Mini Blog Post 4: Reward the ways you’d like to be treated
There are a lot of different ways my friends can treat me, and different social norms people can follow. And there are some that I really appreciate. I really like it when people invite me to things, give sincere compliments, are generally nice people, give honest feedback, say when I annoy them, explain their preferences about things, etc. Often these don’t happen, and I think it’s easy to get frustrated when this doesn’t happen, or feel like this is somehow the “fault” of my friends. And I think this mindset is pretty unhelpful, and unproductive.
A mindset that I’ve found really useful, is figuring out how I can act, that encourages the behaviour I want. This is both much easier to control, and I think a much healthier and effective mindset! I want to make it as easy as possible for other people to treat me the way I want. Make it feel rewarding!
I think this is a much better mindset, both because it focuses directly on things I can change (and so is more effective), and because I think there’s something morally correct about making it as easy as possible for people to follow my requests.
A general note: Often people won’t feel comfortable following the norms I prefer, like giving honest feedback. This is totally fine, and an important skill is figuring out when this is the case! Another great thing about this strategy is that it’s robust to that outcome.
I think this is the kind of point that some people will agree with, and will totally not work for others, so isn’t worth spending too much time on. But I think it can be hard to act upon this, even if you agree with it in the abstract! So I’ll spend the rest of this article listing examples:
I really, really value receiving honest feedback, especially critical feedback. So I try to gracefully receive honest feedback, even if I don’t agree with it. And I put in effort to overcome the feeling of defensiveness and genuinely evaluate it
I really like being invited to things, and generally being given opportunities! And the main cost is that it’s unpleasant if the invitee says no. So I try to practice the skill of gracefully declining things, so it’s low cost to invite me to things
This goes much more strongly with people I know less well, or anything romantic. I think the ability to gracefully reject things, and ensuring the other person feels comfortable, is a super difficult but valuable social skill!
I find it helps to always give a clear reason why you’re saying no, and to be clear that you really appreciated the invitation (bonus points for being clearly sincere when doing so, like having a blog post you can link them to ;) )
I love receiving sincere compliments, and try to ensure I’m able to receive compliments gracefully
I love learning new things. Sometimes I already know the things other people tell me, and it’s often disheartening to share something exciting, and have the other person already know it. So I try to always thank people
The more general point - I want people to take actions with positive expected value. If someone does this, and the actual value was negative, that’s still awesome!
I love meeting new people. There’s a lot of emotional labour in approaching someone new, and fearing rejection. Or in making a good first impression
So I try to cultivate the skill of making conversations and small talk easily, and asking good questions
This is great for having interesting conversations generally, even with good friends!
And I try to take the initiative with somebody I like, and clearly express interest in talking more, but while leaving them the ability to say no. I find software like calendly.com is great for this - it makes it really easy for them to follow up, and easy for them not to
I really appreciate emotional support and help I get from friends, but often the best kind depends on my mood. So I try to explicitly say what kind of help I want
Eg “I’m really pissed off and just want to vent/complain” or “This is really annoying me and I don’t know what to do, I’d love help coming up with a solution” or “I really care about figuring out whether I was in the wrong, and would appreciate honest feedback”
I care a lot about having true beliefs. One useful way to get more true beliefs, is to have people tell me when I’m wrong! But it’s easy to get defensive, or not take them seriously
So, a valuable skill is being able to handle disagreements productively. Even if I don’t take things on board, I want the other person to feel listened to, and like I heard them out, rather than dismising them out of hand. And if I can take it on board, all the better!
Useful tricks:
Try to paraphrase back their case to them, and ask whether this was a good summary - there’s a good chance I misunderstood!
Listen to their strongest point, rather than picking on their weakest point, or tiny contradictions/errors in wording
Related - try to steelman their point (but always check that they agree with your steelman!)
Try to resonate: First look for agreement and common ground, and look for disagreements second
Ask yourself “suppose they’re right about everything. Explain how this world has come about?”
Operationalise: Make the disagreement concrete. Give hypotheticals, put numbers on things, be specific. So often, disagreements aren’t true disagreements, just misunderstandings about what we both mean
Tell them the points that are important to me, so we can focus the argument on things that might change my mind
This is just the norms I want in friends, this is going to be highly subjective. The message I want people to take from this post is how these lessons can apply to them! So, how would you like people to treat you? And how do you act when people do treat you that way?
And every time you feel frustrated by how people treat you, ask yourself “how can I better reward the behaviour I want to see”?
