This is an insightful read. Especially for its time! I struggle with being defensive at home; for example if a mistake that I've made is pointed out, my first reaction is to deny or look for excuses rather than to empathise with the other person, who may be feeling upset and unheard as something has happened for the nth time. For some reason, this doesn't happen to anywhere near the same degree at work, where I am fully able to own my mistakes and look for ways forward.
Text at this level of emotional abstraction can be quite difficult to internalise, especially for those with less practise or who might be "on the spectrum". It's helpful to have one or two illustrative examples in each category. For example:
Evaluative: "Sort out your code before sending it for review, it's an absolute mess yet again and wastes my time."
Descriptive: "After an initial review I can see code style issues A, B, C, some of which also occured in PRs X, Y, Z. Please make sure you're checking through for these in future review request as it would greatly streamline the review process."
Also, listing out a set of categories is useful, and even sufficient for many people. But it doesn't tell you how to stop being defensive, just what being defensive looks like and how to deal with defensiveness in others. Defensiveness often stems from some insecurity about yourself. Reassuring that insecurity can resolve the issue. In my above example with Evaluative and Descriptive text, the speaker may be more evaluative if they're stressed about time-pressures and resent having to mentor more junior employees. It might be helpful for them to cultivate the part of themselves that values broad, long-term knowledge and skills growth in the team, and to take some perspective regarding the relative seriousness of those time pressures.
" for example if a mistake that I've made is pointed out,"
If it is unambiguously your mistake, then fair enough - but in my experience, "stop being defensive" is often used when defending oneself is a perfectly legitimate thing to do in the circumstances.
I would say that "being defensive" is different to "defending oneself". Given the semantic overlap it's very easy to see why they'd be conflated. Being defensive is an emotional response that serves to protect ones ego. It often lashes out, invokes absolutes, dismisses the other, deflects all responsibility, and avoids resolution. Defending your behaviour in an assertive manner need not do this.
Let's take an example. Say that my wife finds the cutlery draw in a messy state. She's previously brought it up with me and I had agreed to make an effort to help keep it tidy. It's potentially ambiguous in that it's not clear who's "fault" it is. But that doesn't actually matter in terms of resolving the conflict.
Defensive me: "Huh? I dunno! I've just been putting things there like normal as far as I can remember. And anyway I've been having to do the clearing up as well as putting the kids to bed this week so what do you expect?! You're always taking me to task for stuff like this. Why are you so wound up about a draw? If it's so important to you why don't you just tidy it yourself?"
Assertive & empathetic me: "You know what, you're right. The draw is in a state. And I can understand why that's upsettting as you have brought it up before, and it is frustrating to have to root around to get what you need. To be honest, I don't remember being very scrupulous about keeping it orderly, but I'll make sure to focus on it. I've been finding it a struggle to stay mindful about what I'm doing in the evenings this week as I realise I've taken on quite a lot of chores, so it's very possible I overlooked this. Shall we try doing XYZ to make it easier to place things back neatly?"
Thanks for responding. You'll be happy to hear I have disagreements with what you've written! :-)
"Given the semantic overlap it's very easy to see why they'd be conflated." - I agree with the definition you gave, but I think such conflation is often intentional. The accusation of "Being defensive" is used to shut down a much broader range of responses.
" it's not clear who's "fault" it is. But that doesn't actually matter in terms of resolving the conflict." - This is technically true - but only a sufficient analysis if resolving the conflict is the sole concern. I posit that there are often broader issues that mean justice is not being served by just resolving the conflict at any cost.
"Assertive & empathetic me: " - I hate to say it, but your last paragraph doesn't sound very assertive to me. It sounds like someone who is hoping to resolve an argument quietly regardless of the cost, rather than have it blow up.
Anyway, thanks for listening, man. I hope you take my answer in a spirit of honest debate. I'm not trying to be rude or anything.
Yeah, I think a sizable portion of people who are ultimately worth keeping around will occasionally go off in this ostensibly toxic manner, such that one would be quite lonely running away from them all. If it gets to be overwhelming, sure, but usually there's a lot more to consider.
What would you say makes it toxic? The fact that a cutlery draw seems like a minor thing? I didn't say anything about the manner in which it was brought up; it could have been totally respectful.
I would not say it's toxic. I was commenting on then-GP's characterization of it being toxic, specifically that I find it to be ostensibly (i.e., purportedly, but probably not actually) toxic, and rather a bit closer to normal if very occasional.
In any case, I think the conversation had already shifted from analyzing defensiveness to analyzing the way people nitpick regardless of how they communicate it.
That we interpreted this tangent so differently is an awesome showcasing of issues with effectiveness of communication!
The article seems to talk more about how to avoid other people going on the defensive, than how to avoid being defensive yourself. Both things are probably useful as neither party in such an exchange can solve it completely on their own.
Being non-defensive towards someone actively emotionally abusive is a bad idea for obvious reason. Conversely if someone if sufficiently insecure or fond of the victim role, no amount of softness in the approach will help
This is my take on the article using your example.
1) Do not use judgmental language (e.g., sort out your code); instead use language that is asking for clarity or asking for more information (e.g., the code has issues A, B, C; any reason why the code cannot be refactored?).
2) Do not assume the other person is stupid (e.g., wastes my time); instead use language that addresses the problem (e.g., please see best practices document 1.2.3 and 4.5.6 to how it should be written.)
3) