Seconded. Both my parents are well respected communication professionals, and they refer to the mechanics described in this book more than any other. Plus it has some very cute retro cartoons.
Some more healthy ideas can be found in a parallel book, Games Trainers Play, which is more useful for getting adults to engage in communication through (nominally) fun / silly activities as a way of learning about team communication dynamics etc. There are certainly lessons and models in there I have used in useful discussions as well.
I haven’t read “Games Trainers Play”, but from the online descriptions, it seems to contain icebreakers and fun activities. To avoid possible misunderstanding, “Games People Play” is not like that.
Berne uses the word “game” to mean—I’ll use my own words here—an insincere human interaction, where people pretend that they try to achieve X as an outcome of the interaction, but they actually want to achieve Y (and they arrange things so that Y actually happens). This insincerity is driven by not fully conscious forces; people may have these kinds of interactions for years without fully realizing what is going on. Sometimes the games are cooperative: both players pretend to want X, both want to achieve the same Y; both can win by playing the game. Sometimes the games are adversarial: one player pretends to want X but works to get Y, the other player either honestly wants X or they want some different Z; one player wins by making the other one lose. Sometimes the games are relatively harmless, sometimes they can ruin lives. The value of the book is describing some frequently played “games”, and explaining what the X, Y and Z are for each of them. So next time you find yourself in such situation, you may have a better model of what is really happening.
Now I wonder, which of these “games” may frequently apply to wannabe rationalists...
“Ain’t It Awful”—instead of optimizing for their goals, people complain about how the world is irrational. The pretended goal is to optimize the world. The real emotional goal is to create a sense of togetherness, and the feeling that we are better than the rest of the world.
“Blemish”—instead of using the useful resources, people try to find fault at everything. (LessWrong is cultish; Eliezer is not fit; Gleb’s articles are only read by stupid people.) The pretended goal is to make sure that things are really good before we start to rely on them. The real emotional goal is to show that everything is faulty, so we can comfortably focus on other people’s imperfections instead of thinking about our own.
“Schlemiel”—sometimes you find them at a LessWrong meetup. They don’t have time to even look at the Sequences, but they have their own special theory of consciousness or quantum physics or whatever, which is based on confused thinking and pseudoscientific videos on youtube, and they will spend half of the meetup explaining the theory, while everyone who has read the Sequences is facepalming since the first few sentences. Yet you will let them speak and invite them again, because both sides are dishonest here. The pretended goal is to have a rational debate, and to be willing to hear also the minority opinions. The real emotional goal is (for the speaker) to enjoy ostentatiously breaking the social norms of the group with impunity, and (for the group) to feel superior because of how incredibly tolerant they are even in situations where it is obviously undeserved by the target.
You’re entirely right, ‘Games Trainers Play’ is not at all like Games People Play, but it is a useful book in terms of practical applications of applied human psychology. The amount of value I’ve observed added to newly-formed teams and temporary groups through the contents—in terms of near-immediate cohesion, bonding, and comfortable introductions to group dynamic discussions—has been tremendous.
If I were going to retitle the two, GPP would become “Communicative Dark Arts and How To Spot Them”, whereas GTP would be “Communicative Light Arts And How To Enjoy Them”. I appreciate being able to spot someone else drawing me into a game I don’t feel like playing, or don’t play well enough to get my preferred payout. Being pretty firmly on the Light side of communication, I also appreciate being able to get groups integrated and performing well together easily and quickly, especially in my lines of work, which tend to involve a lot of people working together for short periods of time and with little prior contact.
I like the few games you’ve picked out, and they certainly seem to apply to LW specifically. If I broadened the scope a little, I’d probably pick two of the ‘games’ from GPP that it’s common for me to see in LW-like communities:
Yes, But: This is a game where a problem is stated by the initiator, the (unknowing) respondent makes a suggestion towards a state problem, and the initator rebuffs it with a ‘Yes, but’ and then rephrases or further complicates the problem. Observe :
“I can’t solve X!”
“Have you tried doing A?”
“Yes, but then Y!”
“Oh, well, what about B?”
“Yes, but then Z!”
