This post is decently interesting and fun although I can't really understand where it's going? I see the connections between the ideas the author is making but overall the post feels rather meandering.
Aside: I hate to be a grammarian but the paragraph with four em dashes across two sentences really did my head in. Generally I expect them to set off parentheticals and I had no clue if I was supposed to place the parentheses across the sentences.
If you like this line of thinking, I would suggest reading "Games People Play" [1] (also can find the original research paper if you look around for it).
Basic premise is how we fall into transactional games in social settings (talking about weather, sports, etc) and acknowledging that can help break out of that into more interesting conversation.
Just bought the book based off your recommendation, thanks a lot for that.
I was curious to read something along the lines of thinking the OP was musing on, but couldn't phrase it in a way that would help me find it. And neither did i suspect that it was an actual thing people wrote about, as opposed to just me having some random thoughts and wishing someone wrote about those. Reading the description of that book makes me believe that you absolutely nailed it with that recommendation.
I discovered Games People Play in 2017, and found it to be a fascinating exploration of how people communicate. I still refer to it.
I don't have much info on this, but I brought it up to my mom who mentioned that the book had a period of popularity before my time, but had apparently been debunked as too rudimentary. I'm convinced that the framework is still relevant despite that, although I typically trust my mom's intuition on people's behind the scenes incentives -- she's proven to have theories about people that take months to play out but end up playing out.
Wow. I read this at around 16 in 1983 and it made a huge impression on me then. It helped me really understand a few things about myself, as I always felt very socially out of it...
Time to re-read!!
> If so, then why was the waitress not disturbed? It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the group. I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, it’s my inability to manage my reaction to the words around me.
This sounds like a reference to stoic philosophy (of which I am not a fan), but I mean, don’t phobias exist, and don’t degrees of intensity exist so that it’s actually impossible to resist a trigger?
I personally used to be really scared of roaches, too, and I got over it not because I learned to control the fear itself, but because I thought about roaches differently (something along the lines of considering them weak). There is no controlling that fear because fear in this context is intense—I still get jerky sometimes when a cockroach shows up by surprise, or when there’s more than one of them, or worst of all, when they actually fly. I can usually avoid making a scene when there’s room to run somewhere else or if there’s an insect spray nearby, but stuck in a room with these triggers? I might go insane.
The conclusion that the women screamed because they’re not in control is not only lazy and prejudiced, it’s also an arrogant epistemological claim on something that the author doesn’t actually know, which is whether the fear or disgust of roaches is simply more intense for other people.
Just curious, why aren’t you a fan of stoicism? If you don’t mind sharing some thoughts on it I’d appreciate it. I’ve been exploring it and I enjoy reading various takes on it. I’m not married to the philosophy and looking for a battle by any means.
I have an only barely related story involving McDonalds and social behavior, but if he can meander, so can I, right?
Back around 1990 I was working in a (then industrial) part of Hong Kong called Tsuen Wan. I would regularly go to McDonalds for lunch around 11:30 in order to watch an amazing crowd behavior. Above the McDonalds was a large elementary school. At noon sharp they would break for lunch and huge numbers of little kids would come down and crowd into the restaurant to order lunch. Almost 100% of these kids ordered exactly the same thing: a Filet 'o Fish.
I remember this McDonalds having a very long row of those diagonal slots where hamburgers were slid down and stacked up: except for one slot, they were all pre-filled with Filet 'o Fish sandwiches in preparation for the onslaught.
Here it's the opposite. The cowburgers are pronto. The fish burgers take forever. I asked why this is so, puzzled why the healthier alternative is saddled with the time penalty.
Freshness, she said. The fish burgers have the shortest shelf life so they make each one to order.
That's the price I pay for not eating next to a large elementary school in Hong Kong at lunch time.
Suggesting McDonalds is only half the insight - and contextual, anyway. Instead, give an arbitrary binary choice. "Would you like tacos or sushi?" will often elicit (1) a choice or (2) a third option ("I kind of want a burger"), which is now the default.
If you can't decide between two options then take out a coin. Heads you get a burger, tails you get tacos. Flip the coin. If you feel even a tinge of regret or disappointment over the result, then go with the other option. Being faced with a specific concrete option can make it easier to rank it compared to alternatives.
I learned of this idea from a TED talk many years ago.
Oh..! Interesting, but I think there are very different outcomes with leaning on either (1) "earnest A or earnest B" vs (2) "bad C" (McDonalds Theory)...
The McDonalds Theory doesn't attempt to control or guide the decision. It maximally liberates others to shape it. It invites serendipity, from the POV of the prompter. It doesn't assume the poser of the question has any special knowledge or expertise with which they wish to shape the choice landscape.
