, it sounds like you’re really (happy/angry/passionate/etc)… and one step further than that is reaffiriming WHY they said it (It seems like you really care about how this post comes across).
Of course, I’m just inferring what you mean here, without confirming, so I could be totally off base :).
Yes, social intelligence is the core of it, but a lot of the time it’s not so much a matter of innate ability than of mindset and values. For a long while I had this strange idea that the overly-literal way of discussing, which assumed the form but not the function of rationality, was the right way of discussing, and the huge majority of people were just doing it wrong, and needed to be informed of the rules of ~rational~ debates. Looking back, I might have been rather frustrating to talk to. :)
But then I changed my mind and reframed debate as an action undertaken by some agents with primary motivations other than debating for the hell of it, like voices in the dark. And started to look at the motivations behind what has been said, with the goal of having the most accurate model possible of how and why the other person actually generates those ideas. The chains of reasoning that output the goals the other person wants out of the debate are not terribly hard to go through, even for a self-identified social “extraterrestrial”.
Those particular debate tactics aren’t, however, the best idea for improving the dialogue. I’ve had them used on me, or rather against me, even here on LW, mostly for disingenuous purposes. They’re very easy to corrupt. In particular, “so you’re saying that...” seem to be the code words that herald the arrival of the Straw Man. Okay, I get it, the other person might be genuinely trying to understand your alien (to them) mind. However, when there’s disagreement, in trying to assemble a coherent mental picture of you, they choose, out of the traits you could possibly have, the ones that depict you as farther away from where they come, rather than closer to that. The bottom line seems to be ”… so that’s why I disagree with you, because I’m too reasonable to believe all the crazy things implied by your expressed beliefs”. If you’re looking for feedback, it may be best if you ask rather than propose interpretations.
As well as that, telling people what their emotional states seem to be is more often than not a bit offensive. For some reason people like to come across as less emotional and more cool-headed in debates rather than the opposite. The natural reaction would be mildly defensive (“Who, me? Nah, I’m totally chill”). Even if they might be feeling a certain way, emotions aren’t often consciously credited as origins of one’s behavioral output. If you’re using this, then a “buffer” statement might be needed, to reassure the listener that you’re not considering their thoughts less legitimate because they have emotional sources, or their emotions less legitimate because they’re intense (“of course, I see why you might be happy/angry/passionate about this, and that’s totally okay”).
The core is empathy… you have to show that you genuinely accept and make space for the other persons idea and emotions, it’s the mindset behind the strategy of active-listening. If you simply use the strategy of “so you’re saying that” without genuinely trying to understand the other person, it comes off as straw-manning. Similarly, if you are telling someone else what their emotions are, instead of making space for their emotion, it comes off as judgmental.
I think something else you’re getting at here is that this is something that’s very hard to do with a stranger over the internet—the requisite body language, rapport, voice tone etc all get lost (and therefore more useful in most real-world cases of trying to change someone’s mind)
Edit: one final thought on this is that active listening isn’t much used in debate. It’s much more useful for dialouge and rapport building than trying to convince someone with facts.
I agree that what I’m describing is a subset of social intelligence (I’m sure that’s what you meant). But I’d like to distinguish the ability to infer what other people mean from the sense to try to do so. The former is definitely a type of social intelligence, but I’m not sure if the latter is. My thesis really is that it’s beneficial to do the latter.
As for reaffirming the emotion, I think that that’s a good point—it’s probably a good and underutilized thing to do. I haven’t thought much about it though and don’t think I have any useful thoughts on it.
It’s almost what I meant… i actually meant that the sense of WHEN you should do it is a subset of social intelligence… on the extreme edge of this, people who are autistic are notoriously bad at understanding sarcastic humor—they have no ability to seperate content from subtext, so take everything literally.
Ok, I agree with that.