This article gives me a strange feeling of looking through a mirror into a very different kind of world. I’m highly disagreeable. Vulnerability to frame control seems to stem from being agreeable/conflict-avoidant/unassertive. I personally find many of the situations where person A tries to frame control person person B and person B just silently takes it and doesn’t say anything (at least in the initial stages) really weird and hard to imagine myself doing. Further, while rationally I know people behave like this, I really can’t put myself in their shoes and see why. The reactions to situations just seem so different from what mine would be.
E.g:
The burning man example. If I made a point and another person suggested people just listen to me because I’m tall/eloquent/have other trait X, I’d immediately confront them. I can’t imagine letting a shitty argumentative tactic like that slide, much less the insult it implies.
The student who asks the master a question, the master then responds by asking the student what motivates them to seek problems. Again, my response would be to pointedly confront the master and point out that they haven’t answered my question.
Yeah, instinctive accepting of other people’s frames seems like an important part of “agreeableness”.
Which is different from the skill of switching to different frames intentionally, which is generally useful for everyone (it allows one to consider a situation from multiple perspectives, and understand the thinking of other people), but agreeable people need to learn this as a self-defense skill—to switch away from other people’s frames and maintain their own frame when necessary.
Fwiw I think it’s entirely possible to just get frame controlled by them using all the “right conversational moves” to push their frames. I don’t think there’s a set of communication norms that are fully protective against frame control.
Agreed but it seems to me that agreeableness/conflict-avoidance makes you far more susceptible to frame-control. Not that it’s the only factor which matters or that a disagreeable person is immune.
Here is why I think that agreeableness/conflict-avoidance is a useful but not complete defense against “frame control.”
I think there are two types of frame controllers:
Assertive controllers
Receptive controllers
For assertive controllers, think of the egotistical expert, eager to smack down ideas he thinks are bad, even when he’s thought about them for 3 seconds and is getting his facts mixed up. The assertive controller will insult, neg, and raise his voice. He demands not just respect, but deference. Other people find him intimidating. They lack the expertise, confidence, or power to take him on. He’s a good candidate for real leadership in his area of expertise, but he’ll also claim territory beyond his true area of competence, and he’s as invested in keeping his position in the hierarchy as in driving beneficial results for others. People make fun of him behind his back, but that may just reinforce the fact that nobody makes fun of him to his face.
I think Aella is talking about “receptive controllers.” These people don’t do the active, obvious turf-defending that you see with the assertive controller. They don’t necessarily have an area of real, recognized competence. What they attract is incompetence. They surround themselves with people who know very little, sell vague personal growth nostrums, and keep their cohort engaged not by bolstering the perception of their own expertise, but by reinforcing their followers’ self-perceptions of worthlessness. Offering them just a shred of worth or fake-status is only collateral, and will be used as a threat in the future.
Assertive controllers are frustrating, but often they seem to genuinely be necessary and net-beneficial. Being disagreeable or conflict-oriented won’t necessarily let you “win” against these people, or poke holes in their hierarchy. It will create an open, ugly power struggle that will just leave you both feeling resentful most of the time.
Receptive controllers are just revolting people. Fortunately, 98% of people actively find them revolting and see right through them. 2%, unfortunately, do not. They see a large cohort, a person who stands out through their manner of dress or their language or interior decorating style. They want to know what all those other people see in this person. And they stick around, and stick around, and stick around, trying to find out.
Disagreeableness or being open to conflict—or even just being able to ignore and turn the cold shoulder—will defend you against receptive frame controllers. The entire skill is in stripping them of their paper-thin mystique and excluding them from your life. They offer nothing of genuine value—or at least nothing you couldn’t find from many other fine sources. Meditation? It’s all over the place. Insight? There are thousands of books, podcasts, talks, and workshops, and many therapists you can engage with? Social access? There are other parties to go to.
For most of us, even a modicum of self-respect will serve to keep the receptive controllers out of our lives.
I think both of those are underselling competent frame control. Good frame controllers are actually competent, can switch between styles of communication depending on the person, and offer genuine value along with the frame theyre offering.
That you are this way is suggestive that you were not victim to a frame controller in your formative years.
(or maybe another way of putting that is, that you were raised by a benign frame controller who gave you a critical frame that you have never needed to question. I’m confused though. What’s control? Is it control if I engineer something grow up to do things I don’t expect?)
I have exactly the same feelings about it as You do, and I think this makes us the Frame Controllers as well. In both of the examples you gave, your reaction would be a purposeful wrestling the Frame Control away from the abuser, and blatantly presenting your Frame.
From the OG post and your comment, I cannot think of a way out of such problems without the “victim” doing a stronger version of Frame Control than the abuser, because trying to solve such issues with nonFC means just means playing into the abuser’s hands.
More importantly, I do not agree with Aella’s implied assertion that people differ much in how much they Control the Frame. Everybody, or near everybody tries to Control it as much as they can. The bigger difference is in the robustness of the Frame they hold. If the Frame is strong (internally consistent, close to objective reality, high-status) then it is relatively easy to Control it, resist the control from others, and even control them in return.
I assume that in the examples you gave, your response would not be caused by you being particularly cantankerous, but simply your Frame being strong enough that you can “get away with” either blatant or subtle Frame Control Jujitsu against the assailant, without losing social status yourself or even feeling particular anxiety.
