
Advice giving: A subtle pathway to power - vinnyglennon
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6779&context=lkcsb_research
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timwaagh
i find receiving advice to be difficult because the other person essentially
places himself above you. That is why i try to be careful with dishing out too
much advice. But sometimes its necessary. and sometimes i just cannot help it.

if i give advice, i try to do it in a non-personal way. like 'i just found a
cool trick to do y' rather than 'you are doing it like x, but doing y would be
better'.

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growlist
It's amazing - and sad - how powerful the ego (for want of a better term) can
be. A colleague complained about a nasty rash from using a particular cleaning
fluid during DIY and when I suggested, in a very gentle way, a far gentler yet
comparably effective alternative he seemed annoyed by the suggestion of
something that would help him. Some people will just throw things back in your
face even when your advice is well intentioned, freely given, and beneficial
to them in an immediately apparent way.

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phkahler
Context is important. Your colleague got a nasty rash from what they did. You
offering an alternative could be received as criticism or even blaming them
for the rash. The time for offering corrections is probably not while they are
suffering the consequences of their action.

You are right of course - people can be tricky in such situations.

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asdfman123
It's also possible that the person you're replying to is completely tone deaf
to the signals they've been sending out and people are lashing out of them due
to an ongoing pattern of behavior.

Usually when someone says "I've been completely normal -- I don't understand
why people are so sensitive!" it's a red flag that that sort of thing has been
going on.

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Swizec
The abstract talks a lot about advice giving creating a _sense_ of power.

But does it also _create_ power?

I don't know enough about this field to answer that question for myself, so
I'm raising it to the HN hivemind.

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carlmr
I also think the headline seems misleading, even if you start reading the
first few paragraphs.

I think advice giving doesn't necessarily confer power. Especially if you're
always handing out unwanted advice, a lot of people don't like that. They get
hurt in their pride because they believe they can do it without you.

If you want to exercise power through advice you have to ask good questions to
find out whether the advised person actually needs your advice, and in which
area specifically. You have to get to a point where they actually ask for it.

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watwut
There are also other reasons to dislike unsolicited advice.

* It robs you of possibility to figure it out for yourself and think for yourself. It kills pleasure or achievement of whatever activity you are doing. It prevents learning.

* You look less capable to third parties. That actually matters.

* It is often wrong, as whoever gives that advice does not have full information. As in, I am doing it this way and not that way for a reason and really really don't care about defending my choices to strangers who are no more qualified then me.

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Swizec
I think the base assumption with advice giving, when considered a positive,
should be that the recipient asked for advice.

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phkahler
I was curious, but they don't mention increasing affiliation (another of the 3
needs). If advise is accepted it may also provide validation to the advice
giver - is that a sense of power? I guess I'm a little disappointed that they
only used one scale.

I was happy to see p<0.001 for a change!

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madeuptempacct
Someone just read The Prince.

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dang
Maybe so, but please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. Especially of other
people's work—this is in the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

