2021-11-22 15:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redthedragon
redthedragonSomeone ask me about confidence-establishing and assertive behaviors in humans being essentially ritualized forms of threat display on a small scale to establish who is strongest in communication so i can ramble about it. I think I'm onto something but I don't, like, actually know.
("Confidence-establishing and assertive behaviors" here defined as things that make people think you are confident and/or assertive, ie: firm handshake, eye contact, appropriate tone of voice, squared shoulders and chest-up posture. There are more.)
("Confidence-establishing and assertive behaviors" here defined as things that make people think you are confident and/or assertive, ie: firm handshake, eye contact, appropriate tone of voice, squared shoulders and chest-up posture. There are more.)
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Humans are a social species, which means that certain behaviors are prioritized based on the fact that they help to establish a social group that has a minimum of, like, maiming one another (in the in-group, at least) and generally protects the members of the group. However, in spite of that, human people are also animal people who have certain needs, like "getting food" and "allocating resources" and "responding to physical danger". For just about all of this, it is nearly vital that there is some sort of hierarchy present, because otherwise things take much longer and are harder to work with. Threat displays in any animal species are generally used to establish this hierarchy, and the behaviors in human society that establish hierarchy are generally displays that in other species are considered threatening.
A primo example of that is eye contact.
Also, blanket assumption here: when i say "behaviors" i mean "behaviors found in neurotypical humans" because like, i'm sitting on a working brainthought about as concrete as wet dough right now that largely goes 'neurodivergent human people have a different and less-comfortable relationship to normalized threat displays than neurotypical ones' and that doesn't work so well for this discussion, given it's a massive flattening of human experiences to talk about the threat displays on display in the culture i grew up in. Also, secondary assumption that must be made that i nearly forgot about; when i use specific behaviors as examples this is coming from the background of a person who grew up in suburban-nearly-urban northeastern United States, and thus will not transfer as well to, say, like, Southeast Asian behaviors where social norms are different. All or nearly all of these threat displays are societally ingrained, rather than human nature. They're parts of things like "manners". You can win a threat display through any other threat display, but some are more acceptable than others. The fact that threat displays are acceptable is an interesting facet of society that sort of underlines my point about hierarchy being societally useful for Living and Staying Alive.
Anyway back to Eye Contact As Threat Display. In almost every animal species I know of, sustained eye contact is threatening. I don't know about this with dogs, actually. I'll have to research that. But cats are pretty firmly domesticated and sustained eye contact with them as a stranger (because cats are also social animals and will treat threatening behavior from members of their in-group differently from members of their out-group most of the time) is threatening enough that people will write about it n nearly every guide to Petting Your Neighbor's Cat or whatever that I have ever read in my life. The same goes for most every other animal. I grew up around a lot of wild rabbits, and you could tempt them to come near you but only if you didn't look directly at them. Etc, etc.
In humans, eye contact is used to establish trustworthiness and confidence. The (somewhat ableist) assumptions of "untrustworthy people will not look at you" and "shy people will look at the ground" are both examples showing how failure to make successful eye contact for long enough is considered a weakness of character. This is from experience: constant, unblinking, extremely dedicated eye contact scares people and they will go out of their way to avoid you if you do it. It makes you seem "scary". This is an example that shows that failure to make eye contact for the expected amount of time is considered evidence that you are dangerous and not capable of exhibiting proper prosocial behaviors. The fact that there is a sliding scale from "too short eye contact" to "too long eye contact" that directly correlates to "not enough willingness to fight/deceptive but weak" and "too much willingness to fight/picking a fight" suggests that eye contact is also seen as a threat and/or dominance display in humans.
With the understanding that eye contact is a threat and/or dominance display in humans, the constant societal insistence on eye contact in social situations makes it make much more sense! This is a method of sussing out who is willing to succumb to whose authority and who is not. Refusing to cede to any authority is not prosocial; further, as a member of an out-group, refusing to cede to in-group authority figures when entering group situations is a direct threat to the authority of that group (and thus to the overall cohesion of that group, if the person is otherwise friendly). Failure to make enough eye contact will inform people that you are a "pushover", and thus if they do not like you that they can mistreat you at their leisure because they have essentially "sized you up" and found you lacking.
