
How Studying Body Language Changed the Way I Socialize - philipkd
http://dearcharlottebook.com/2012/09/body-language.html
======
dkarl
_When I notice a conversation veering into an unpleasant territory, I perk up,
do the empathy-thing, and I naturally bring it back to something more
pleasant._

I'm not comfortable with this as a general strategy stemming from a universal
mantra. Learning this as an adult is impressive and probably exceptional, but
it's a phenomenon we're all familiar with. We all know people who behave like
this reflexively and have done so their entire adult lives. It can be pleasant
to hang out with people like that in a heterogeneous group where not everyone
is comfortable with everyone else, but they make damned unsatisfying friends
and lovers. Policing comfort zones is a sure-fire intimacy killer, and it
isn't exactly a triumph of empathy to avoid uncomfortable topics of
conversation, even if it requires prodigious _skill_ at empathy. Children of
troubled and violent households, such as Bill Clinton, are the poster children
for glib empathy that is a mile wide and an inch deep. (No political
aspersions meant, by the way; I liked him as a politician and a president.)

I would argue that in this case we are seeing a misguided (and probably
temporary) "zeal of the convert", and by convert I mean someone who has
discovered the practical value of this Clintonesque "emotional easing."
Emotional easing is much like quantitative easing: it shifts unpleasantness
out of the current context. It's a valuable tool, but it can't be applied
universally. I'm not comfortable calling it empathy, either. "Perking up" when
another person's uncomfortable emotions come to the fore and steering the
conversation away teaches them that their problems are their own, and that
their full selves are excluded while a partial self (with unpleasantness
filtered out) is welcome. That's appropriate in some social contexts, but not
all, not by a long shot, just like quantitative easing is only appropriate in
certain contexts. And it's the opposite of empathy, even though executing it
requires a limited use of empathy. Empathy means feeling what another person
is feeling because your human bonds transcend the difference between you, not
strategically tapping into their problematic feelings so you can override them
with your own more attractive and pleasant ones.

~~~
psweber
> I would argue that in this case we are seeing a misguided (and probably
> temporary) "zeal of the convert"

While many of your points are valid, I don’t see the author as a misguided
person who has made a temporary, superficial discovery about interpersonal
relationships. Having gone through a lot of this myself, I see the author as
taking a huge first step towards the growth of his emotional intelligence. He
implies that he has a history of speaking his mind (with a lack of tact). Now
he is learning to emphathize and have pleasant relationships. The next step is
learning to balance those things. Speak your mind when doing so is important,
and consider the impact of your words while doing so. Sometimes telling
someone a hard truth is the true kindness. As the author points out, the way
you deliver those messages determines whether they are helpful or just
hurtful.

~~~
dkarl
Learning the technique for yourself is one thing. Applying it universally is
another, and applying it to other people is yet another. He shouldn't assume
that if a conversation takes a negative twist that somebody has screwed up and
the empathetic thing to do is to put it back on a positive track. For example,
I was waiting to cross the street the other day, and a woman came running past
me and ran across the street against the light so she could catch a bus that
was about to pull away. A black kid standing next to me said, "If I did that,
that cop over there would have pulled over to get me." It was an unpleasant
and awkward thing for me to contemplate, and probably not the right thing to
say if the kid wanted to put me at ease or be the most charming possible
company, but all he wanted was a little microdose of empathy from a stranger.
(In retrospect, I'm impressed he was optimistic enough to expect it. I hope I
delivered.) Trying to put that conversation back on a pleasant track would not
have showed much empathy; in fact, it probably would have made him feel more
alone instead of less alone.

I don't mean to send a harsh personal judgment about the author, by the way,
only his message. The zeal of the convert is something that happens naturally
to everyone when they discover something that opens up new possibilities for
them, whether it's a social technique or a programming language.

~~~
psweber
Awesome practical example. Yer right. Life is definitely more nuanced, and
acting "pleasant" 100% of the time doesn't make sense.

------
borplk
Is that what you _really_ want? To me it's just promoting the manipulation of
other people. Because hey, it's a skill so it's ok.

Doesn't it bother you? To know that the person you are talking to, is
mirroring your emotions, or offering sympathy, to manipulate you into liking
them?

I very much prefer the Aspergers-like honesty. I would rather hear 9 harsh,
blunt, honest criticisms a day and 1 genuine complement than to receive 10
fake, sugar-coated, vague, manipulative signals.

Don't think you'll be the only mastermind learning these and no one else will
know about it. Keep in mind, if you do it, if you apply these techniques in
your day to day interactions so will other people. And think about it for a
second, from the perspective of a subject. Do you really want to be the
subject to these social tricks and manipulations?

This thought truly bothers me. To hear a complement and not knowing if it was
true and genuine or I was complemented simply because that person had read
"How to influence people and win friends" last week and wanted to try his
manipulation techniques on me.

Maybe instead of promoting these _social skills_ we need to promote the
appreciation of honesty and having some self control over our emotions.

~~~
graeme
Faking this stuff doesn't work well in the long run. How to win friends and
influence people says to give people _genuine_ compliments.

I've gone through this kind of transportation. Certainly doesn't feel
malicious to me. The main result is that people are a lot happier to be around
me.

Your argument feels analogous to someone worried by the teaching of logic. The
students will become too clever and use their skills to outsmart the others.

I've seen hustlers use these skills for malice of course. Some get fooled by
them, but they're pretty transparent to most people if used insincerely.

~~~
gadders
I think it's kind of like how people say having a good product is the best
marketing.

Being a nice guy (or girl!) is the same idea made personal.

------
wallflower
You might also like this Less Wrong essay:

"Defecting by accident is lacking the awareness, tact, and skill to realize
what the secondary effects of your actions are and act accordingly to win."

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/372/defecting_by_accident_a_flaw_com...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/372/defecting_by_accident_a_flaw_common_to_analytical/)

~~~
corporalagumbo
The interesting thing for me reading this article was, when I got to the
section where he discusses comments on his post, I couldn't help but think,
"Damn, the internet would be so BORING if everyone was that nice all the
time." What would be the fun of an internet where everyone is so positive and
generous all the time?

Maybe I'm just addicted to intellectual sparring. Who knows.

~~~
saraid216
Intellectual sparring doesn't necessitate being not nice.

~~~
corporalagumbo
True, but a sharp debate can be quite delicious.

~~~
saraid216
This isn't a "but". A good debate is characterized by mutual respect.
Otherwise, points go unadvanced beyond their initial assertion, because they
aren't properly challenged. There is an important reason that the most
commonly called-out fallacy is the _argumentum ad hominem_ ; its usage
undermines the debate itself. It also happens to be the internet's favorite
tactic, and it's a huge part of why the internet is not good at getting things
done.

Honestly, the Internet and the world at large is missing out on many, many
possibilities for "intellectual sparring" because they've made it extremely
debate-hostile in the name of having fun and "can't you take a joke". People
would rather cram things down by force or not at all, because if they open the
floor to conversation, their ideas will be lost in the haze of personal
accusation. I wasn't able to find a list, but there are a lot of women
bloggers who have signed off for good because harassment created a cost in
time and energy that outweighed the benefit of contributing to the public
debate.

Be honest with yourself. Recognize that what you really enjoy is the
gamesmanship of one-line zingers. Don't call it a debate until you can tell me
what the Ps and Qs are.

------
Futurebot
No question about the practical value of any of this, as the power of these
abilities has been discussed and dissected many times, but I'd like to make a
brief case as to _why_ some find this distasteful, after many years of reading
forums like this and talking to people who openly expressed hatred of it (it
being non-verbal signals, subtext, etc.)

First, there is the issue of merit. It _seems_ like this grants those with
good social intelligence an "unfair" advantage, since the skills involved
aren't involved in actually creating/fixing/understanding anything concrete;
its power comes from its ability to persaude, detect, and signal. Some
perceive this sort of skill as seeming fake and superficial.

Second, it flies in the face of the idea of radical honesty and transparency,
as it deals with situations and ideas having to do with saying one thing (or
nothing at all) but meaning another. This feels very dishonest, and _ugly_.
Some would like to live in a world where absolutely everything is completely
explicitly stated, and no one gets offended, but uses everything said as a
learning experience. This may seem naive (because the ability to think and say
things others may find _subjectively_ offensive is great), but the desire
persists nonetheless.

I'm personally torn on the subject, as both ways have their serious negatives,
but it's worth stating here anyway.

~~~
PakG1
I can appreciate why this comment is so up-voted. It's easy for us to think in
terms of black and white, binary, here are the lines, true and false if
statements.

But on both points, the analysis is still coming from the same
mindset/framework of thinking.

On the issue of merit, if you can't communicate about the merit, the merit
might as well not exist. In a case where someone has merit to solve a problem,
but not the social skills to properly communicate, the person is very similar
to a computer program that can receive input and provide output. Computers are
great at following instructions to the letter, so much that if they do
something wrong, it's usually the user's fault. But how often do we realize
now that a program was designed ineffectively so that we now blame the
application rather than the user (see any industrial design review), and how
often do we wish we could implement machine learning capabilities that would
allow the application to correctly guess what the user is really trying to do?
People have the ability to adapt social interactions to the user (call it
better AI) and also provide this dyanmic feedback (call it machine learning).
We can rise above the level of dumb computers that receive input, provide
output, and then blame the user if the output isn't actually what the user was
looking for.

On the issue of radical honesty and transparency, and feeling very dishonest
and ugly. I really can appreciate this, I can. But in learning to be
empathetic to others (especially my mother, whose mind operates in a totally
different manner than my own, leading to many arguments with her when I was
younger and I'll admit more immature), I realize that for them not taking into
considerations someone's feelings is equally ugly. The words I usually hear
are "You don't know anything about my problem, stop acting like you do."

Basically in such interactions, I'm not helping, even if I'm right. If we want
to speak about merit, the true test should not be my level of knowledge, but
rather, did I solve the problem? If I can't solve the problem, how much is my
merit really worth? That reminds me of this: <http://xkcd.com/793/>

------
nckbz
The importance of learning some sort of social intelligence is so underrated.
You see all these front page posts on hacker news "I taught my 5 year old son
and daughter how to program in five different languages" like its something
that will really better these children's lives. You want a happy successful
kid? Teach them the art of being social and having meaningful interactions
with other people. I've wasted so much of my life trying to be the best
student or programmer I could possibly be. I turned 24 this year and I'm proud
of how well I've done and what I've accomplished in my career to date, but
without friends to enjoy it with, success is pretty shallow.

------
crag
I always had trouble figuring out how to behave or what to say in public
settings. Trying my best to be the nicest guy in the room, but ending up
coming off aloof and arrogant.

Until I learned the fine art of chit-chat.

I had an old Army buddy who was a master at chit-chat. He was a lawyer, of
course. Anyway he'd drag me to parties, take me by the arm and work the room.
It was an amazing show. Listening to his conversations and watching his body
language I learned how to be non-offensive and how it was ok to talk about
nothing important at all.

And that was my biggest huddle; learning that most people in social settings
don't want to be serious. That that wasn't the point.

------
jakejake
At least for myself, I think there's a gray area between being socially
awkward and being selfish. And if the selfishness is not intentional then I
might even call it self-ignorance.

I had the good fortune in my 20's of hanging around an uncle who was amazingly
charismatic - the type that lights up the room, as they say. I tried to
emulate him for a while and of course it never really worked all that well for
me. But I did become more aware of my own habits. Before that I had always
thought I was a pretty considerate person. It took some self analysis to
realize that I was pretty stingy with compliments and I didn't really take
much interest in what other people were doing. I didn't do thoughtful things
for people very often. A lot of times I think I still don't do enough but I'm
a lot more aware of it now. The sad thing is that it really doesn't take that
much. Some people seem to get it earlier than others but it took me into my
20's before I really became aware of how I treated other people.

------
wccrawford
I appear to be the odd man out, here.

I have always felt empathy for others. I've always been able to put myself in
their shoes.

I went through my "Neo in the Matrix" period long, long ago. Long before the
Matrix came out. I was able to manipulate people like it was nothing.

One day, I realized how unethical that was. I was toying with other people for
my own ends.

And so, like a comic book character, I started using my powers for good. When
I manipulate people now, it's for their good, not mine. For example, people
generally do _not_ take advice, no matter how good it is. But you can
manipulate them into it. Like Inception, you have to make it at least
partially their idea. You ask them pointed questions that have only 1 answer.
Of course, they'll come up with that answer. It's now their idea.

Strong-willed people can still resist it. But these are the people that have
always been hardest to help, anyhow. If you've tried your best, you can't feel
bad for failing to help them. They simply won't let you.

------
jpeterson
I've tried stuff like this. The problem is that my brain gives me
wrong/negative interpretations of the other person's emotions most of the
time, and I leave almost every social interaction feeling like a failure. This
naturally feeds back on itself. Anyone else dealt with something similar?

~~~
ajays
I hear you. I do feel that, like many other skills, this also can be learned
and mastered. There have been times when I've been pretty adept at recognizing
and responding to signals. But over the past few years, I have lapsed.

Just as an example: today, at a talk, I was talking to this woman and we had a
pleasant conversation. Then, as the talk is about to start, she says something
to the effect of "I'd love to learn more about your work". My response (with a
mouthful of pizza)? "Sure!". And then I focused back on the speaker as he was
about to start speaking. Much later I realized she wanted to continue the
conversation later, and wanted my card or some contact info. But by then she
was gone (she left early).

So, for me, it's not that I don't pick up signals; I do pick up many, but they
have a much lower priority in the brain's CPU and my responses don't
incorporate the signals. My brain finally realizes the inputs way after the
opportunity has passed.

------
corporalagumbo
"I feel like Neo at the end of The Matrix now." As much as I hate to admit it,
I can identify with this. Becoming socially literate for me too has felt and
continues to feel almost like a superpower. That "Wow! I can't believe I can
do this!" feeling is a bit of a rush.

I think what the author is describing is something of a growing trend. It has
become relatively easy to make it through to adulthood with very low social
intelligence. Society (school and parents, both quite possibly lacking in
social intelligence in their own right) reward you for high analytical
intelligence, and technologies (videogames for instance) help us function OK
without the close groups and social ties which used to be so important in pre-
industrial societies. But the further you go into life, the harder it is to
proceed, succeed and be happy with a major deficit in social intelligence.
Luckily, just as social intelligence is taught implicitly by parents who
possess it to their children, so can anyone learn it themselves. It really is
a learnable skill! And the shift to valuing it is a good swing of the pendulum
back from the excesses of "pure" rationalism (quote marks because a system of
rationality that doesn't value geting along with others is not very rational
in my books). I think emotional/social literacy is perhaps even more
fundamental than our other "traditional" literacies. We've just forgotten the
habit as a society of teaching it to our children.

Speaking of books, "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman is fantastic for
this stuff. Psychotherapy is also very, very useful (if of course it's with a
good therapist).

Edit: One more thing. I was standing outside a computer room after hours at my
university recently, trying to get in. There's this swipe card device that you
have to swipe your student ID past to unlock the door, and I've always
struggled to get this particular device to work, compared to others around
campus. So this night while I'm swiping fruitlessly away a girl and a guy come
up and stand there waiting for me. After a couple of seconds the girl says
"Maybe if you try swiping it in the middle it will help." I do and instantly
it works. Problem solved.

What really hit me was the way this girl phrased her comment. I've seen her in
this same room many times late at night, and she clearly knew exactly what I
was doing wrong. She could easily have achieved the exact same result many
other ways - "You need to swipe it in the middle" - "Don't you have any idea
what you're doing?" "Here, let me do that" "No, that's wrong, you should do
this." Instead she phrased it as a gentle suggestion, without explicitly
confirming that it was what I needed to do. Phrasing it that way let me choose
to take the suggestion without sacrificing my autonomy, gave me an option to
turn the suggestion down without face, and even let me take some of the credit
for getting it right.

All in all, it was a deft response to a situation where someone else may
easily have caused offence with inconsiderate phrasing. Not a big deal in its
own right, but small moments like that stack up. As a result this girl clearly
goes through life much more smoothly than the people described in this
article. So while maybe she can't blitz a test or an essay like a more
analytically-minded person, I think her "soft" skill is incredibly, incredibly
valuable - I think analytically-minded people have much to learn from people
like her.

