'Negative intensification bias' and unintended meaning
bbc.com
bbc.com
Slightly worried I’m constantly offending people like back when I heard that putting a period at the end of a text is the same thing as stabbing them through the neck with a letter opener.
the super weird one is (i live in china currently) that there's a smiley face that is not a smiley face. i always used it. i was hip. i was fitting in. my emoticon game was making progress and then apparently i found out i was doing the equivalent of a reddit /s at the end of all my messages: "that smiley face is a fake smile" how could i know that? it's a yellow smiley face! haha
Either you use them or don't, but you have to realize how you come off to the other person (though admittedly this is less of a problem in Germany to begin with - being direkt and monotone is a virtue here sometimes).
I was surprised to eventually learn that the person behind these weird emails was the friendliest student in the class. Apparently he just wasn't used to emailing. To him, "no" was equivalent to "No, sorry, I don't think that's quite right. I'll try to follow up shortly with a more detailed answer."
However, if they are simply terse and serious most of the time anyway, then they are just being themselves. I would be nice if they were chattier, but it's just their usual personality.
My typical reply if I want to quickly acknowledge something is, “Got it. Thank you!”
A period can completely change the meaning of a message.
One of the managers in my company has the bad habit of making speech to text replies to everything. The end result is:
“Okay, Kayodé.
Thanks.”
Those replies do not help my anxiety disorder. XD
That's in your mind, unless you think your manager is one of the people who believes in Aggressive Periods. I've read the claim that periods are fraught with meaning many times, and yet I've never actually seen one used that way.
Unless, of course, you meant something more like "OK。。。".
Examples:
“It’s fine!” (It is indeed fine.)
“It’s fine.” (It’s not at all fine.)
“K, thanks” (Got it, thanks)
“K. Thanks.” (Cool. Thanks for nothing.)
“Bye” (See you later)
“Bye.” (Fuck off)
And it's a mistake to assume that your manager must follow the same weird typographical conventions that you do. Odds are he's never heard of them.
I’m honestly shocked there are HN users who are unaware of the tone implications.
Period. Full Stop. Point. Whatever It’s Called, It’s Going Out of Style (2016): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/world/europe/period-full-...
The Period Is Pissed (2013): https://newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-p...
Stop. Using. Periods. Period. (2016): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/13/stop-...
The Secret Emotional Lives of 5 Punctuation Marks (2014): https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/59060/secret-emotional-l...
Why Does Using a Period in a Text Message Make You Sound Angry or Insincere? (2016): https://theconversation.com/why-does-using-a-period-in-a-tex...
Yes. A Study Shows that Ending Your Texts with a Period Makes You Sound Like an Asshole (2016): https://www.mic.com/articles/130042/ending-your-texts-with-a...
The tone implications are not an objective fact. They are a quirk of your social group.
As I wrote above, I'm "aware" of the implication in that I have seen it described many times. But it's not an implication that actually exists in any context I am part of.
By contrast, the belief that the ordinary smile emoji U+14642 constitutes an insult rather than a smile is a very real, and therefore more painful and annoying, part of my personal context.
You can accept it or you can ignore it. Either way, the shift has already happened whether you’ve realized it or not.
My Grandma TYPES LIKE THIS ON FACEBOOK because she insists it shows her excitement. Silly, Grandma...
Yeah, and since she's your grandma you read her allcaps as excitement, don't you? mom glare
As a bridger, I think you all need to see the gradients that exist in language, and learn how to read, maybe write dialect
You viewing periods as threatening is not a shift that has happened to me. It's a shift that's happened to you. If I were to "accept it" as you suggest, the only thing that would happen would be that I started misinterpreting my friends and taking offense where none was offered. No part of that is a good idea.
You seem to have a lot of difficulty with the idea that different groups might not communicate in the same way. Do you really believe that everyone using 88 as a fun way to say "bye" is really signaling Nazi sympathies?
For those who wonder and had to search, it's U+1F642.
Seems to indicate it can be used in either sense... I think the sarcastic use is not universal.
Edit: just found out HN doesn't let me use emojis, probably a wise move.
It's news to me that full stops are considered rude, but then I don't have a mobile phone. I chat a lot on facebook though, and on MSN before that (with people in many countries, half of them in spanish). Always in...sentences, with full stops. Maybe text chat is a third thing, different to both texting on a phone and email? I don't know. I'd never have suspected a full stop could be rude until reading this thread though!
What country are you from? Canadian here.
I hang out with a lot of people younger than me, who grew up outside the usual tech circles. They definitely text this way and it’s mostly how I text. People on Hacker News are not the type of people I see talking like this.
I tend to stay away from one word replies, and if I need to confirm use 10-4 or wilco. Are either of those offensive?
Taxcoder, regarding your proposed changes,
Ok.
Sincerely, Jim Bossman
OK - Jim Bossman
I think if a message without punctuation seems sloppy, the situation is formal enough to write a full sentence or paragraph. The combination of little to no feedback and attention to detail is what worries people.
I must have offended legions of people.
I suppose "Ack" (short for Acknowledged) is also offensive?
Obviously that's not the intent, but as per the article, work-related IMs and emails can heighten negative perception and such.
"In data networking, telecommunications, and computer buses, an acknowledgment (ACK) is a signal that is passed between communicating processes, computers, or devices to signify acknowledgment, or receipt of message, as part of a communications protocol."
