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Entries tagged 'cat:Communication'

It's possible to convince somebody of something with the right (form of) argument.

There is this thing that I've noticed happen when I'm speaking about something I've heard or read about but don't feel like an expert on. I believe that one should not spread information unless one truely understands it as well as how the information was gathered, what knowledge it builds on, what relevance and meaning it has in the context it likely will be applied in by the person who receives the information, and a few other principles that are hardly possible to honour every time. Those principles cannot be applied to everday conversations like smalltalk, without eliminating the interaction. (That's another topic, though.) So I don't apply them in general conversations with colleagues and customers and often overlook them in conversations with friends and other peers. So it is almost inevitable that I at some point say something I'm not 99.99% sure is correct the way I present it. It happens a lot with "interesting facts" and "what most people don't know". What happens then is that I feel in the wrong to some degree - because I have not made absolutely sure that I'm neither wrong nor going to be misunderstood - while the person I'm speaking to (if they see me as a peer, take me serious and are listening to me) takes what I say as new information and fits in into what they already know and believe. They don't know about the tiny feeling of guilt that I have. So I am regularly surprised when I speak to someone and seem to influence their set of beliefs inadvertently.

How to convince somebody of something is quite a complicated question psychologically. I've read enough about it to know that and to know that I'm not interested in learning how to do it in any professional way (or with style). But there are some interesting aspects to know about how easily people can change their mind in some situations and how tough it is to make somebody change their mind in others.

There was an experiment done that is often referred to in social media sometimes as an interesting bit of knowledgle and sometimes as an argument of an almost political nature, hinting at the stubbernness or irrationality of people with different beliefs (usually beliefs that deverge from the widely accepted set of scientific knowdlege). The simplified conclusion of this study is often presented as this: Presenting a person with a firm belief evidence that their belief is factually wrong makes it even stronger (see Backfire Effect). The conclusion that people draw from this sometimes is: Arguing rationally with somebody with an irrational belief will have the opposite from the intended effect. That is not usually true, though. Not only are cases where that happened rare even in the study that is referred to, the effect could also not be replicated when several researchers tried.

Sometimes I come across a person and learn of a belief of theirs that I find problematic for some reason or another. An extremist attitude to societies basic questions, fascist ideas formulated into political demands, a conspiracy narrative that results in hostile behaviour, things like that. These are usually beliefs with a large foundation that was built over years if not decades and they are often embedded in a world view that justifies and explains anything that might appear to others to oppose ethical code or the reasoning behind the belief. But "often" is not "always". And even if those things are the case is the assumption that simple, rational arguments won't have a positive effect is an erroneous one that is made too quickly. Yes, it seems like a hard undertaking to craft responses that take the opposite of your own beliefs into account properly, not as the hallucination of the enemy camp but as an equal to your own opinion. It also feels like the work necessary to formulate a response that foresees all the expectable counter-arguments and to answer all the antagonistical follow-up questions. That's the things I expect to be confronted with after objecting to something somebody said in a conversation. Correctly so. But if forging a plan to optimally convince the opponent to abandon a belief of theirs is not what I want to do, then it's not necessary to put that much work into it. You can just respond honestly with a simple thought and even end the conversation if it becomes too cumbersome. When a topic has an emotional component, it's easy to forget that keeping this on the level of a regular conversation with no expectation that it will have any meaning to anybody other than passing time.

The insight that I keep having and intend to remember in applicable situations more often is that it is not necessary but possible to convince somebody to take on a different view on something. My mind is not short of explanations and explanation attempts from opposite viewpoints and I'm ready to share them with others to encourage a broadening of their thinking. If it's my own view, a belief based on my own experience, I'm often more reluctant to share it if it opposes somebody else's belief. But it is worth it. Provided both conversing parties bring forth the necessary trust to take other's assertions seriously, a calm, rational objection is far better than cutting the topic short. The latter can easily have the same effect as saying something like "Oh, you're one of those." Derogatory remarks should be avoided just like dismissing a concern, be it ever so irrational. Ignoring an argument for being too absurd or discrediting a source without a reason, talking down or being in any way not as respectful as you would like to be treated yourself in an emotional discussion will not get you closer to invoking insight nor to learning something useful yourself. Those aren't new ideas. The realisation that is, as a conscious insight, new to me, is that I'm far more likely to influence somebody's thinking than I assumed. If a respectful discussion can't be maintained for after small talk got out of the area of the mundane, I don't need to maintain it any longer. One sincere offer of a different view on something is better than none, and better than one with a snarky remark about anti-science belief systems appended, which will likely not make your conversational partner want to think about any of what you said. Say something positive and let it sink it. The hours and even night after you talked can do a lot for making a new idea a familiar one that can or needs to be integrated with ones world view.

