Social Initiation | Hacker News Reader

Social Initiation

socialcommunication.truman.edu

112 pointsrzk32 comments

I think this could be helpful for those who are especially shy or on the spectrum. It is not optimized for viewing on a phone.

Use Firefox and press the button next to the URL to get a clean format.

That removes a lot of the content. Much of this is inside clickable menus that reader mode doesn't capture.

For a site that is apparently for people with disorders, the accessibility is somewhat appalling.

On a phone, you can enable Desktop mode when using Chrome to have a better view of the page.

Some good advice, but a lot of stuff is just weird or robotic and it has some surprisingly judgmental comments.

The gender page is just strange, most of those sounds so american or old fashioned.

edit: sources are mostly old, there are no sources from less than 10 years which is bad if you're trying to describe current social behaviors, the average source on the gender page is from 2002...

The rules are indeed stated in a robotic, and somewhat patronizing way, as if written by a mild aspie to teach a stronger aspie the rules.

As you note, most of them are generally true though, and some just kind of obvious to a high empathy person.

> As you note, most of them are generally true though

Not really, it's so mixed that I wouldnt advise a neurodivergent person to follow them, how would you know which one is good?

I don't think the author is sympathetic to autistic people:

"If you engage in less socially acceptable self-stimulatory behaviors that involve clenched muscles, quick jerky movements, rocking, or vocalizations, strangers will likely be afraid to talk to you, and even people you already know may be embarrassed to be with you in public."

You shouldn't be with people that are embarrassed to be with you, as those behaviors are usually not controllable, this is terrible.

Reality is often disappointing.

That doesn't make ignoring it a good idea.

I’m under the impression that most of those kinds of actions are involuntary. If anything I’m pretty sure people are wildly aware of the fact that their ticks make people uncomfortable, having lived with them their whole lives.

Sometimes you can't help it, sometimes you are related to those people, and sometimes they also can't help it. If I'm out with a friend who has a severe disorder that means he can't help but make a loud "whoop" sound every minute or so, am I a bad person for feeling embarrassment, even if that feeling is uncontrollable? People don't usually choose to feel embarrassed. It's as helpful to tell somebody to not feel embarrassed as it is to tell somebody with verbal tics to simply not have them.

That's exactly a statement that's both true and unsympathetic.

I mean it's just an empirically verifiable fact through surveys that if a person self vocalizes in public, the average person (in the US) would be afraid to approach that person.

I would say that the OP's advice is useful for people who can control self vocalizations and didn't know that was seen negatively by the average person. It is NOT useful for people who can't control their self vocalizations, or people who already know about the fact.

Of course it’s still useful even if you can’t control them. It still tells you about reality.

> You shouldn't be with people that are embarrassed to be with you

There is some truth to that.

But there is also truth in "you should really try to avoid doing things that make people not want to be around you".

Eh, it depends on the situation in question. Social acceptance (if this is even possible) will cost some people far more than it can benefit them. Any behavior, principle, or value will inherently make some portion of the population not want to be around you. This is why I recommend always starting with values and building up social acceptance from there.

If your friends started doing weird stuff wouldn't you be at least a little bit embarrassed? Wouldn't it be better for all parties if they knew you would be embarrassed and decided not to do it?

> I don't think the author is sympathetic to autistic people

I think it's actually the exact opposite.

This reads to me like a very kind sentence. It can be very helpful to spell things out like this for such an audience. It is clear, simple, and direct.

I'll also note the sentence doesn't contain any sort of added emotions or judgment. (For example, the author could have made it worse by saying "If you decide to engage in" rather than "If you engage in," as it's currently written.)

So it really is just a straightforward statement about things that are usually never discussed at all. And, even better for this audience, the information is provided plainly, in a safe setting, with time and space to process things.

> The rules are indeed stated in a robotic, and somewhat patronizing way, as if written by a mild aspie to teach a stronger aspie the rules.

Doesn't is kind of have to be? That "curse of knowledge" thing makes it kind of hard to explain things to people who's skill on whatever topic is more than a level or two below your own.

If you found this useful or interesting, looks like there are lots of other pages on the site on various topics.