~~~
kijin
> _It really is a learnable skill! ... We've just forgotten the habit as a
> society of teaching it to our children._

I think that's a hasty generalization.

Some people are merely introverted, and can improve their social intelligence
through everyday practice. Others, however, actually have a neurological
condition (i.e. Asperger's Syndrome, which the article mentions). At least for
some subset of them, "social intelligence" is little more than analytic
intelligence applied to something that has a very low signal-to-noise ratio.
You can discern the signal from time to time if you concentrate hard enough,
and you can put an abstraction layer on top of all the analytic processing so
that the result looks somewhat like "social intelligence". But at bottom, it's
always like trying to do floating-point calculations on a processor that was
only designed for integer calculations. It's inefficient by many orders of
magnitude, because you have to fake every step.

Of course, there isn't a clear line between an introverted neurotypical and an
Aspie. But just because the transition is gradual doesn't mean that the
difference doesn't exist.

It makes me sad whenever an article like this uses the word "Asperger's" to
describe typical introverted programmers. (This is a complaint about the
article, not the parent comment.) It also makes me sad to read comments that
make excessively broad generalizations about how people (should) acquire
social intelligence. (This is a complaint about the parent comment.)
Overgeneral advice, even if well-intentioned, could give neurotypicals the
misleading idea that Aspies behave like they do because of their own fault
(lack of effort).

Nowadays, we often throw around psychiatric terms to describe behavior that
falls within the normal range. "I'm feeling ADHD today." "He's a bit of an
Aspie." "She acts as if she has bipolar disorder when she's drunk." etc.
Although some of these are meant to be comical and we all have some use for
metaphors and exaggerations, we should be careful not to make serious
generalizations based on such informal usage of terms.

~~~
erichocean
I do find it interesting that we ask Aspies to become more empathetic, but we
don't ask neurotipicals to become a little less hung up on social niceties.

Obviously, neurotypicals get the benefit of the doubt for "how people should
be", since there are so many more of them. But we don't ask gays to be
straight, despite not being "normal", numerically, so why should we ask Aspies
to be more empathetic? Why assume an Aspie is broken, by default? Where's the
proof that lack of empathy is a problem for anything _other_ than working with
neurotypicals?

I can't help but wonder that the future might not actually belong to
neurotypicals. That, perhaps, the Aspie mutation might be better adapted to a
world that is becoming more and more computerized and less and less hospitable
to neurotypicals.

For example, consider Zynga. How many normals are completely _wasting their
lives and earnings_ on an objectively stupid social game because their normal,
empathetic minds have been hacked to "like" and see value in it? We all can
see that it's sad, and yet we know there's virtually nothing that can be done
for them, short of banning those games. They simply cannot adapt, where Aspies
can (and have).

Neurotypicals seem to think Aspies have "anti-social" lives, but those I've
met seem pretty happy. And at least from my perspective, are really
straightforward to get along with, if you can understand their behavior and
not take offense and what would normally be a slight in neurotypical-land.

Perhaps trying to turn Aspies into neurotypicals is really only beneficial
today because most of the world is normal, so Aspies, to some degree, need to
work with neurotypicals if they are to achieve anything.

But how long will that be true? When will a critical mass of Aspies exist, or
the world become hospitable to them _despite_ not having to pretend to be
neurotypicals?

And what then? Do we continue to try and "make the gays straight", so to
speak? Or do we realize that an Aspie is just as valid a way to live as
anything else, and not a disability to be overcome?

It's strange to see evolution happen right in front of us. I don't have any
answers, but these are the thoughts that have occurred to me for some time
now, and I thought I'd share.

