I’m autistic, which means among other things that my native modes of signaling are ‘nonstandard’. I don’t easily understand what most other people are trying to signal, and most other people don’t easily understand what I’m signaling. (This appears to be due to both different modes of signaling and different goals.) Unlike some auties, I do emit signals in the ‘normal’ mode—they’re just usually not very accurate signals of what I actually think or value.
I don’t like being misunderstood, so I made a conscientious effort for a long time to cut my ‘normal-style’ signaling behaviors down to near-zero, if they were happening incidentally to something else—wearing the most neutral clothing I could find, for example, and not discussing my own preferences about anything without a clear reason to do so. Most of the specific tricks I picked up, I integrated as habits, so that the whole process didn’t take a disruptive amount of mental effort, with the side effect that it’s hard for me to pick out specific examples, but I did eventually get quite good at not signaling much at all. (If anyone’s interested in specific examples, I’m willing to take the time to pull some out of long-term memory, but that may take me as much as a couple of days.)
The response to that was interesting. Most people appear to be very uncomfortable dealing with someone who doesn’t signal, and the pressure to do so was significant. It also appears that refusal to signal is taken as a signal of either untrustworthiness, extreme shyness, or disdain, depending on the heuristics being used by the person observing it.
So my experience is basically that we as a society are in a nasty feedback loop when it comes to signaling—it’s simply not a viable option not to signal, in most situations. People will read extra information into your actions whether you want them to or not, and if you don’t choose actions that signal good things, your actions will be taken as a signal of bad things.
(I’m a stubborn cuss who cares more about her own ideology than she does about her social standing, so I continued not signaling anyway. The way I see it, other peoples’ assumptions are not really my problem, but if I were to promote incorrect information, even nonverbally, that’d be wrong of me. Fortunately I’ve recently been able to move to a situation where I can signal accurately to the people I interact with, and do so regularly, and it works much better.)
So my experience is basically that we as a society are in a nasty feedback loop when it comes to signaling—it’s simply not a viable option not to signal, in most situations. People will read extra information into your actions whether you want them to or not, and if you don’t choose actions that signal good things, your actions will be taken as a signal of bad things.
You’ve just helped me towards a realization. Many people in the US take race as a signal! This has the effect of mis-contextualizing the signals you are actually giving off, or cause them to see others that are not there.
Also, there seem to be many people who are only processing the signals, and are not dealing with the abstract content of speech.
Of course. Race, gender, disability, height, weight, age, beauty, and on and on and on. Most if not all prejudice can be described as signals, and most of the work of activists dealing with those issues is to get society to react to those signals in a way that’s neutral rather than positive or negative. (Not all activists realize that, which is how you get some of the really crazy-looking ones, like feminists who freak out every time a male has more power in a given situation than a female does.)
And yes, I’ve seen more instances than I can count of people processing the signals and ignoring the message, or, more annoyingly, expecting me to do just that, and then blaming it on me when I don’t understand them, or go do what they said instead of what they meant. I’d even go so far as to say that most of the time when someone’s logic really doesn’t make sense, they’re not using the logic for logic, they’re using it as a carrier for the signals, and hoping (or, assuming—I’m probably giving them too much credit if I imply that it’s being done consciously) that you’ll play along. In fact, there are times when that seems to be the most useful communication strategy, and it’s one I’ve been working on learning for the last few months.
In fact, there are times when that seems to be the most useful communication strategy, and it’s one I’ve been working on learning for the last few months.
I’ve noticed situations like this—I keep in mind Dennett’s intentional stance. Just like there are some computer programs that I can beat at games by attributing beliefs and desires to them, there are some people with whom I can interact more successfully if I assume they don’t have (propositional) beliefs and desires, and are instead just reacting to social cues. It’s scary when I realize I place most people into the latter category.
Interesting reading. And yes, it’s pretty disturbing how most people can be best understood by taking a design stance rather than an intentional stance—seeing the average Joe as being designed to respond to social, internal, or situational cues rather than intentionally following a path may be impolite, but it works more often than not.
I’d even go so far as to say that most of the time when someone’s logic really doesn’t make sense, they’re not using the logic for logic, they’re using it as a carrier for the signals, and hoping … that you’ll play along.
Wow. You’ve gelled a lot of things for me with this one statement! I’ve noticed this phenomenon with a lot of people!
Reminds me of a time when I met this one guitarist. We tried to jam once, but he kept wanting to delve into chord progressions, and I wanted to gell the rhythm. As a result, he kept on hesitating on the rhythm, and I kept on the same chord progression, waiting for him to pick up on my swing. Both of us were frustrated by the end.
I’m in a fairly unique position to be able to figure that out, but it’d take a significant amount of effort, and in most cases I haven’t bothered; if there’s data other than signaling in the behavior, I tend to note the data and ignore the signal. If there’s not much data other than the signal, or the static to data ratio is too bad, I just write the whole thing off as NT weirdness. Mostly, we tend to figure out the minimum about normal signaling to get by, and ignore the rest as an inefficient use of time.