But "A or B" can very easily (and perhaps unintentionally) guide and take control of the choice. Its usage can easily become a "dark pattern" that collapses the possibility space onto one of two known trajectories (from the perspective of the prompter).
If you WANT to take control, then "A or B" is great. But if you want to lazily invite collaborative ideas from the minds of others with the least effort or skill, then McDonalds Theory is much much better imho.
To show my cards, I've realized I air toward the latter in my community organizing and facilitation work. Frankly, I believe we're all more likely to learn more about the world through McDonalds Theory framing, instead of getting stuck in local minima of "only what we can imagine" as leaders/supporters :)
This stuff is all very relevant to facilitation practices! It's neat stuff to think through, so thanks for the opportunity to work through it out loud :)
This is how I've learned to negotiate with my 2 and 3 year olds when they are being intractable and rebellious. They don't like the idea of whatever I'm offering them for some reason, but getting them to admit they want "grapes" more than "apples" is enough of a concession that it makes a kind of consensus.
I've heard of the McDonald's theory many years ago and I do somewhat agree that it works. But I'm not so sure that Seinfield for conversation-starting works in a similar way. I was an immigrant in the US from Asia. Even though that was almost 25 years ago and I've lived in the US for far longer than in Asia now, I'm still not familiar with Seinfield; and that's the case for many other immigrants friends I know as well.
But take that idea further, I'm not even talking about Seinfield in particular. Let's say we use any subject-X for this purpose of conversation-starting. I'm not a natural conversationist, and most conversations with acquaintances or strangers often end in awkward silences after a sentence or two. I've had great conversations sure, but usually it's because they happen to touch on very specific topics that I really am interested in. In other words, I don't really buy this whole idea that all you need to do is to start with a topic common enough, and the conversation flows. It just hasn't been my experience.
I can’t find it now, but somewhere I read about the FORD method, and it always worked: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. I keep trying until something hits. At professional gatherings, I usually do a sequence of ODRF: what do you do? What would you do if you won the 100mil lottery? What do you do do fun? What does your family hope fo you?
Reading over the above, I now realize how much I agree with the author’s thesis: good icebreakers use both commonality and creative prompts.
Some friends all got motorcycles around the same time. One suggested we should start calling ourselves Cheesy Rider. He thought he was joking - using the McDonald's Theory to spur us to come up with a better name.
We've been Cheesy Rider ever since. I laser-cut matching cheese-themed license plate frames, so we're stuck with it forever.
I recall watching a group of kids who figured out that they could increase their speed on the slide by about 4x by riding down it while sitting on a plastic food tray.
I don’t know who had more fun - the kids or me watching them.
"found the odds of Seinfeld were better than sports or weather as a hurdle breaker. The combination of a personal like for a cult classic..."
This dinged the credibility.
Not sure how mainstream show Seinfeld can be thought of as a cult classic. Unless this is thrown in there to spark conversation here on how he is wrong.
> You are with a group of friends, colleagues and no one has any ideas for lunch, suggest McDonald’s.
Creative sparks fly. Nothing rallies the group better than this initial suggestion.
Main takeaway -- if people don't know the answer, say the wrong answer, and the group will eventually produce a better answer. Sounds like how the web works (best way to get the right answer is to post the wrong one). Anyway, this is a cool idea. I will try suggesting McDonald's sometime.
I like the memory of watching Seinfeld to learn America's mostly unspoken social norms. Seems like comedies mocking these norms are great for learning about modern cultures. I'd be interested in a list of similar works for other cultures.
I once met a new colleague in China. We went to dinner and halfway through I complimented him on his accent-free colloquial American English and inquired if perhaps he’d gone to school in the US. He said no. I asked how he’d learned to speak such polished American. He said friends. I stupidly said... you have American friends in Beijing?? He said, ‘No, Friends... The TV show.’
> Not a word was spoken, we learned something new here: different cultures, different emphasis. Even if you return the favor, asking for ride to airport is reserved for very strong relationships!
I'm an American who never seems to be able to understand cultural norms. Is this a thing? Is driving people to the airport that big a deal? If I need a ride to the airport, I always just ask around. I am always ready to drive people to the airport (or anywhere) as I went without a car for a few years and greatly appreciated every ride I got.
That facet of the show always struck me as particularly New York airport culture, but I've spent my whole life on the opposite coast so don't trust me on that.
It does feel like something that would be a very different ask city to city though. I'd never ask for a ride in SF, because BART is fine and it's a bit of a drive back for them. But a nice downtown airport like San Diego and I'll ask anyone I'm close enough with to tell I'm in town.
Considering that you will pay an additional fee with any cab/ride hailing service, there must be, therefore the additional economic incentive.
Airport traffic is unique. There’s no room to loiter and additional complexity in navigating. Also, there’s the expectation of luggage.
