You dismiss status/signalling concerns as the cause of annoyance on the grounds that people seem just as annoyed when corrected in private. But if we had an algorithm for being annoyed at being corrected because of the loss of status, would it necessarily check whether anyone important was around? It seems much simpler to run the algorithm “Did he correct me? If so, get annoyed” than “Did he correct me in such a way that people whose perception of me I need to care about will notice and downgrade me? If so, get annoyed.” And besides that, status games don’t cease just because there are only two of you.
This is similar to what I thought. Status seeking behavior is rarely conscious, which is why it is based on emotional responses rather than rational thought. So it is likely an automatic response. The interesting, and unusual, situations are where admitting mistakes and accepting corrections (not quite the same thing) are the norm.
You dismiss status/signalling concerns as the cause of annoyance on the grounds that people seem just as annoyed when corrected in private. But if we had an algorithm for being annoyed at being corrected because of the loss of status, would it necessarily check whether anyone important was around? It seems much simpler to run the algorithm “Did he correct me? If so, get annoyed” than “Did he correct me in such a way that people whose perception of me I need to care about will notice and downgrade me? If so, get annoyed.” And besides that, status games don’t cease just because there are only two of you.
This is similar to what I thought. Status seeking behavior is rarely conscious, which is why it is based on emotional responses rather than rational thought. So it is likely an automatic response. The interesting, and unusual, situations are where admitting mistakes and accepting corrections (not quite the same thing) are the norm.