The same goes for nearly any other behavior that is considered "confident". A weak handshake is proof you are a pushover. A too-firm, crushing handshake is proof that you are trying too hard and kind of a dick and don't know how to play nice (ie: dangerous, refusing to cede to authority, and not engaging in prosocial behaviors- literally playing nice). Posture can be directly correlated to animal posture; confidence looks like squared shoulders and relaxed arms, apparently. (This is also from experience. I can tell you my exact Confident Posture, if you like. It works perfectly in literally every situation I've ever used it in if paired with a smile and moderate-to-frequent eye contact.)
Generally when someone fails the dominance check by being too dominant, the other person will escalate. This is generally a different behavior, and often verbal. For example, if you stare at someone for too long, they will ask you if you have a problem with them. Then you can say "yes", by which you further escalate, or "no," by which you inadvertently cede ground to them, because they challenged you and you backed down. Once an escalation has been made, there is essentially no way to stay at that level; escalation in social dominance games is a staircase that goes up and down and you can walk in either direction but you cannot move on the same level you already are. If you continue to escalate, you may get into an argument, which is like the prosocial version of a fight, or an actual physical altercation, which this society will try to defer for as long as possible because it is not terribly beneficial for us to fight and we have decided that that is not allowed. Historically, duels have been methods by which people could settle arguments; these could and would sometimes prove fatal. As such, we can conclude reasonably that escalation ends at death, which is pretty much the same way it is for every other species. Further we can compare this to like literally every social species out there, which generally escalates to the point of injury and then stops at that, and this is generally how human escalation in single situations goes as well.
Almost every threat display is, in some way, a method of establishing that one can, therefore, injure or kill the opposing party. Eye contact is proof you are not afraid of the opposing party. A properly firm handshake is proof of hand strength, which establishes a general baseline for strength elsewhere. A squared posture is proof that you will be difficult to knock over. Confident attitude also establishes that you are not afraid of the person you are speaking to, without being actively confrontational.
People generally want to work with the group because people are social animals and therefore really enjoy having social groups to do that with. Further, the common human trait of empathy dictates that some people will naturally "feel" more friend-shaped to them, and they want to be in that group. Most groups require newcomers to accept a level of submission to the rest of the group while they gain the trust of the group, and unless all members of the group are equally new a groupmember attempting to "take over" while very new to the group will be regarded as kind of a dick and hostile. As such, it is generally prosocial to be equally submissive as the person you are interacting with or more submissive, until you have established a baseline of who is supposed to be submissive to who and can then slowly start bending those rules. Being too dominant too fast is essentially begging for a fight.
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In no particular order, some thoughts:
I'm from Eastern Europe originally, and I've found that Normal Iron Curtain Behavior gets read as surly, hateful, aggressive, asocial, and autistic. For example: we do NOT make eye contact. It Is Very Rude. But in the US where I am now, it's considered shady. We do NOT smile, and only laugh when something is hilarious. It Is Also Very Rude. Again, in the US that's weird, cold, etc. In the US, my people get read as Grumpy Assholes, while in my homeland, USians get read as Those Idiots Who Keep Making Fun Of Us By SMILING And MAKING EYE CONTACT.
I'm also autistic, and a lot of neurotypical behaviors are eight billion types of WTF for me. I get read as "weird" and "probably about to Do Murder" for like... my regular behaviors. On the flip side, plenty of people read me as Weak Easy Prey. There's probably a pattern to who falls into what category, but I'd have to think about it.