That said, airports are very different around the country and so are cultural norms. But generally, you should toss some cash or a token of appreciation to the person driving you to or from the airport.
I don’t think this is true. Even if a penguin is the biggest penguin [0] and enormously fat at twice their normal weight, that’s only 90kg and not going to break much ice.
You know what helped me break the ice in Japan? It wasn't fat penguins or even fat tanuki.
It was Pokémon.
With a bit of alcohol to loosen the tongue, I found that I could start interesting conversations with Japanese people by using Pokémon as an opening topic. It was something everybody knew on my side of the pond and on theirs. As an added bonus they would help me when I fumbled my Japanese, the learning of which constituted ~50% of why I went to bars to strike up conversations with randos in the first place. (I am not a great conversationalist.)
>"At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away. It landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.
The waitress rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waitress. The waitress stood firm, composed herself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on her dress. When she was confident enough, she grabbed it with her fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.
Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?
If so, then why was the waitress not disturbed? It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the group. I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, it’s my inability to manage my reaction to the words around me.
Everyone reacts, few respond.
Conversations can sometimes go nowhere, sometimes they go to places we are uncomfortable with. The waitress leads the way on how to respond."
[+] [-] automatoney|5 years ago|reply
Aside: I hate to be a grammarian but the paragraph with four em dashes across two sentences really did my head in. Generally I expect them to set off parentheticals and I had no clue if I was supposed to place the parentheses across the sentences.
[+] [-] coderintherye|5 years ago|reply
Basic premise is how we fall into transactional games in social settings (talking about weather, sports, etc) and acknowledging that can help break out of that into more interesting conversation.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play-Psychology-Relation...
[+] [-] filoleg|5 years ago|reply
I was curious to read something along the lines of thinking the OP was musing on, but couldn't phrase it in a way that would help me find it. And neither did i suspect that it was an actual thing people wrote about, as opposed to just me having some random thoughts and wishing someone wrote about those. Reading the description of that book makes me believe that you absolutely nailed it with that recommendation.
[+] [-] wsinks|5 years ago|reply
I don't have much info on this, but I brought it up to my mom who mentioned that the book had a period of popularity before my time, but had apparently been debunked as too rudimentary. I'm convinced that the framework is still relevant despite that, although I typically trust my mom's intuition on people's behind the scenes incentives -- she's proven to have theories about people that take months to play out but end up playing out.
[+] [-] Paddywack|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] senkora|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moonchild|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mqrs|5 years ago|reply
This sounds like a reference to stoic philosophy (of which I am not a fan), but I mean, don’t phobias exist, and don’t degrees of intensity exist so that it’s actually impossible to resist a trigger?
I personally used to be really scared of roaches, too, and I got over it not because I learned to control the fear itself, but because I thought about roaches differently (something along the lines of considering them weak). There is no controlling that fear because fear in this context is intense—I still get jerky sometimes when a cockroach shows up by surprise, or when there’s more than one of them, or worst of all, when they actually fly. I can usually avoid making a scene when there’s room to run somewhere else or if there’s an insect spray nearby, but stuck in a room with these triggers? I might go insane.
The conclusion that the women screamed because they’re not in control is not only lazy and prejudiced, it’s also an arrogant epistemological claim on something that the author doesn’t actually know, which is whether the fear or disgust of roaches is simply more intense for other people.
[+] [-] praveenperera|5 years ago|reply
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters”
In your case the cockroach didn’t change, you found a different way to frame the cockroach. In turn you react to it differently.
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeanLuke|5 years ago|reply
Back around 1990 I was working in a (then industrial) part of Hong Kong called Tsuen Wan. I would regularly go to McDonalds for lunch around 11:30 in order to watch an amazing crowd behavior. Above the McDonalds was a large elementary school. At noon sharp they would break for lunch and huge numbers of little kids would come down and crowd into the restaurant to order lunch. Almost 100% of these kids ordered exactly the same thing: a Filet 'o Fish.
I remember this McDonalds having a very long row of those diagonal slots where hamburgers were slid down and stacked up: except for one slot, they were all pre-filled with Filet 'o Fish sandwiches in preparation for the onslaught.
[+] [-] somedude895|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wombatmobile|5 years ago|reply
Freshness, she said. The fish burgers have the shortest shelf life so they make each one to order.
That's the price I pay for not eating next to a large elementary school in Hong Kong at lunch time.
[+] [-] curiousllama|5 years ago|reply
A binary choice gets you to a default.
[+] [-] Aerroon|5 years ago|reply
I learned of this idea from a TED talk many years ago.
[+] [-] patcon|5 years ago|reply
The McDonalds Theory doesn't attempt to control or guide the decision. It maximally liberates others to shape it. It invites serendipity, from the POV of the prompter. It doesn't assume the poser of the question has any special knowledge or expertise with which they wish to shape the choice landscape.
