[HN Gopher] Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversat...
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Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations
Author : yamrzou
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-12-03 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.sagepub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.sagepub.com)
| asaph wrote:
| One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win
| Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like
| to talk about themselves and they'll like you more if you let
| them do that in a conversation. I'm paraphrasing. This research
| seems to counter that.
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...
| chefandy wrote:
| Using advice like that as suggested conversational entry points
| is fine, but they're abjectly oversold as "rules." Repeated
| attempts to steer the conversation towards yourself or another
| person (even skillfully) will yield vastly different results in
| a b2b sales call with a bored MBA in NYC than at a working
| class football party in Morocco or a rushed business meeting in
| Japan or an introvert-heavy sci fi book club in Colombia. No
| set of rules replace EQ and social savvy when interfacing with
| different personalities, cultures, contexts, and even _moods._
| johnfn wrote:
| I talk with a few too many people who take the "let other
| people talk about themselves" rule as gospel. While it's nice
| to be given the spotlight, the point of a conversation is that
| it's an _exchange_ , not a soliloquy. Conversations with people
| who listen a lot and don't give a lot back start to feel a bit
| uncomfortable as well.
| aaron695 wrote:
| sdwr wrote:
| I believe the conversational meta has shifted in the last 80
| years. But more than that, people like to talk about themselves
| IFF they feel safe and unjudged.
| nedwin wrote:
| any recs on resources on latest "conversational meta"?
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| The only real meta is to treat everybody as an individual.
| Pay attention to how they react during different stages of
| the conversation and tailor your own behavior to make them
| more comfortable. Some people respond well to being asked
| about themselves. Other people become nervous and evasive.
| Pay attention to how they respond and react accordingly.
|
| Besides that, there is no "one size fits all" approach. The
| only approach that works for everybody is to treat
| everybody like an individual with a unique personality.
| sdwr wrote:
| Most of it is garbage!! People talking about conversation,
| especially online, is total crap. It's all small blogs, and
| the ones who aren't trying to sell you something are this
| weird combination of unsure and self-inflated.
|
| I agree with ajkjk, people have gotten safe and boring.
|
| The only advice I have is to try more, and push the
| envelope over time. Social restrictions feel intense but
| yield to sustained (unintentional) effort. Most people are
| some combination of cowardly and egotistical as a default
| position. Be like flowing water. Negative consequences
| don't last if you don't feed them, and positive ones build
| and compound.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Agree that this seems to be true. Especially in white-collar
| / middle-class society, I suspect (no idea how to quantify
| this) that styles of conversation have dramatically changed
| and everyone has gotten much more polite and... docile? and,
| basically, unappealing.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Yeah, I think there is this unspoken assumption that the
| answer to this question does not depend on the specific
| cultural milieu, or the specifics of the context in which
| engagement occurs.
| starkd wrote:
| Another pearl of his is to be "profuse in your praise". Even if
| it risks sounding empty or pure flattery, because it always
| leaves a good impression and works.
| bawolff wrote:
| Honestly people who do this make me super uncomfortable.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Profuse praise is so weird and off-putting to be a recipient
| of. I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe this was
| true however many years ago but it doesn't feel true all the
| time today.
| scatterhead wrote:
| It needs to be subtle. So maybe "profuse" is the wrong
| word.
|
| For example, throwing in phrases like "with your
| experience, you would know that..." or "that thing you said
| was hilarious" make people feel good, hopefully while also
| being true. This is a huge part of likeability.
| coldtea wrote:
| You'd be surprised.
|
| Also, if you are of the personality type/disposition that
| this doesn't work on, don't underestimate the huge
| percentage of people on which it does work.
| californical wrote:
| I've apparently been doing this for a long time without
| noticing. I just like telling people that appreciate them
| or reminding them that they're doing well, etc!
|
| Had no idea it had a name or "strategy" associated with
| it... I just like other people to know when they're having
| a positive impact on me (or something else). And people
| always seem to like knowing that, and get into a better
| mood in response!
|
| Edit: maybe I'm not understanding the concept very well,
| and "profuse praise" the strategy is more belligerent than
| I thought
| sdwr wrote:
| Yeah genuine praise is just ok, habitual or forced praise
| is the worst.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The man who gave that advice also paired it with being
| authentic: "Give honest and sincere appreciation."
|
| That advice was actually given in the context of a
| supervisor or superior working to improve a report: 'Praise
| the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be
| "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."'