Hidden Social Dimensions: Sounds, Words, Turn Taking, Topic Changes, How Much to Say, Storytelling

Attitudes & Emotions: Expressing Emotion, Power and Solidarity, Social Initiation, Showing Interest, Flirting, Polite = Indirect, Sarcasm

Identities: Age, Gender, Dialects

in the leadership program, they teach us that if your presence, or aura, isn't steady, nothing else matters. when it is, you find your own charisma, and that's when you can truly be yourself. you can be fun, direct, indirect, extroverted, or introverted—it doesn't matter. but the key is consistency. you need to remain the same in every situation, with every person, and that’s the hard part. this is why attractive people seem to effortlessly navigate any social interaction. in reality, they don't feel like they need to change much at all.

A key thing any senior leader usually learn is that you MUST adapt your behavior in front of the audience, depending on the audience. People won't react to your "charisma" the same way, and being consistent isn't a necessity.

Anyone who worked with a charismatic leader (from Steve Jobs to Adam Neumann) will tell you they wear many faces, depending on the setting, and they're usually different (so not a "true self").

in the leadership program, they teach us that if your presence, or aura, isn't steady, nothing else matters.

My only guess is that statements like this ring true for someone who is having the experience of being successful socially. However, they seem completely useless to someone trying to change their behavior in order to be socially successful.

In the form of advice for people trying to get better at social stuff: fake confidence and relaxation, in the full confidence that it quickly becomes true. I'm probably a mild case, but once I got it, this worked for me.

(That, and it's helpful to have a few canned entry and exit lines. Knowing you can break off a conversation if it gets awkward or stalls makes it less scary to start one. Even just a version of, "well, it was nice to meet you, I'm going to move along now", in whatever phrasing sounds right from you)

I think it's interesting how this makes a distinction about what Americans do, because appropriate social interaction is significantly influenced by culture. I wonder if there's a study or something that explored the variations in social interaction norms across cultures.

There's many interesting books on the subject - "the culture map" is a fun and easy read, covering examples on various cultures (and how to create a more welcoming environment by being aware that differences exist)

This all reads quite basic. I find, breaking the ice is the hardest part. But even before that, the social norm that dedicates that ones should not bother strangers is the hardest to overcome.

I can't read the article as I'm on my phone but would have been interested. As a Founder of a small B2B SaaS company I am often at events where I know almost no people where I would like to get to know lots of people.

It's probably blindingly obvious to others but the following rules have served me well.

1. Never approach a group that is evenly distributed around a circle. So if 2 people are opposite or 4 or a square don't engage. Do multiple loops until you find a group you can approach.

2. Have a good magic trick. I have a very nice one that involves a pack of playing cards and then involves a lot of eye contact while I "read your face" to work out the card.

I have found 99% respond yes to "would you like to see a magic trick?". It works equally well on CEOs as it does students.

FWIW, I’d say yes out of politeness (“not really” would make the both of us pretty awkward) but I’d be embarrassed the whole time, while at the same time not giving a damn about whatever the trick is. And having had conversations about magic tricks before, I know that I’m far from the only one.

That being said, if it works for you that’s great! Just pointing out that a yes doesn’t mean success in these situations

Part of what makes starting out in social situations difficult is that any strategy which is usually successful with some people will make others uncomfortable. I'd suggest it is almost an iron rule, since any especially successful strategy will probably be seen as manipulation by the minority of people who just loathe being influenced by others. Disagreeable people are out there (although they'd probably like to argue about that). So you being polite but embarrassed doesn't imply much.

I think the better criticism, if we want to look for them, is that doing a magic trick only works because it is a novelty. If every interaction with someone new started with a magic trick it'd be even more bizarre than the social rituals we already have.

Perhaps, but this is where the body language part comes in. Don't walk up to those evenly distributed circle around a circle.

What's your reasoning for #1?

I don't have a source. Probably a YouTube video. Having deployed it my anecdotal experience supports it is a heuristic. I now treat it as a ceremony.

Initiation in the playground of this "interzone" requires communication, through language which is ultimately predicated on the structures of grammar. There are some, like Chomsky, who believe that this capacity is innate to hueman beings, that grammatical paradigms are inborn. That this architectural state of the soul is recollected upon liberation from our ineffable state of dotage.

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