“Well, you could always C...”*
“Yes, but… [repeat ad nauseum]”
This game is commonly launched into by someone who has either an intrinsic reluctance or a hidden external impetus to not actually resolve their initial problem. Sometimes caused by someone who simply wants to have a vent, and is caught off-guard by someone else not realising this and focusing in on a solution. Otherwise, this is a power game—the problem-stater insisting on being ‘rescued’, not once, but multiple times. May involve subtle goalpost-shifting.
The expected payoff for the Yes-But-er is to eventually wear the respondent down until they throw their hands up and agree, yes, the problem is intractable / we don’t know enough / nobody can really say, etc, etc. The respondent-rescuer may then step in to complete the problem (“It’s easier if I just fix it for you”) or offer their acceptance of the insolubility of a soluble problem (“Well, I suppose some people just can’t lose weight”).
“Now I’ve Got You, You Son Of a Bitch” (NIGYSOB): Pretty self-explanatory, this essentially describes the process of assigning too much utility to a ‘righteous’ retributive action than is appropriate. If followed through on intemperately, can lead to an unnecessary escalation of conflict with deleterious results for either or both parties.
Example: Alice asks Bob for a quote on some web design. Bob quotes $998.50 with a carefully itemised list, which Alice carefully peruses and signs off on. Bob designs the website and realises he forgot the ongoing domain registration charges. He presents his bill to Alice for $1009.50. Alice angrily accuses Bob of unprofessional conduct and refuses to pay the bill. Bob, thinking Alice is being unreasonable, refuses to reduce the bill and keeps Alice’s webpage non-functional. Communication has broken down. Until they de-escalate, Bob has lost out on revenue and Alice has no website.
Alice and Bob may, if they are clever, realise that their actions were disproportionate to the situation. Alice may have been screwed over by contractors in the past for much larger amounts of money, and, having ‘safeguarded’ herself by carefully scrutinising the quote this time around, had a NIGYSOB trigger and fire without realising that an extra ~$10 on a $1,000 bill was basically a rounding error and not worth a great deal of worry. Bob, on the other side, may have had clients try to dramatically short-shrift him in the past, may have had his last few clients default on their payments, etc, etc, and would have had his own, equally seemingly valid reasons for potentially losing all his income over what would be, in effect, a discount of 1% of the value of the contract.
I guess the idea is that both made a stupidly extreme version of their precommitments, which will repeatedly produce this kind of conflict in the future. But they will continue to believe that the precommitment was smart, only they had the bad luck to meet exceptionally horrible people.
The idea of the book is that these kinds of scenarios are repeated over and over again in lives of some people.
Seconded. Both my parents are well respected communication professionals, and they refer to the mechanics described in this book more than any other. Plus it has some very cute retro cartoons.
Some more healthy ideas can be found in a parallel book, Games Trainers Play, which is more useful for getting adults to engage in communication through (nominally) fun / silly activities as a way of learning about team communication dynamics etc. There are certainly lessons and models in there I have used in useful discussions as well.
I haven’t read “Games Trainers Play”, but from the online descriptions, it seems to contain icebreakers and fun activities. To avoid possible misunderstanding, “Games People Play” is not like that.
Berne uses the word “game” to mean—I’ll use my own words here—an insincere human interaction, where people pretend that they try to achieve X as an outcome of the interaction, but they actually want to achieve Y (and they arrange things so that Y actually happens). This insincerity is driven by not fully conscious forces; people may have these kinds of interactions for years without fully realizing what is going on. Sometimes the games are cooperative: both players pretend to want X, both want to achieve the same Y; both can win by playing the game. Sometimes the games are adversarial: one player pretends to want X but works to get Y, the other player either honestly wants X or they want some different Z; one player wins by making the other one lose. Sometimes the games are relatively harmless, sometimes they can ruin lives. The value of the book is describing some frequently played “games”, and explaining what the X, Y and Z are for each of them. So next time you find yourself in such situation, you may have a better model of what is really happening.
Now I wonder, which of these “games” may frequently apply to wannabe rationalists...
“Ain’t It Awful”—instead of optimizing for their goals, people complain about how the world is irrational. The pretended goal is to optimize the world. The real emotional goal is to create a sense of togetherness, and the feeling that we are better than the rest of the world.