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I'm not like gonna say "autistic" because I don't know, but I'm definitely some sort of Brain Weird Social Norms Bad. But I put all my skill points into "lying good" way back in the ancient days of yore when i was like, five, so now I am very good at the social chameleon-ing. I think I mentioned that somewhere in the comments here but I'm not sure where. Anyways, as a result I also often fuck up the social norms in some way or another, but am good enough at putting on the Confident Social Affect that generally it doesn't get called out (and most of my other social failures are generally on the 'scary, must avoid' end. i apparently have an anti-bullying forcefield. somehow*) but the like. eye contact and shoulder squareness both do a LOT. Not Making Eye Contact Enough to westerners is like literally broadcasting weakness for some reason. Very annoying. Sometimes we just want to stare out the window; faces are very boring.
The Eastern European mismatch tracks pretty well to me. I don't mean to be like "ah yes i understand this because i know Eastern European People" or whatever because that's not quite how it is, but my grandmother is friends with a number of eastern european immigrants (who, admittedly, have been in the US for like 30+ years, because they're all like 60-70) and I've definitely noticed that they're like. easier to chill with? but harder to put on my normal social affect for. I was kind of reading that as like normal old person surliness, honestly, though, because my very usamerican grandfather on the other side is the same way and he's just, like, kind of a dick and very proud of it. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there are also like stance things (idk how else to call it? way you hold your weight? head angle? shoulder shape? it MATTERS, but i can't describe it that easily) that are different. All that is very much learned rather than innate, from what I understand.
*i know how, it's because i thrive on confrontation and love fighting, physically and verbally, and people see that i am excited to be getting into it with them and they fuck right off. very annoying! 0/10. please follow through if you are going to PRETEND to start fighting me, u assholes :(((
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I know what you mean by stance, and I have a pretty good idea of what Confident Stance you mean. I worked to cultivate one and also to cultivate a "relaxed, approachable, Mino your coworkers are terrified of you stop looking like the Terminator" one for other occasions. (Back home the former would be Kind of Grumpy Stance and the latter would be Stupid Foreigner Stance.)
I think there's a big element of voice to it as well. "How to sound confident" guides have all sorts of tricks that come across as "how to sound like an angry white douchebag" to me.
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re voice: for sure. Voice is a hard one for me though because I spend so much time like. actively paying attention to so many aspects of how I'm coming over that I actually really couldn't tell you what I do to sound "confident" so much as "how am I making my voice approachable to counter my expression" or "am i playing appropriately nonthreatening so I can approach strangers" or "am I speaking loud/quiet enough" that like one-size-fits-all confidence just plain doesn't exist for me there, but there's certainly an element of like self-important smugness to it.
Honestly, it might be really interesting to get like overly socially analytical people from across the globe in a room together to just intensely analyze each other's demeanors. That sounds like it would be MISERABLE to be part of, because, like, i worked hard on this stop paying attention to it, but also the results would be neat as hell.
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Because eye contact from others reads as a threat to me. I can imitate eye contact but it isn’t natural to me.
My brain is fried after work I may not be bringing anything that exciting to the table rn.
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oh to clarify on the "that's not a bad thing" thing, at least half of this is something I, as a deeply dysfunctional person who thinks about socialization almost entirely as something you can "win" one way or another and who had to learn all my social skills on purpose even if i'm good at them now, have come up with based off my own experiences. I don't have the experiences I don't have, so if you are coming at this with a different perspective and agreeing with me, that's a hint i'm on the right track. Baseline establishment, whoo!
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My personal bubble in terms of physical contact is limited to people I know well and pets. It forces me to ignore some of my boundaries out of politeness on certain situations which I absolutely fucking hate.
It’s also because I have a very sensitive sense of smell and it’s someone’s close enough for me to shake their hand I can also smell their perfume/cologne, body odour and whatever they ate a few hours ago*.
I also never initiate handshakes and I’m always the one who ends up having to grab the persons hand second.
So I suppose handshakes are threatening in that someone thinks physical touch is a right they have, not something they have to earn with me. Even if I say I don’t do handshakes and don’t do it they still expected to be able to touch me in the first place.
*Some of my social behaviour is derived from trying to avoid smelling strangers. If I’m friends with someone I’m fine with how they smell even if they haven’t washed in a few days. But smelling strangers either themselves or their living spaces is unnerving for me.