The employee was female and was very offended.
The manager may have intended to be helpful.
It looks like this is called tone policing so maybe it is offensive feedback in fact:
> We asked them questions about the email and then asked objective observers to read the same messages. We found people who had received the emails directly rated the messages far more negatively than did the observers.
> Many were outwardly civil and even polite: “We acknowledge that our request has a very short timeline and certainly appreciate that you are very busy.” Or, “Just wondering why no update has been received. No news is good news hopefully!”
> The x project - I think it needs y and z aspects. Let's meet Monday and discuss.
> Boss
Since context is important, let's say this is the message you received after a largely successful demonstration of something you've been working on.
Email generally gets through way faster than a mail letter but is often thought of as being similar. (E)mail gets the text through and no more in general although it can carry pictures and other media. (E)mail is store and forward - it will tolerate delays and eventually arrive.
A phone call/direct conversation is immediate and generally requires more setup cost in time and effort. If the other end is unavailable it wont work at all. Telephone calls may suffer from lag and drop outs. Vocal comms do allow subtle extra information without needing crass emojis etc. Vocal comms are much faster.
There are other factors such as delaying tactics and the like. For example if your work stack is too much, you can simply ignore emails for a while but an incoming call has to be answered or not at that point in time. To be fair, most people understand that non answer means try again later even if you know they could have answered at that time.
Emails can be sat on. Emails can also be fibbed about: "Sorry, my spam filter must have eaten it" or "Your GMail is not sending to my Hotmail".
Email is also often treated as IM. The thing about IM is it is instant by design and is supposed to be a two way chat. smtp isn't.
On balance: for me, I prefer telephony or direct contact than email unless it is impractical or I need a record - even then I still can record a conversation.
Before I try to correct an error, or ask for anything, I always preface it with "Thanks a lot for <replying, doing something previously, I agree with X, etc...>"
However, this would probably work on most.
In this case, however, I don't think they realise they're doing it.
Either you cushion the blow and do what the GP does and have the effect you mention, or they don't and come off as "offensive".
It seems communication of any kind these days is a double-edged sword.
Trust me, no normal person is gets upset if you give them thanks or a compliment.
They’re making up names on the spot and we’re nodding our heads as if these are accepted academic phenomenon
If you know a better way to do that, I'm all ears.
It might be good to first read some past explanations about why the rules are the way they are, so as not to repeat arguments that have already been answered. This subthread gives a worked, detailed example (but it's long): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27161447.
A few other past explanations:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157447 (Feb 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22805993 (April 2020)
on /r9k if your message isn't sufficiently unique (judged by bot), it gets deleted and you get a small ban. if you continue, the ban duration increases.
The article we are discussing is very well summarized by its title, "'Negative intensification bias' and unintended meaning", i.e. I was "on topic".
You are dismissing my comment on a tangent about HN without considering whether the ideas of the article offer any fresh insights that would suggest some alternate goals for managing discussions in general, and whether they apply to HN.
and my comment is being treated with negative intensification bias in reaction to unintended meaning!
QED
I wonder, how did they control for the context? Obviously, the person who received the mail knows much more context about it, than a side observer.
What might be innocent to an observer may have an undercurrent only seen from the historical context of the receiver.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/sending-a-smiley-face-make-sure...
I now realize that’s not the case, and use them myself
The sender there have more power over the result of the exchange, and respondent have a kind of passive role of reacting to the initial stimulus. The common courtesy is one thing known to almost everyone who cares but the sender's passive-agressiveness is hidden from their sight, as is the desire to pressure respondent for some kind of results. The respondents in a calm and charitable state of mind wouldn't normally overreact as much so they are either overworked or anxious which increases the threshold of picking the bad in seemingly common stuff.
It's impossible to change other random people nor alleviate their anxieties or tiredness. So it's on the sender to avoid that which I implied in the TS comment, which in itself is based on the article's examples.
If you read some of the emails that were offensive, it’s understandable why the sender thought they were ok.
I think the problem is that formal is taken for intimidating, and that’s not OK for us to go down that road as a society. This email, for example:
> We acknowledge that our request has a very short timeline and certainly appreciate that you are very busy.
That seems like a very courteous and respectful way to open or close an email to someone when you actually are under pressure and need a response despite the circumstances. I can see why/how the recipient could have been rankled to receive this email, but it’s only passive aggressive if you are expecting it to be, are overly sensitive, or have self esteem issues.
The thing is, sometimes people are in a crunch and do need something from you. That’s not ideal, but it shouldn’t be considered actually outright hostile. IMHO it’s important that it be OK to convey a sense of urgency if you couch your statements with respect and understanding.
This is true. But another thing is that it's normal for some rushed people to consider it to be an aggressive action. No amount of educational articles will change that, as it stems from a deeper psychological processes, and that makes this specific example almost unavoidable. It's both normal to politely convey urgency and overreact to it, at least internally. Preventing this internal reaction from spilling out is a part of personal emotional control/development which is out of scope of a pragmatic approach.
But other similar things, like harder pressuring and subtle passive-aggression, that cause the same effects and seem innocent for the senders, can be avoided realistically. Otherwise it'd be disingenuous to blame overreaction on the respondent. The sub-tones do matter no matter how polite the message sounds, after all.