|
| So in context, its about noticing the things you as a
| person like about people and vocalizing them, and
| separately drawing attention to when someone improves.
| Pretty sound advice
|
| If you read the actual book, its as much about not being a
| bore, and how not to piss people off. Some people take the
| advice in it WAY too far, and that's when it comes across
| as off-putting and inauthentic.
| philsnow wrote:
| I wonder if this works because true-ringing praise has to be
| about the particular person, and the production of it
| demonstrates that you're paying (sole) attention to them, and
| the attention is what causes them to enjoy the interaction,
| not necessarily the praise itself. If so, "active listening"
| might produce the same results.
| altdataseller wrote:
| I find the conversations can be awkward if you go too far in
| that direction. And it can feel like an interview. The best
| conversations are give and take where both sides talk almost an
| equal amount of time
| sjs7007 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32542260: Good
| conversations have lots of doorknobs
|
| Related article you might find interesting
| worble wrote:
| My own personal and very much anecdotal experience of this is
| that's a very American view of conversations; they like to talk
| about themselves, what they're doing, what they've just bought,
| their aspirations, etc, while Europeans (and especially Brits)
| would find such questioning to be bad form and even privacy
| invasive. Obviously exceptions exist on both sides, but
| speaking generally.
| ycombobreaker wrote:
| What would you suggest as a cultural guideline for an
| American conversing with a European or Brit?
| keithalewis wrote:
| Assume they are insecure and looking for a passive-
| aggressive way to cut you down to their level. The
| British^W English are quite adept at doing this in a way
| where you won't realize until the next day that they were
| insulting you.
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| Additionally, don't attempt to banter even if the Brit
| initiates it. Brits think that Americans cannot banter
| and will assume that any banter from an American is
| intended as a sincere insult. Don't try to explain that
| Americans frequently banter among each other and no
| offense is intended, they won't believe you.
|
| It is better to remain cordial as they 'banter' at you,
| but to never reciprocate.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale
| Carnegie
|
| Implementing the advice in this book too literally makes for
| very inauthentic sounding conversation.
|
| After reading this book, I found it easy to spot other people
| who had read it and were trying the techniques on me. For
| example, when someone uses my name 10 different times in a
| private conversation for no obvious reason, I have a good idea
| that they're trying How To Win Friends techniques on me.
|
| It also feels awkward when someone is trying to shape the
| conversation to meet some arbitrary goal, rather than having a
| natural and engaging conversation where both parties are
| actually interested in the topics being discussed. When someone
| is just asking me questions not because they're interested but
| because they think getting me to talk about it will help them
| achieve some personal goal, it becomes obvious quickly.
| throwaway74829 wrote:
| You've put to words an intuition I've always had, but been
| unable to verbalize: it irritates me when someone converses
| with the intent to reach some end... or just enters a
| conversation with some notion or emotion that they're holding
| tight onto, and will not waver no matter what.
|
| Worse are those people with canned lines and vocal
| inflections... the same ones on repeat over and over again;
| like they've built up a toolbox of sound bites to navigate
| them through all of life. It's unbelievably grating to hear.
|
| It feels vulgar... to make one's presence and desires so
| known and obvious... instead of having a conversation for its
| own sake... for the sake of amusement or personal
| expression...
|
| It's as if they're treating socialization as a constant
| string of business deals to be navigated... gross.
| scruple wrote:
| I've also experienced this and I've mentioned it in comments
| here in the past. I once recommended the book to a (former)
| colleague and it was maddening to talk to this person after
| they finished it. FWIW, I'm also always on edge when I talk
| to someone who I know has read the Rosenberg non-violent
| communication book(s), so it's not just the books or it's
| contents but a certain personality type, I guess.
| hbfijcgu wrote:
| Wouldn't the unnatural thing be a phase? Consciously
| practicing something is awkward almost by definition. But
| then hopefully you internalize it and become more natural
| and fluent in your application.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Mentioning the other persons name is also a trick to remember
| it, perhaps that's why they repeat it.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Was gonna say the same thing. I try to repeat the person's
| name quite a bit so it can get drilled into my head...
| jules wrote:
| I haven't read this book, but I do try to mention a person's
| name. Not because of them, but because otherwise I will have
| forgotten their name in 2 minutes.
