I would predict that if you took an experienced social-game theorist PUA trainer and threw him into a random physical social environment with a goal to make as many friends as possible, vs. an untrained male of similar geekiness (I’m assuming the social game theorist will be a geek, present or former) and similar unfamiliarity with the group or its rules/topics/etc., and the PUA will kick the untrained person’s ass from here to Sunday.
What’s more, I would bet that you could repeat this experiment over and over, with different PUAs and get the same results. And if the PUA in question is a good trainer, I’d be they’d be able to take a modest-sized group of similarly-geeky students and quickly train at least one student to beat an untrained person by a solid margin, and to get most of the students to improve on their previous, untrained results
I don’t think that you should compare social-skills trainer geeks to average geeks. Of course the trainers will be much more charismatic. Otherwise they wouldn’t have elected to become trainers. But that doesn’t mean that the trainers’ specific theory has much to do with why they’re charismatic.
The relevant test would be this: Compare a successful PUA social-skill’s trainer to a successful non-PUA social-skills trainer. I’m sure that almost all social-skills trainers broadly agree on all sorts of principles. The question is, do PUAs in particular have access to better knowledge?
Furthermore, do the methods used by either trainer work on the typical person? Or do they work selectively on certain types of people? Of course, instrumentally, you can have good reasons for caring only about certain types of people. But, if you are making claims about the typical person, you should demonstrate that your models reflect the typical person.
ETA: There’s an analogy to dieting gurus. I’m sure that dieting gurus are better than the average person at losing weight. That is, if you forced dieting gurus to gain weight, they could probably lose the extra weight quicker than an average person of the same weight.
However, my understanding is that all the dieting theories out there perform pretty much equally well. There are probably some principles that most diets share and which are good advice. But, as I understand it, there is little evidence that any particular diet has struck upon the truth. Whatever it is that makes a given diet distinct doesn’t seem to contribute significantly to its success.
This is despite the fact that many diets have legions of followers who gather into communities to poor over their successes and failures in meticulous detail. The analogy with the PUA community seems pretty strong on that count, too.
The relevant test would be this: Compare a successful PUA social-skill’s trainer to a successful non-PUA social-skills trainer. I’m sure that almost all social-skills trainers broadly agree on all sorts of principles. The question is, do PUAs in particular have access to better knowledge?
I think the specific dimensions of performance on which PUA trainers would outscore general social skills trainers would be in short-term/immediate manipulation of social groups to achieve specified objective and tactical results.
General social skills trainers tend to focus on longer-term and “softer”, less-specific objectives, although this could vary quite a bit. They’re unlikely to have skills that would be useful at more Machiavellian objectives like, “get people in the group to compete with each other for your attention” or “make the group single out a person for ridicule”, or “get everyone in the room to think you’re a VIP who everyone else already knows”.
Granted, not every PUA trainer would have all those skills either, and that last one might be doable by some non-PUA trainers. But if you could come up with novel challenges within the scope of what a PUA social theory would predict to be doable, it would be a good test of that theory.
(Also, I predict that PUA theorists who agree to such a challenge as being within scope of their theory, will generally update their theory if it bombs. It’s an unusual PUA social theorist who hasn’t done a lot of updating and refinement already, so they are already selected for being open to experimentation, refinement, and objective criteria for success.)
I don’t think that you should compare social-skills trainer geeks to average geeks. Of course the trainers will be much more charismatic. Otherwise they wouldn’t have elected to become trainers. But that doesn’t mean that the trainers’ specific theory has much to do with why they’re charismatic.
The relevant test would be this: Compare a successful PUA social-skill’s trainer to a successful non-PUA social-skills trainer. I’m sure that almost all social-skills trainers broadly agree on all sorts of principles. The question is, do PUAs in particular have access to better knowledge?
Furthermore, do the methods used by either trainer work on the typical person? Or do they work selectively on certain types of people? Of course, instrumentally, you can have good reasons for caring only about certain types of people. But, if you are making claims about the typical person, you should demonstrate that your models reflect the typical person.
ETA: There’s an analogy to dieting gurus. I’m sure that dieting gurus are better than the average person at losing weight. That is, if you forced dieting gurus to gain weight, they could probably lose the extra weight quicker than an average person of the same weight.
However, my understanding is that all the dieting theories out there perform pretty much equally well. There are probably some principles that most diets share and which are good advice. But, as I understand it, there is little evidence that any particular diet has struck upon the truth. Whatever it is that makes a given diet distinct doesn’t seem to contribute significantly to its success.
This is despite the fact that many diets have legions of followers who gather into communities to poor over their successes and failures in meticulous detail. The analogy with the PUA community seems pretty strong on that count, too.
I think the specific dimensions of performance on which PUA trainers would outscore general social skills trainers would be in short-term/immediate manipulation of social groups to achieve specified objective and tactical results.
General social skills trainers tend to focus on longer-term and “softer”, less-specific objectives, although this could vary quite a bit. They’re unlikely to have skills that would be useful at more Machiavellian objectives like, “get people in the group to compete with each other for your attention” or “make the group single out a person for ridicule”, or “get everyone in the room to think you’re a VIP who everyone else already knows”.
Granted, not every PUA trainer would have all those skills either, and that last one might be doable by some non-PUA trainers. But if you could come up with novel challenges within the scope of what a PUA social theory would predict to be doable, it would be a good test of that theory.
(Also, I predict that PUA theorists who agree to such a challenge as being within scope of their theory, will generally update their theory if it bombs. It’s an unusual PUA social theorist who hasn’t done a lot of updating and refinement already, so they are already selected for being open to experimentation, refinement, and objective criteria for success.)