Comment by wallflower | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wallflower | Hacker News Reader

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> find as I get older, is to make the move from asserting status to assuming it.

When I took Improv classes, I always struggled with Status Games. I eventually got better. Improv is/was hard for me because you have to accept the situation, even if it is patently absurd.

> A construct of great importance to improv and of considerable value to therapists is "status." Status here does not mean "social standing" or "occupational prestige." As used by Johnstone (1979), status refers to what people do, or play, akin to dominance and submission. Thus, a waitress may play high status (condescension) while her customer, a physician, may play low status (awkwardness) despite their opposite social standing.

Seen in this way, human interaction is never "status-neutral"; we are all constantly adjusting status in relation to our surroundings and to others. Further, status transactions are territorial, involving the use of space, gesture, posture, vocal inflection as well as verbal content. In our experience, shifts in status regularly accompany significant changes in interaction and that such shifts are always noticed, even when not being acknowledged.

[1] Status game training:

http://www.rehearsalsforgrowth.com/improv1.html

http://improv.ca/training/exercises/status-ab-walk/

And one of the most interesting things about power is that if you let someone play the expert and you the pupil, you will become the powerful one...

"And one of the most interesting things about power is that if you let someone play the expert and you the pupil, you will become the powerful one..."

Interesting.

Could you be so kind as to elaborate on this?

Teenage girls have known this basic principle for ages:

"Can you come over later and help me study for the test?"

There are two sides to this. The Ben Franklin Effect[1] and, the theory, that in general, if someone feels like you are attentive and receptive to them (e.g. expert being listened to do by a student, teenage boy helping a classmate (girl) with their homework) that they will like you. Obviously, depending on the situation, we can vacillate between honestly liking someone and faking liking someone. As the old chestnut goes, a great conversationalist is someone who tells you who you are.

However, in the field of NLP, they venture a few steps further and attempt to build rapport via various subtle mechanisms, the most commonly of which is mirroring. People do this naturally, too. Go to a coffee shop and observe couples. Couples that are in sync will sometimes drink at the very same moment or if one partner crosses their legs, they may cross their arms (though this is not an steadfast indication of rapport/relationship quality - because nothing is).

Observe parents and kids. Especially those having a public meltdown. The kids are reversing the power by hitting a weakness of the parent - that the parent could feel they are being judged incompetent (or at the best, having a bad parenting day) in the public eye. That is understandably stressful. Very, very rarely will the parent with the kid having a meltdown be calm. They will likely become more and more agitated, feeding the child's meltdown. Trained CSR (Customer Service Representatives) know that you never ever raise your voice with an angry customer - let them vent (if necessary), be calm.

The best waitresses, hairdressers, etc. don't just flirt (though that may be involved) but make you feel special. They may even, ahem, ask for your help/opinion on something.

The problem I see with geeks (and I observe this myself) is that in social situations we tend to try to 'win' arguments - e.g. yes, I'm the expert. You don't 'win' conversations, but you may 'lose' friends this way. And not just geeks - I was with a bunch of well-traveled friends the other day and the conversation devolved into who had been to such-and-such exotic place - 'You went went to Belize? Well let me tell you about Patagonia...'

And I leave you with this... true confidence is vulnerability.

And, yes, I know that it was possible that the poster wasn't interested in what I had to expound on this topic.

The interesting thing about all this - is that, even if you know what is going on, you can still be susceptible to manipulation. Whether on Hacker News or in the office.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect

You do realise that galaggus just got one over on you there, right?

The funny thing about this is that it's almost completely sidestepping the "win the conversation" game anyway. Frequently, asking questions in feigned ignorance is genuinely educational, not just an effective ploy for shutting down opposition. In fact, you can gain lots of "cred" by not deigning to play stupid zero-sum conversational status games and instead trying to make everyone involved look good.

A real master figures out how to win without making someone else lose.

aka the Socratic Method. It's one of my favorite teaching methods, but damn hard to use in practice.

Well, I, for one, was educated.

If you're being a reddit punthreader, please kindly leave HN alone and die in a fire.

If you're honestly asking for more information: http://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-John... <=Excellent part on status improv

You're relatively new here, so you might not know that it's very much not OK to talk to someone like that here.

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