But "A or B" can very easily (and perhaps unintentionally) guide and take control of the choice. Its usage can easily become a "dark pattern" that collapses the possibility space onto one of two known trajectories (from the perspective of the prompter).
If you WANT to take control, then "A or B" is great. But if you want to lazily invite collaborative ideas from the minds of others with the least effort or skill, then McDonalds Theory is much much better imho.
To show my cards, I've realized I air toward the latter in my community organizing and facilitation work. Frankly, I believe we're all more likely to learn more about the world through McDonalds Theory framing, instead of getting stuck in local minima of "only what we can imagine" as leaders/supporters :)
This stuff is all very relevant to facilitation practices! It's neat stuff to think through, so thanks for the opportunity to work through it out loud :)
[+] [-] corey_moncure|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godot|5 years ago|reply
But take that idea further, I'm not even talking about Seinfield in particular. Let's say we use any subject-X for this purpose of conversation-starting. I'm not a natural conversationist, and most conversations with acquaintances or strangers often end in awkward silences after a sentence or two. I've had great conversations sure, but usually it's because they happen to touch on very specific topics that I really am interested in. In other words, I don't really buy this whole idea that all you need to do is to start with a topic common enough, and the conversation flows. It just hasn't been my experience.
[+] [-] shittycoder2000|5 years ago|reply
Reading over the above, I now realize how much I agree with the author’s thesis: good icebreakers use both commonality and creative prompts.
[+] [-] sokoloff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsimpson|5 years ago|reply
We've been Cheesy Rider ever since. I laser-cut matching cheese-themed license plate frames, so we're stuck with it forever.
[+] [-] joshuamcginnis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidgh|5 years ago|reply
I don’t know who had more fun - the kids or me watching them.
[+] [-] m463|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bruceb|5 years ago|reply
This dinged the credibility. Not sure how mainstream show Seinfeld can be thought of as a cult classic. Unless this is thrown in there to spark conversation here on how he is wrong.
[+] [-] anonytrary|5 years ago|reply
Main takeaway -- if people don't know the answer, say the wrong answer, and the group will eventually produce a better answer. Sounds like how the web works (best way to get the right answer is to post the wrong one). Anyway, this is a cool idea. I will try suggesting McDonald's sometime.
[+] [-] vharuck|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 11thEarlOfMar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djrogers|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjakubowski|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jolux|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blendergeek|5 years ago|reply
I'm an American who never seems to be able to understand cultural norms. Is this a thing? Is driving people to the airport that big a deal? If I need a ride to the airport, I always just ask around. I am always ready to drive people to the airport (or anywhere) as I went without a car for a few years and greatly appreciated every ride I got.
[+] [-] Talanes|5 years ago|reply
It does feel like something that would be a very different ask city to city though. I'd never ask for a ride in SF, because BART is fine and it's a bit of a drive back for them. But a nice downtown airport like San Diego and I'll ask anyone I'm close enough with to tell I'm in town.
[+] [-] bransonf|5 years ago|reply
Airport traffic is unique. There’s no room to loiter and additional complexity in navigating. Also, there’s the expectation of luggage.
That said, airports are very different around the country and so are cultural norms. But generally, you should toss some cash or a token of appreciation to the person driving you to or from the airport.
[+] [-] musicale|5 years ago|reply
Not if you are an Uber driver.
[+] [-] prepend|5 years ago|reply
I don’t think this is true. Even if a penguin is the biggest penguin [0] and enormously fat at twice their normal weight, that’s only 90kg and not going to break much ice.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_penguin
[+] [-] tiziano88|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|5 years ago|reply
It was Pokémon.
With a bit of alcohol to loosen the tongue, I found that I could start interesting conversations with Japanese people by using Pokémon as an opening topic. It was something everybody knew on my side of the pond and on theirs. As an added bonus they would help me when I fumbled my Japanese, the learning of which constituted ~50% of why I went to bars to strike up conversations with randos in the first place. (I am not a great conversationalist.)
So yeah, Pokémon was my Seinfeld, I guess.
[+] [-] baud147258|5 years ago|reply
it feels like there's a word missing somewhere in that sentence.
[+] [-] peter_d_sherman|5 years ago|reply
The waitress rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waitress. The waitress stood firm, composed herself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on her dress. When she was confident enough, she grabbed it with her fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.
Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?
If so, then why was the waitress not disturbed? It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the group. I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, it’s my inability to manage my reaction to the words around me.
Everyone reacts, few respond.
Conversations can sometimes go nowhere, sometimes they go to places we are uncomfortable with. The waitress leads the way on how to respond."
[+] [-] arghwhat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|5 years ago|reply