| taeric wrote:
| Using someone's name is also a good way to make sure you
| remember it, though. :(
|
| To an extent, I agree with you. That said, protocols are also
| not a bad thing and socializing is almost certainly a
| learnable skill.
| solardev wrote:
| IMO the book itself addressed that point by suggesting that
| you try to find something to genuinely like about each person
| you engage with. The formulaic approach isn't meant to be the
| end goal, it's just a way to go from zero to some sort of
| common ground, from which a genuine connection can develop.
| It's really helpful for people who are totally inept at human
| conversation (like me) but it's just a starting place.
|
| Nonviolent comms is similar... techniques for lowering
| people's defensiveness upfront and finding connection so that
| you can actually move forward with discussing the meat of the
| issue instead of being caught up in mutual dislike based on
| first impressions and preexisting biases.
| coldtea wrote:
| Dale's book is generic heuristics, hacks, and common sense
| advice mixed.
|
| Nonviolent communication is more like
| cult/pseudoscience/horse manure mix.
| solardev wrote:
| Maybe they're not for everyone, and I certainly don't
| think they should be followed literally to the T like a
| cookbook recipe.
|
| But Dale's book helped me go from virtually no friends to
| having many treasured relationships in my life, across
| interests and divides that I never would've even bothered
| to have explore if not for that book. It made me
| receptive to actually getting to know people outside my
| interest groups, and was as illuminating as it was
| humbling. It was the book that helped me realize there
| was so much more to people than the tiny bubble I was in.
| What may be common advice was, to me at the time,
| completely unheard of to me. If your parents and social
| groups don't naturally teach you this stuff, and you're
| an introverted computer nerd, it's a whole lot better
| than nothing. Are there better books out there? I'd love
| to hear about them.
|
| Nonviolent comms can definitely feel cult like and wishy-
| washy. But it's been tremendously helpful for me in
| engaging with people across ideological gaps (chasms
| these days). And it may have saved my life on occasions
| when conversations got especially heated and emotional
| and violence was a very real possibility. For all of its
| teletubby tendencies, in the real world, it is much more
| able to establish slash remind people of human connection
| than the bitter street protests we've seen over the past
| few years. Its underlying message is to simply seek
| common ground and work outwards from there to solve
| common problems, rather than digging further into
| ideological trenches and seeing everyone outside it as
| the enemy. That particular part isn't necessarily
| cultish. It's just really hard to practice in the heat of
| the moment, so the rest of the book is a bunch of
| deescalation techniques mixed with, yes, fluffy feel good
| stuff.
|
| Shrug. Just my review as someone whose life and
| relationships were made much more enjoyable after those
| two books. Not because I can manipulate people (still
| can't and wouldn't even if I could), but because they
| opened ways of thinking and feeling about people that I
| didn't have before. Together they taught me way more
| respect and empathy for people outside of my own comfort,
| interest, and ideological zones.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think you could probably thread the needle on this, and say
| that both are correct. For example, if you talked a lot about
| things the other person had expressed interest in, and
| supported their own opinions, and made them feel like the
| conversation was "about" them even if you did most of the
| talking.
|
| But, it's more likely that that's not the case, and the two are
| in conflict. Between the sources, I tend to think Carnegie is
| right, both because it's a strategy that has been working for
| long time, and because it accords with my own experience of the
| world, and because ... you know... a single social psychology
| research paper is sort of hard to credit when it conflicts with
| common sense.
| willmadden wrote:
| Dale Carnegie already had a well established reputation when he
| allowed the others to speak about themselves. Apples and
| oranges if you are not already famous.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's not about the others knowing who you are or your
| reputation, and thus not needing to establish that if you're
| already famous, etc.
|
| The insight is rather that others could not give less fucks
| if they knew about you more, what they like is to talk about
| themselves.
|
| This is true even if you're totally non famous and unknown to
| them, like a random taxi driver and you. They still like to
| talk about themselves over hearing about you.
| willmadden wrote:
| It IS about your reputation. Peoples' motivations are
| selfish. They want to be perceived as higher status and are
| constantly assessing "what's in it for me" through their
| personal frame of reference.
|
| Having someone they perceive to be influential, powerful
| etc. listen to them spill their guts about themselves means
| a lot more than if they explained their worldview to a
| homeless person on the street. They wouldn't shut up about
| the former experience at a dinner party, but wouldn't even
| engage with the latter!