I will not continue to give tips on how to convince people of anything. That's not what this entry was supposed to be about. And I'm not experienced enough to give good tips. But I want to leave a book referral here. I can't recommend it, because I haven't read it. But it appears to me that Lee McIntyre knows what he's talking about in his book "How to Talk to a Science Denier". I conclude that from what he says in book introduction (YT, IV.

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Perception

There is a scene in the show "Louie that possibly demonstrates very well part of the source with my frustration from communicating with other humans. (This Youtube video is not the entire scene, but may be enough.)

Apparently the scene is an example of good acting in the show. Louis sits in a cafe, his girlfriend joins him at his table. He eats ice cream and doesn't talk much. She seems to be in a more lively mood and talks more. She says that she believes that, by saying nothing, Louie wants to break up with her. He contradicts that claim by stating clearly that he does not want to break up with her. But she ignores that and criticises him for breaking up with her in such a cowardly manner. He is more lively as well now and repeats and assures her multiple times that he does not want to break up.

Clearly, he could not have done anything more to convince her that she is wrong in her assumtion, without escalating the situation, e.g. into a violent direction. A claim that appears to be founded on nothing but the fact that he seemed a bit down while eating ice cream in a cafe. When I watched that scene, I didn't think about it again. She was weird, apparently wanted to break up with him but give him the fault (or whatever her motivations were, idk) and did so in a convenient moment. It could hardly be more clear of a scene to me. We saw the entire thing, he clearly said how he felt, but she insisted that she knew better.

But apparently I'm the only person who sees it that way. For everybody else it seems to be quite clear that she was right and he wasn't brave/manly/fair/whatever enough to admit that he wanted to break up with her. So he made her do it. I don't know how he supposedly made her break up with him, but according to everybody I ask, that's what he did by behaving like he did, by saying thing the way he said them, and also by not saying certain things. Can anybody explain to me what those things he didn't say were, or how he said things to mean the opposite of what the words he was saying mean? Can somebody explain to me what about his behaviour made him untrustworthy? So far nobody has.

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Trolls - Winning Feels Like Losing

Sometimes I realise late that I'm interacting with a troll in an online forum, on Reddit or on a mailing list. For the type of trolls who delibertely try to confuse and seem to be sincere on the surface while following the goal of inducing frustration or otherwise spreading negativity, I have to give to them, that makes them good at what they are doing. But none the less it makes me feel bad all the more. Not much for wasting my time, but for being honest to them while they know they aren't honest to me. I feel betrayed when I conversed more than one or two messages long with a troll.

And that's what happened to me again today. I gave them the benefit of the doubt even after I realised that they had been given many chances to see they made a (simply and definitely provable) honest little mistake but didn't take a single of them, had not responded to a single direct question while constructing a kindly phrased little unrelated allegation out of nothing instead. After a few more messages with no progress I had enough and started to type my response to inform them that I'm not able (or willing? see next paragraph) to view their motivations as sincere. I felt a bit mad and that feeling became stronger the more I re-read what they had posted. But I wanted to make my final response complete and correct, so it seemed necessary to invest this emotion. And I did intend to make this my last post in the thread. I wanted them and maybe others who were still following the thread to know that I'm fooled no longer by this troll. I'm glad I realised that that was still feeding the troll and refuted what I was trying to convey before I submitted my post. I did the right thing by not continuing to give them a fulfilment of receiving any attention at all. But now this is an unclosed chapter in my mind. I'll call it unclosed memory so that I have a term (and category tag) in case I want to refer to similar experiences on this blog in the future. I guess that's the reason I'm making this entry. I did it, dear reader! I got out when I finally did realise what was going on.

I'm imposing this label "troll" on this person and even have a drawer in my mind for people who acted similarly in other threads that I've read in the past. But the thing is - and that's probably a banale thing to say for anybody who has done some thinking about online trolls before - I couldn't prove that they are, even given a perfect defitinion with clear criteria. I don't know their intentions. I want to feel a little bit proud for giving them the benefit of the doubt for longer than apparently any other participant in the thread. I believe that it is ususally the right thing to do to not assume malicious intentions in somebody's actions even after you had the realisation that that is a possibility. I want to be the person who assumes kindness or lack of knowledge before assuming bad intentions. But I'm still often very naive (mostly the kind of naive that makes me tell strangers my weaknesses, like being naive), even though that has changed a bit in some situations. But I always assumed I'm being made fun of or that people try to make me look like a fool rather soon. I think I can hardly know with sufficiant certainty whether that's the case in situations like the one described above. So I will feel unsure whether I made the right decision. (Not that I suspect it matters for this person's life in this case. But in principle.) Among the reasonable things to do with experiences like this I've marked "tell somebody about it" and "discard the memories of it by not trying to bring it up again unless it severly impacts my life" as good options. I've dine the former by writing this here. I'll go on to do the latter now.

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