This article gives me a strange feeling of looking through a mirror into a very different kind of world. I’m highly disagreeable. Vulnerability to frame control seems to stem from being agreeable/conflict-avoidant/unassertive. I personally find many of the situations where person A tries to frame control person person B and person B just silently takes it and doesn’t say anything (at least in the initial stages) really weird and hard to imagine myself doing. Further, while rationally I know people behave like this, I really can’t put myself in their shoes and see why. The reactions to situations just seem so different from what mine would be.
E.g:
The burning man example. If I made a point and another person suggested people just listen to me because I’m tall/eloquent/have other trait X, I’d immediately confront them. I can’t imagine letting a shitty argumentative tactic like that slide, much less the insult it implies.
The student who asks the master a question, the master then responds by asking the student what motivates them to seek problems. Again, my response would be to pointedly confront the master and point out that they haven’t answered my question.
Yeah, instinctive accepting of other people’s frames seems like an important part of “agreeableness”.
Which is different from the skill of switching to different frames intentionally, which is generally useful for everyone (it allows one to consider a situation from multiple perspectives, and understand the thinking of other people), but agreeable people need to learn this as a self-defense skill—to switch away from other people’s frames and maintain their own frame when necessary.
Fwiw I think it’s entirely possible to just get frame controlled by them using all the “right conversational moves” to push their frames. I don’t think there’s a set of communication norms that are fully protective against frame control.
Agreed but it seems to me that agreeableness/conflict-avoidance makes you far more susceptible to frame-control. Not that it’s the only factor which matters or that a disagreeable person is immune.
Here is why I think that agreeableness/conflict-avoidance is a useful but not complete defense against “frame control.”
I think there are two types of frame controllers:
Assertive controllers
Receptive controllers
For assertive controllers, think of the egotistical expert, eager to smack down ideas he thinks are bad, even when he’s thought about them for 3 seconds and is getting his facts mixed up. The assertive controller will insult, neg, and raise his voice. He demands not just respect, but deference. Other people find him intimidating. They lack the expertise, confidence, or power to take him on. He’s a good candidate for real leadership in his area of expertise, but he’ll also claim territory beyond his true area of competence, and he’s as invested in keeping his position in the hierarchy as in driving beneficial results for others. People make fun of him behind his back, but that may just reinforce the fact that nobody makes fun of him to his face.
I think Aella is talking about “receptive controllers.” These people don’t do the active, obvious turf-defending that you see with the assertive controller. They don’t necessarily have an area of real, recognized competence. What they attract is incompetence. They surround themselves with people who know very little, sell vague personal growth nostrums, and keep their cohort engaged not by bolstering the perception of their own expertise, but by reinforcing their followers’ self-perceptions of worthlessness. Offering them just a shred of worth or fake-status is only collateral, and will be used as a threat in the future.
Assertive controllers are frustrating, but often they seem to genuinely be necessary and net-beneficial. Being disagreeable or conflict-oriented won’t necessarily let you “win” against these people, or poke holes in their hierarchy. It will create an open, ugly power struggle that will just leave you both feeling resentful most of the time.
Receptive controllers are just revolting people. Fortunately, 98% of people actively find them revolting and see right through them. 2%, unfortunately, do not. They see a large cohort, a person who stands out through their manner of dress or their language or interior decorating style. They want to know what all those other people see in this person. And they stick around, and stick around, and stick around, trying to find out.
Disagreeableness or being open to conflict—or even just being able to ignore and turn the cold shoulder—will defend you against receptive frame controllers. The entire skill is in stripping them of their paper-thin mystique and excluding them from your life. They offer nothing of genuine value—or at least nothing you couldn’t find from many other fine sources. Meditation? It’s all over the place. Insight? There are thousands of books, podcasts, talks, and workshops, and many therapists you can engage with? Social access? There are other parties to go to.
For most of us, even a modicum of self-respect will serve to keep the receptive controllers out of our lives.
I think both of those are underselling competent frame control. Good frame controllers are actually competent, can switch between styles of communication depending on the person, and offer genuine value along with the frame theyre offering.
That you are this way is suggestive that you were not victim to a frame controller in your formative years.
(or maybe another way of putting that is, that you were raised by a benign frame controller who gave you a critical frame that you have never needed to question. I’m confused though. What’s control? Is it control if I engineer something grow up to do things I don’t expect?)
I have exactly the same feelings about it as You do, and I think this makes us the Frame Controllers as well. In both of the examples you gave, your reaction would be a purposeful wrestling the Frame Control away from the abuser, and blatantly presenting your Frame.
From the OG post and your comment, I cannot think of a way out of such problems without the “victim” doing a stronger version of Frame Control than the abuser, because trying to solve such issues with nonFC means just means playing into the abuser’s hands.
More importantly, I do not agree with Aella’s implied assertion that people differ much in how much they Control the Frame. Everybody, or near everybody tries to Control it as much as they can. The bigger difference is in the robustness of the Frame they hold. If the Frame is strong (internally consistent, close to objective reality, high-status) then it is relatively easy to Control it, resist the control from others, and even control them in return.
I assume that in the examples you gave, your response would not be caused by you being particularly cantankerous, but simply your Frame being strong enough that you can “get away with” either blatant or subtle Frame Control Jujitsu against the assailant, without losing social status yourself or even feeling particular anxiety.