|
| The point is, if your reputation does not already proceed
| you, talking more about yourself (assuming you aren't a
| dolt) increases your perceived social value with a
| stranger. If your reputation is good and proceeds you
| already, listening more matters.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I think it highly depends on with whom you are conversing.
| Extraverts, well, some of them probably could chit-chat with a
| telephone pole. After working myself out of elective mutism as
| a teen, I realized I had gotten very physically expressive as a
| kind of adaptation. As an adult, I invented a slightly cruel
| game wherein, should I get snagged by one of these kinds of
| extraverts, I wouldn't say any words, merely react with my
| face, gestures, postures, that kind of thing. Little nods. The
| idea was to see how long they would go on talking without any
| input from me.
|
| Some were of the opinion that I was a good conversationalist,
| which I find darkly amusing.
| staccatomeasure wrote:
| Introverts appreciate people that can carry a conversation and
| people generally like people they appreciate.
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| Anyone know where I can find full text?
| yamrzou wrote:
| Here it is:
| https://send.q1q.wtf/download/e2a1de7fbb78f9e1/#8Z_K4lRRIrI1...
|
| Expires after 100 downloads or 7 days.
| gruez wrote:
| mirror: https://files.catbox.moe/gv49eb.pdf
| [deleted]
| notresidenter wrote:
| mirror: https://send.dorns.fr/download/5d3faa8570328d72/#QyHX
| HbuntYy...
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a
| fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." (Maurice Switzer)
|
| Posting a pay-walled link is essentially click-bait advertising.
|
| Shame on you... =P
| winternett wrote:
| I always start out by over talking everyone and then I suddenly
| go 100% silent and ask everyone to pay $12 a month and give me
| their email to hear more myself...
|
| That way you can always tall who really is interested in what
| you have to say.
| citilife wrote:
| Just a side note, something I've been using lately to monitor how
| much I talk in meetings is something called Read.ai -
| https://www.read.ai/
|
| There's a bunch of other neat features, but monitoring talk time
| is what I use the most. It works in real-time as a bot on Google
| meet and Zoom (the two platforms I use). I believe it should work
| on other video platforms as well. Just sign up and it'll start
| joining meetings on your calendar (if you provide it access).
|
| Instead of using the idea everyone should have equal talk time.
| It depends on a meeting type. For instance, in meetings with
| clients or during interviews, I want to let them out talk me.
| "Tell me about yourself", etc. Obviously during presentations I
| would like to talk more, etc.
|
| Even in this study they are targeting only one particular
| conversation type. It seems obvious if you try to be the most
| relatable and interesting, people will favor you... But that's
| not every conversation. That wouldn't be the case if we're all
| engineers trying to build a bridge.
| conviencefee999 wrote:
| wow, that sounds dangerous and an active security risk to any
| company or individual who did not consent to it and counter
| intuitive to really anything meaningful at all. The
| organization that came up with this idea probably is raking it
| selling other company data to third party organizations and
| governments. This itself looks like an ad.
| citilife wrote:
| > wow, that sounds dangerous and an active security risk to
| any company or individual who did not consent to it and
| counter intuitive to really anything meaningful at all.
|
| I assume you're speaking about read.ai (not the rest of my
| comment)? For what it's worth, the bot starts every
| conversation with a pop up "are you willing to record this
| conversation" if you or any party selects no or type "opt
| out" in the chat at any time it'll leave. You can also set it
| to only show up when invited.
|
| Conversations are often recorded in the space I'm in (for
| note taking purposes). So it's fairly convenient. There's A
| LOT of apps that record meetings for you. Zoom even has this
| as an option built into their application.
| lukevp wrote:
| I recall one of these transcription bots recently sending out
| an email summary to everyone on the invite and creeping
| everyone out. Don't remember if this was the specific one or
| not.
| citilife wrote:
| I could see that, but I think it really depends on your use
| case.
|
| I could see having the ability to search all my meetings to
| find a clip of a conversation / meeting notes with a client
| would be invaluable. Otherwise I look like an idiot and
| contact the client again and ask a question they've already
| answered.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| "In Study 3, we tested the accuracy of these forecasts by
| randomly assigning participants to speak for 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%,
| or 70% of the time in a dyadic conversation."
|
| This study does not correlate to the real word at all. A computer
| telling you when you should speak is so different from a natural
| conversation. In the real world, you're not speaking because
| you're listening, intentionally; in the study, you're not
| speaking because the computer said who's turn it was.