“Blemish”—instead of using the useful resources, people try to find fault at everything. (LessWrong is cultish; Eliezer is not fit; Gleb’s articles are only read by stupid people.) The pretended goal is to make sure that things are really good before we start to rely on them. The real emotional goal is to show that everything is faulty, so we can comfortably focus on other people’s imperfections instead of thinking about our own.
“Schlemiel”—sometimes you find them at a LessWrong meetup. They don’t have time to even look at the Sequences, but they have their own special theory of consciousness or quantum physics or whatever, which is based on confused thinking and pseudoscientific videos on youtube, and they will spend half of the meetup explaining the theory, while everyone who has read the Sequences is facepalming since the first few sentences. Yet you will let them speak and invite them again, because both sides are dishonest here. The pretended goal is to have a rational debate, and to be willing to hear also the minority opinions. The real emotional goal is (for the speaker) to enjoy ostentatiously breaking the social norms of the group with impunity, and (for the group) to feel superior because of how incredibly tolerant they are even in situations where it is obviously undeserved by the target.
You’re entirely right, ‘Games Trainers Play’ is not at all like Games People Play, but it is a useful book in terms of practical applications of applied human psychology. The amount of value I’ve observed added to newly-formed teams and temporary groups through the contents—in terms of near-immediate cohesion, bonding, and comfortable introductions to group dynamic discussions—has been tremendous.
If I were going to retitle the two, GPP would become “Communicative Dark Arts and How To Spot Them”, whereas GTP would be “Communicative Light Arts And How To Enjoy Them”. I appreciate being able to spot someone else drawing me into a game I don’t feel like playing, or don’t play well enough to get my preferred payout. Being pretty firmly on the Light side of communication, I also appreciate being able to get groups integrated and performing well together easily and quickly, especially in my lines of work, which tend to involve a lot of people working together for short periods of time and with little prior contact.
I like the few games you’ve picked out, and they certainly seem to apply to LW specifically. If I broadened the scope a little, I’d probably pick two of the ‘games’ from GPP that it’s common for me to see in LW-like communities:
Yes, But: This is a game where a problem is stated by the initiator, the (unknowing) respondent makes a suggestion towards a state problem, and the initator rebuffs it with a ‘Yes, but’ and then rephrases or further complicates the problem. Observe :
This game is commonly launched into by someone who has either an intrinsic reluctance or a hidden external impetus to not actually resolve their initial problem. Sometimes caused by someone who simply wants to have a vent, and is caught off-guard by someone else not realising this and focusing in on a solution. Otherwise, this is a power game—the problem-stater insisting on being ‘rescued’, not once, but multiple times. May involve subtle goalpost-shifting.
The expected payoff for the Yes-But-er is to eventually wear the respondent down until they throw their hands up and agree, yes, the problem is intractable / we don’t know enough / nobody can really say, etc, etc. The respondent-rescuer may then step in to complete the problem (“It’s easier if I just fix it for you”) or offer their acceptance of the insolubility of a soluble problem (“Well, I suppose some people just can’t lose weight”).
“Now I’ve Got You, You Son Of a Bitch” (NIGYSOB): Pretty self-explanatory, this essentially describes the process of assigning too much utility to a ‘righteous’ retributive action than is appropriate. If followed through on intemperately, can lead to an unnecessary escalation of conflict with deleterious results for either or both parties.
Alice and Bob may, if they are clever, realise that their actions were disproportionate to the situation. Alice may have been screwed over by contractors in the past for much larger amounts of money, and, having ‘safeguarded’ herself by carefully scrutinising the quote this time around, had a NIGYSOB trigger and fire without realising that an extra ~$10 on a $1,000 bill was basically a rounding error and not worth a great deal of worry. Bob, on the other side, may have had clients try to dramatically short-shrift him in the past, may have had his last few clients default on their payments, etc, etc, and would have had his own, equally seemingly valid reasons for potentially losing all his income over what would be, in effect, a discount of 1% of the value of the contract.
Alice and Bob have precommitted and were unlucky enough to be caught in the situation where following through on the precommitment was harmful.
I guess the idea is that both made a stupidly extreme version of their precommitments, which will repeatedly produce this kind of conflict in the future. But they will continue to believe that the precommitment was smart, only they had the bad luck to meet exceptionally horrible people.
The idea of the book is that these kinds of scenarios are repeated over and over again in lives of some people.