I was able to figure out which things I was doing were signaling things to normal folks without figuring why or how by noting when the reactions I got were responding to something other than the message I’d been intending to send.
Interesting (I hope) tangent:
I’m autistic, which means among other things that my native modes of signaling are ‘nonstandard’. I don’t easily understand what most other people are trying to signal, and most other people don’t easily understand what I’m signaling. (This appears to be due to both different modes of signaling and different goals.) Unlike some auties, I do emit signals in the ‘normal’ mode—they’re just usually not very accurate signals of what I actually think or value.
I don’t like being misunderstood, so I made a conscientious effort for a long time to cut my ‘normal-style’ signaling behaviors down to near-zero, if they were happening incidentally to something else—wearing the most neutral clothing I could find, for example, and not discussing my own preferences about anything without a clear reason to do so. Most of the specific tricks I picked up, I integrated as habits, so that the whole process didn’t take a disruptive amount of mental effort, with the side effect that it’s hard for me to pick out specific examples, but I did eventually get quite good at not signaling much at all. (If anyone’s interested in specific examples, I’m willing to take the time to pull some out of long-term memory, but that may take me as much as a couple of days.)
The response to that was interesting. Most people appear to be very uncomfortable dealing with someone who doesn’t signal, and the pressure to do so was significant. It also appears that refusal to signal is taken as a signal of either untrustworthiness, extreme shyness, or disdain, depending on the heuristics being used by the person observing it.
So my experience is basically that we as a society are in a nasty feedback loop when it comes to signaling—it’s simply not a viable option not to signal, in most situations. People will read extra information into your actions whether you want them to or not, and if you don’t choose actions that signal good things, your actions will be taken as a signal of bad things.
(I’m a stubborn cuss who cares more about her own ideology than she does about her social standing, so I continued not signaling anyway. The way I see it, other peoples’ assumptions are not really my problem, but if I were to promote incorrect information, even nonverbally, that’d be wrong of me. Fortunately I’ve recently been able to move to a situation where I can signal accurately to the people I interact with, and do so regularly, and it works much better.)
You’ve just helped me towards a realization. Many people in the US take race as a signal! This has the effect of mis-contextualizing the signals you are actually giving off, or cause them to see others that are not there.
Also, there seem to be many people who are only processing the signals, and are not dealing with the abstract content of speech.
Of course. Race, gender, disability, height, weight, age, beauty, and on and on and on. Most if not all prejudice can be described as signals, and most of the work of activists dealing with those issues is to get society to react to those signals in a way that’s neutral rather than positive or negative. (Not all activists realize that, which is how you get some of the really crazy-looking ones, like feminists who freak out every time a male has more power in a given situation than a female does.)
And yes, I’ve seen more instances than I can count of people processing the signals and ignoring the message, or, more annoyingly, expecting me to do just that, and then blaming it on me when I don’t understand them, or go do what they said instead of what they meant. I’d even go so far as to say that most of the time when someone’s logic really doesn’t make sense, they’re not using the logic for logic, they’re using it as a carrier for the signals, and hoping (or, assuming—I’m probably giving them too much credit if I imply that it’s being done consciously) that you’ll play along. In fact, there are times when that seems to be the most useful communication strategy, and it’s one I’ve been working on learning for the last few months.
I’ve noticed situations like this—I keep in mind Dennett’s intentional stance. Just like there are some computer programs that I can beat at games by attributing beliefs and desires to them, there are some people with whom I can interact more successfully if I assume they don’t have (propositional) beliefs and desires, and are instead just reacting to social cues. It’s scary when I realize I place most people into the latter category.
Interesting reading. And yes, it’s pretty disturbing how most people can be best understood by taking a design stance rather than an intentional stance—seeing the average Joe as being designed to respond to social, internal, or situational cues rather than intentionally following a path may be impolite, but it works more often than not.
Wow. You’ve gelled a lot of things for me with this one statement! I’ve noticed this phenomenon with a lot of people!
Reminds me of a time when I met this one guitarist. We tried to jam once, but he kept wanting to delve into chord progressions, and I wanted to gell the rhythm. As a result, he kept on hesitating on the rhythm, and I kept on the same chord progression, waiting for him to pick up on my swing. Both of us were frustrated by the end.
Autistics, since they signal differently, might be in a good position to comment on which ordinary behaviors signal how much.
Not exactly.
I’m in a fairly unique position to be able to figure that out, but it’d take a significant amount of effort, and in most cases I haven’t bothered; if there’s data other than signaling in the behavior, I tend to note the data and ignore the signal. If there’s not much data other than the signal, or the static to data ratio is too bad, I just write the whole thing off as NT weirdness. Mostly, we tend to figure out the minimum about normal signaling to get by, and ignore the rest as an inefficient use of time.
I was able to figure out which things I was doing were signaling things to normal folks without figuring why or how by noting when the reactions I got were responding to something other than the message I’d been intending to send.
Edit: Brain fart. :P