| altdataseller wrote:
| I think a lot of this also depends on how close you already are
| to a partner. Ie is this a first or 2nd date? Or have you been
| together for awhile? Are you romantic partners, or just close
| friends?
| ouid wrote:
| There are so many effects here that no advice this unguarded has
| any chance of being correct.
|
| 1) there is an economic consideration. 100% of the conversation
| time must be used. By the pigeonhole principle, someone is going
| to have to speak at least proportionately, or theres going to be
| silence. How appreciated overtalkers are is proportional to the
| average utilization of the conversation time for the people being
| conversed with.
|
| 2) Observational research of the form, "people who do X have
| better lives", is immediately invalidated as soon as it becomes
| popular. For a similar example, impostor syndrome became a huge
| buzzword, and all of a sudden everyone who had any reason at all
| to think they were underperforming was just a victim of impostor
| syndrome. This happened basically overnight. People who have been
| advised to shut up by their parents or researchers or therapists
| or the media vastly outnumber those who have been encouraged to
| talk more. Aside from creating an influx to the quiet part of the
| population, this interacts with point 1, and the next point which
| is...
|
| 3) Whether you are a good conversationalist depends on your
| audience, and how interesting you are, far far more than it
| depends on your ratio. People who are interesting to listen to
| are rewarded with interest when they talk. They are much less
| likely to be swayed by "research" that suggests that they should
| do something different. They already probably have what they
| want.
|
| 4) conversations are not independent. Whatever your ratio of
| talking to listening is, it should tend towards the central value
| the longer you spend with the conversational group. Of course
| this research is explicitly limited in scope, but the "false
| belief" people have, may actually be a long term heuristic. "This
| person will like me more in the long run if we figure out
| something to talk about that we both essentially contribute
| equally to.
|
| 5) that last arrow runs in reverse as well. The rule that people
| like you more when you talk more is exactly reversed. You talk
| more when you detect that people like you. But both rules are
| valid, because as a human, you only care about situations in
| which you like each other, and in that case it is strategic to
| share the conversation, so you talk less in order to show them
| your interest in what they have to say because of the golden
| rule.
| [deleted]
| nati0n wrote:
| Balance in everything.
| starkd wrote:
| "Contrary to people's forecasts, they were more likable the more
| they spoke, and their partners formed global rather than
| differentiated impressions."
|
| In my experience, reticence to talk is mostly about fear of
| saying something stupid, which generally happens when you don't
| have anything to say but your trying to say something. Assigning
| people to talk for abitrary portions of the conversation might
| just cause you to say more stupid things. So, this is indeed a
| surprising result.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Which is is when you can form an opinion for someone. Will they
| say something stupid or offensive?
|
| When people let their guard down is when you get a glimpse into
| them.
|
| Which I guess is why alcohol and similar substances have been
| used for centuries.
| themitigating wrote:
| By letting your guard down I take that to mean revealing
| personal matters, weaknesses, fears, anything that makes you
| vulnerable.
|
| Being offensive certainly gives me a glimpse into the person
| but not in a good way.
| jrgoff wrote:
| Your experience agrees with my experience of myself. Growing up
| I was the youngest child in our family friend group and
| particularly had an older sibling who basically bullied me - I
| learned to be reticent to speak and was definitely afraid of
| saying something stupid. When I got a little older (in high
| school) I eventually got curious about how so many of my peers
| seemed to converse easily without fear of saying anything
| stupid. Upon observation I realized that my peers said stupid
| stuff all the time and for the most part nobody cared. I think
| to some extent position in the social pecking order probably
| mattered more for how people would react to what someone said
| than specifically what they said.
|
| I sometimes think about something similar while watching
| sitcoms - the characters will often say/do mean things to each
| other for a laugh and because everyone on the show reacts as
| though what was said was okay/normal it seems to barely
| register to me how mean it actually was.
|
| I think growing up with a critical sibling lead to me
| developing a self-critical voice that I carried around with me
| so even if externally people didn't react poorly to something
| "stupid" I said, internally I provided myself that negative
| feedback that reinforced my fears/beliefs. I think the self-
| critical voice was protective when it developed - it helped me
| avoid the more painful external feedback from my sibling, but
| it continued on long after that was useful.
