Hacking status (linked from an interesting HN discussion) | Hacker News Reader

Hacking status (linked from an interesting HN discussion)

greenlightwiki.com

Unfortunately, I have seen these status-hacking methods work outside the improv/acting world. In a large company, the smarter but quiet and submissive employee will lose out to the obnoxious, high-sounding more social one. In social circles, the loud person A who pokes fun at B gains the attention and admiration of the crowd. Pick up artists often use the technique of lowering their target's self-esteem as a method of gaining alpha-status, respect and ultimately winning over their target.

I find it disturbing and often battle with the fact that these superficial methods actually work and can affect a person's ability to get ahead. At one of the previous startup schools, I think I remember that the theme around PG's talk was "be good". It's disturbing because using some of these methods to raise one's status feels "anti-good" and counter-intuitive.

It's probably leftover from some stage of human evolution where it minimized physical violence. Most people are vulnerable (including hackers); exploiting it can be a direct or indirect reproductive advantage, and so it may never evolve away. "good" vs "bad" is irrelevant if it's successful.

Penalty for failure should also be considered. If you play a game like this and someone notices what you are doing, that person will lose all respect for you. I had a boss once that had read some article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology) and how it makes people more comfortable with you. Similarly with people who try to live by the "rules of power" and all this other nonsense. How about not playing games and focusing on achieving something? If I am working for someone I acknowledge this gives them a certain authority, but I really want to see reason prevail and progress made towards a common goal - I just would really rather not interact with people who play games with me unless I have to.

Actually, status (as described on that page) is something you play, moment to moment. You are giving off a signal of "don't come near me, I bite" or "don't bite me, I'm not worth the trouble" or something somewhere in between, every second that you interact in person with someone else. Unlike stupid tricks like "mirroring", giving off status signals is not something you can stop doing. What you can do, though, is become more aware of it, better able to modulate it. Socially adept people are very good at varying their status moment by moment. For many of them, it's probably not even conscious.

The main reason an actor needs to learn about status is to be able to make scenes realistic. When the characters don't have a status relationship, a scene looks wooden and fake.

BTW, playing high status is not necessarily better. People who relentlessly play high status in every situation are commonly called "assholes". (Usually behind their backs.)

It's not something you have to play. Some of the dominant behaviors such as disinterest etc. are a result of your current state - I'm preoccupied with an important problem and not interested in other people, for example. Mirroring also happens naturally under certain circumstances. There are certainly subconscious things like this that come out- but the minute you decide to "play" status and deliberately take an action because of your status game and you get caught, whoever you are playing loses absolutely all respect for you. You've also got a much higher chance for failure with the people you really need (as they will be competent). I don't care to be manipulated whatsoever and I don't care about hierarchical power structures or power games that dominate many lives. All I (and many other people) care about is advancing our goals - if I work for someone, I am going to behave differently because I am working towards their goals, not mine - but I expect all my professional interactions to be goal oriented or problem oriented.

I wonder if we're having a Violent Agreement.

I'm not saying that you have to consciously play status ("decide to play"). I'm saying that when you interact with someone else, you are playing a certain level of status in relation to them, whether you are aware of it or not.

Engaging in some phony behavior will, of course, make people perceive you as a phony, with all the loss of respect that that entails. Respect, of course, is a big part of status. When you don't respect someone, you tend to play higher status toward them.

It's interesting to notice that the page comes from a wiki about improvisational theater. Those are tips for a comedian or someone who acts on some sort of stage. I guess that's the reason they can so easily applied to everyday life.

high status behavior involves feeling good without concern for the other

low status behavior involves feeling bad in order to make another feel good

raising another's status involves making another feel good without concern for yourself

lowering another's status involves making another feel bad in order to feel good

-- keep away from bosses that expect status raising behaviors from their employees to themselves, especially when the reverse is warranted.

Good managers spend a lot of time raising the status of their wards.

It's an interesting way to look at the world, and workplaces function a lot like the animal kingdom, but as humans we should be able to see through status with our spirituality.

How?

You work it out on your quest.

Like Michael Scott in The Office?

Wow, so this is where this new influx of traffic to my wiki came from!

Although these are useful tips and perhaps quite accurate, I don't know if you can truly hack status. I'm not sure what causes status - something reptilian, I guess - and I think that there's only so long that you can micromanage it before its true nature manifests. (Whether you are low-status and pretending to be high status, or high status and pretending to be low-status.)

How to fundamentally change your status identity is a more difficult question and one that I don't have the answer to.

Don't underestimate how much of social status really is nothing but behavior, by which I loosely mean everything that can be "faked". In other words, pretend long enough and you'll become the role you're playing.

How much status you can grab that way depends on the extent to which status in a given group depends on objective, un-fakeable traits. If you want to assert status in a wealthy crowd, you need some amount of money to be credible. In a crowd of programmers, knowing something about coding is required. Among athletes you need to be able to keep up physically.

Otherwise, it's pretty much all hackable.

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