~~~
PakG1
We do do this. Have you never been involved in a work conversation where
someone says, "Get to the point, you're wasting everyone's time."

Have you never gone to someone to make a request, and you're starting out with
a long spiel about your reasons, and the other person says, "Look, I'm busy,
just tell me what it is you want."

I see these kinds of conversations a lot. It's not always in one direction.

~~~
kijin
Yes, being busy is an excellent excuse to behave a bit like an Aspie, even if
you're neurotypical.

Aspies (and introverts in general) thrive in environments where people are
evaluated more on the basis of getting shit done quickly and accurately, and
less on the basis of how often they drink with their boss. It's maker's
schedule vs. manager's schedule all over again.

So, in a sense, modern societies' increasing emphasis on efficiency and
productivity might work in favor of Aspies. So does urbanization, which allows
you to disregard what your great-aunt's second cousin thinks about your new
socks.

------
skat_et_dieu
I really enjoyed reading this article. It was almost as if I was reading about
myself!! Naturally I am very introverted. I also love sitting back and
studying social interactions that are happening around me.

I have a lot of friends who see me as an unemotional robot. For example, a
good friend from high school died in a motorcycle accident a few months ago. I
was very calm showing very little worry or stress about it when I found out.
My friends who were there were kind of shocked by how calm and worry free I
was about it. To me, logically there was nothing I could do to bring him back
so why worry about it? At the funeral there was some crying and mourning for
him but that was it.

But even though I don't show a lot of emotions I do have a way to look into
people's eyes as we have a conversation and I am able to meet them
emotionally. I start to create rapport by talking at the level and speed as
them. Make sure they feel listened when they talk by giving back feedback. It
really works very nicely.

I'm a programmer with not much care to show emotions but meeting people
emotionally is one of the most powerful things you can do in your social life.

------
TinyBig
The book mentioned in the article, "Definitive Book of Body Language" is an
excellent resource. However, it is more of an encyclopedia - comprehensive,
but lacking in context. I began this journey some years ago and found
Navarro's "What Every Body is Saying" a more helpful starting place. Gives a
framework to help understand body language, something that may prove helpful
if you are starting from square zero.

------
cyphersanctus
When you want to apply these things during a negotiation.
[http://www.academia.edu/425074/The_Nonverbal_Skills_You_Need...](http://www.academia.edu/425074/The_Nonverbal_Skills_You_Need_for_Successful_Negotiation)

------
Buzaga
no evidence - no science...

asperger can no longer be "a thing" soon, as it seems it will be removed from
the next DSM... so these people either have nothing or are mild autistic or
something.

it also appears that 20% of ppl 'diagnosed' with this 'grow out of it'

"it is nearly impossible to diagnose accurately, indeed statistics show that
about 20% of those given the diagnosis later "grow out of it" and show no
symptoms as adults, which admits the possibility that they were misdiagnosed
in the first place. Also there have been many reports of opportunistic
diagnosis of this syndrome in people who were simply different than their
peers."

<http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/myth.html>