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| Asking questions is a form of talking. If you're afraid of
| saying something stupid, why not just admit that the topic is
| outside your knowledge, and ask questions about what they're
| telling you?
|
| I didn't see the whole paper, but I wonder if the idea is
| really to be engaged in the conversation.
| BlueTie wrote:
| There is an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza tries to
| get more time in front of a woman he's interested in by leaving
| his hat in her apartment thinking that even though she doesn't
| like him - just listening to him talk over and over will
| eventually win her over.
|
| There is truth in this. We're wired to connect with those within
| our proximity.
| crazygringo wrote:
| To be clear... this study is ONLY about an initial TWELVE MINUTES
| of conversation with a STRANGER.
|
| And so the idea that "the more you talk, the more someone will
| like you" should be extrapolated to e.g. an entire two-hour first
| date, or to _existing_ relationships at home or at work or with
| friends, would obviously be nonsense.
|
| It certainly is an interesting finding, and easy to understand in
| retrospect -- people can decide to like you and find you more
| interesting if they've heard you speak for 8.4 minutes as opposed
| to 3.6 minutes.
|
| But I wouldn't take this as any kind of generalized advice about
| "how much to talk in conversations", as the title suggests. The
| title is, frankly, a horrifying example of taking a small
| interesting finding and falsely suggesting it's much more broadly
| applicable.
| ccn0p wrote:
| Right. But it would be more fun for everyone here to conclude
| from one headline that they should now talk 95% of the time,
| not to ask any questions of the other person, and even cut them
| off for bonus like points. +500 social XP!
| ergonaught wrote:
| "Some people find some other people more likable when those
| people speak more in a conversation, but drawing any other
| conclusions than that would be fantastically stupid on its own
| merits, and doubly so given the recent crises in this field."
|
| There, I fixed it for you.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| For a second I thought this was the actual conclusion taken
| from the study and I felt respect to the authors for speaking
| the truth.
| CharlesW wrote:
| I'm going to take the charitable view and assume that what they
| found was true and reproducible within the artificial scenario
| they created, but I'm with you -- conversation is a dance. It's
| less about "how much to talk" and more about meeting the other
| conversationalist(s) energy and vibe, vibrant interaction vs.
| monologuing, "yes, and"-ing at the right opportunities, not
| needlessly interrupting just to hear the sound of your voice,
| etc.
| europeanguy wrote:
| Is that how you do science? I can't make my predictions 100%
| accurate, therefore there's nothing I can say about the subject
| at all.
| coldtea wrote:
| If 80% or more of your published and "peer reviewed"
| predictions were non-reproducible crap (as is the case with
| said soft sciences), then you'd indeed better not say
| anything about the subject at all.
|
| Just because you're "doing science" and getting some results
| back, doesn't mean you're doing something accurate or worth
| over not doing.
| pjscott wrote:
| There's a huge problem in many branches of science where,
| using normal methodology, it's possible to come up with an
| endless stream of results that are unlikely to have any
| predictive validity outside of the extremely specific
| circumstances of the experiment -- and often not even there.
| This gives the illusion of knowledge, but everything you
| "know" falls apart if you actually try to apply it to the
| world around you.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
|
| An attempt by DARPA to evaluate the various fields of social
| science found that only about half of the papers they tried
| to replicate actually gave the same results when tried a
| second time. People in those fields could give pretty good
| predictions of which papers would replicate, but the
| publishing apparatus doesn't seem to have much in the way of
| quality control to filter out the papers everyone knows are
| junk -- nor do people cite the junk studies less often.
| Here's a very readable writeup with details:
|
| https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-
| with...
|
| What's more, correlational studies have another problem: even
| a consistent-but-small correlation between two variables
| usually is non-causal when you're looking at sufficiently
| complicated webs of cause and effect, e.g. the ones found in
| the social sciences like psychology. The math here has some
| profound, dire implications, and I found this article to be a
| huge eye-opener:
|
| https://www.gwern.net/Causality
| User23 wrote:
| It's more that performing this experiments with rats would
| only be slightly less representative of the general
| population than the college undergraduates they almost
| certainly used.
| dang wrote:
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ergonaught wrote:
| My correction was neither snarky nor a shallow dismissal, but
| rather a genuine and 100% serious correction of the
| conclusions that can be responsibly drawn from the research.
|
| Ex: We have decades of research on ASD and ADHD that have
| utterly failed to serve the very large number of people who
| don't fit the profile of "young white American boy" to whom
| that research actually applied because the conclusions were
| wrongly assumed to generalize to the wider population.
|
| It's not a new problem, and there is no justification
| whatsoever for being oblivious to that problem in this field
| anymore.
| officehero wrote:
| beloch wrote:
| I certainly wouldn't assume a linear relationship between
| talking time and likeability. There has to be a drop-off at
| some point, since few people like being ambushed by someone who
| won't let them say a single word. Familiarity also plays a
| role. It might be somewhat relieving for a new acquaintance to
| carry a conversation, but wearying for a familiar person to
| subject you to endless verbal barrages.
| JadeNB wrote:
| Surely _what_ you say is as important as how _much_ you talk. I
| suppose you can assign someone literally to just fill up a
| certain percentage of a conversation with words (though I wouldn
| 't trust someone accurately to gauge whether they were speaking,
| say, 30% of the time or 40% of the time), but you can't assign
| someone to _have something to say_ a given percentage of the
| time.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| On a certain level what you are taking about matters. But lots
| of times it doesn't. When I'm in a pub talking to someone about
| their weather, or what they're drinking, or a sports game, I
| don't really care about the content of the conversation.
|
| A lot of the time conversations are just there to have some
| company and socializing is for the sake of socializing.
| yamrzou wrote:
| An overview of the paper by the author:
| https://theconversation.com/people-think-they-should-talk-le...
| layer8 wrote:
| This should be the title link.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Does it have the full text? It's a good journal but there have
| been many methods problems in psychology research. It strikes
| me as a finding that would be very sensitive to sample issues
| and other potential confounds.
| layer8 wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33844801.
| graphpapa wrote:
| Conversation & social matters are so variable and vibe based that
| I think trying to get grip on something like 'likability' via a
| metric like 'contributions ratio' seems absurd.
| cateblanchett wrote:
| i think there's an unconscious impulse to try to seem either
| servile or mysterious in conversations where you want to be liked
| or seem interesting. so it makes sense that people assume
| reticence to speak is a better tactic than talking a lot.
| scatterhead wrote:
| Servile or mysterious? That doesn't resonate with me at all.
| Could that be a function of your personality and not a widely
| applicable thing?
| cateblanchett wrote:
| well to want to be 'liked' is to put yourself at the mercy of
| someone else's opinion of you. and to seem 'interesting'
| without saying much is to elicit intrigue - or mystery, so
| you want to seem mysterious.
| scatterhead wrote:
| I think it's more correct that people _appreciate_ being
| liked. If you don 't feel liked by this person, you'll
| gravitate to a different person. Calling it "servility" is
| really stretching it.
|
| > seem 'interesting' without saying much is to elicit
| intrigue - or mystery, so you want to seem mysterious.
|
| I'm sure there are people to whom that applies. But it
| doesn't seem likely to be widely applicable to me. Most
| people just aren't going for the "dark and mysterious"
| vibe.
| achow wrote:
| The research paper (PDF link):
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Quinn-Hirschi/publicati...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| As with everything else, it seems, my anecdotal experience
| suggests a balance is usually the best overall answer. People
| with diarrhea of the mouth aren't much fun to talk to, but either
| are people who won't say more than three words at a time.
|
| Same with _what_ you talk about. People like to talk about
| themselves, but many of them are interested in hearing about you
| too. Just keep it under control, and lob that conversation topic
| ball back and forth regularly.
| clnq wrote:
| Yes, people with diarrhea of the mouth make most conversations
| dry, one-sided, and very dull after you already know what
| _that_ person 's side of the story is. It's much worse if that
| side of the story is self-serving.
|
| That is a good analogy with throwing a ball in the
| conversation. Imagine ball sports where only one person is
| participating. That's what a one-sided conversation feels like.
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| I find the most frustrating conversations are with people who
| can't stop talking _and_ who fail to distinguish what is or
| isn 't important information for other people in the
| conversation.
|
| > _How was your flight?_
|
| > _Oh it was great, I sat next to a man named Joe Smoe, wait
| no I think his name was Joe Blow... no he said his name was
| Jim Blow... wait no his name was Jim Smoe... he said he was
| bus driver.. or was it a truck driver?..._
|
| How do you politely say _" I'm never going to meet this man,
| and you'll never meet him again, so who cares what his name
| was? Get on with the story!"_ I know some people who can
| waffle around like this for 10 minutes easily, trying to
| remember a detail that nobody else could conceivably care
| about. By the time they remember the detail everybody else
| has already forgotten the rest of the story anyway.
| janeerie wrote:
| Oh, so you've met my father-in-law?
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| I say, "it's okay, I'm not going to remember their name
| anyway." Usually it gets them to move on.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Why not?
| openfuture wrote:
| Since you got answered in downvotes I suspect the answer is
| "because people will switch languages on you"
| clnq wrote:
| I've recently seen many good and curious comments "answered
| in downvotes." Maybe I can't read the room, but why does
| that happen? Is there a way to phrase statements that
| challenge others in a way that leads to conversation and
| not flags/greying out?
| bawolff wrote:
| I thought person was making a kind of lame joke,
| demonstrating why people who don't say more than three
| words are no fun to talk to (and hence downvoted)
| themitigating wrote:
| I'm guilty of one worded replies that get downvoted. I do
| get annoyed since I'm basically poking the parent for an
| explanation.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But that's not a good way of doing it. A one-word reply
| rarely makes clear what needs more explanation, or even
| that that's what you're after.
|
| On the other hand, a low-effort, drive-by unsupported
| claim doesn't necessarily deserve great effort and
| eloquence in a response. Maybe we should be better than
| them, but we also all have limited energy.
| themitigating wrote:
| That's just it and I do need to make a choice, have a
| thoughtful reply or ignore the statement.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Some of us are kind of dense. I did not reply to the "Why
| not?" reply because I could not decide if it was
| intentionally a question about one of the things I said,
| or if it was a tongue-in-cheek example of someone who
| only uses three words or less.
|
| Pretend I am dense, and give me a better idea of what I
| didn't explain well enough, and I'm happy to oblige.
| Everything I say makes sense in my head but I don't
| always communicate it effectively.
| themitigating wrote:
| Did you reply to me saying why with why not or was that
| an example?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Why not?", by itself, isn't a great reply to a two-
| paragraph comment that said more than one thing. It took
| me quite a while to realize that it was in reply to the
| "[n]either are people who won't say more than three words
| at a time". Given how long it took me to get it, I
| suspect that others may have missed it because it was too
| subtle. If you missed that (like I initially did), it's a
| lousy reply - either low effort or badly said.
|
| I think that HN has more zealots, propagandists, shills,
| and others arguing in bad faith than it did ten years
| ago. And I think that many of us have grown less patient
| with posts that clearly seem to be grinding axes, pushing
| agendas, or arguing rather than listening. (I think dang
| would say that we _shouldn 't_ be like that, but my
| patience has limits. I admit that as a weakness in
| myself, but there it is.)
| krisoft wrote:
| > Is there a way to phrase statements that challenge
| others in a way that leads to conversation and not
| flags/greying out?
|
| Of course there is! For example the way you have worded
| your question. It makes it clear what you diagre with and
| stimulates a conversation.
|
| At the moment the greyed out comment simply says "why
| not?". I would love to answer their question too, but it
| is not even clear what exactly it is about? And then
| further more are they disagreeing or are they requesting
| clarification on the root causes of some detail? If they
| are disagreeing on what grounds are they disagreeing?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Did you reply to the wrong comment?
|
| My prior comment doesn't seem downvoted.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Right now it does look like it attracted one or two
| downvotes. I did not reply to you because I didn't
| understand what you were asking. I thought maybe you were
| just being cheeky with a 'not more than three words at a
| time' response.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That's curious, the score must have been bouncing around
| a lot via a lot of upvotes and downvotes.
|
| I was being partially cheeky with the answer, though it
| was also partially genuine, i.e. why are conversations
| with either loud mouths or silent types unappealing?
| crocktucker wrote:
| I couldn't say. [I'm no fun to talk to either.]
| stochastimus wrote:
| Would love to see this result reproduced. Also a confounding
| factor might be what they talked about; would be interesting to
| see a follow-up that tried to break out by subject matter
| (someone filling time vs. conveying real knowledge vs. responding
| to the other person, for example).
| award_ wrote:
| The findings of this study are fascinating and counter-intuitive.
| It seems that we often have mistaken beliefs about how much to
| talk in conversations, and that speaking more than half the time
| can actually make us more likable. This goes against the common
| advice to "let the other person talk" and shows the importance of
| challenging our assumptions about social interactions. It would
| be interesting to see how these findings apply in different
| contexts, such as group conversations or online forums. Overall,
| this study highlights the complex dynamics of conversation and
| the need for further research in this area.
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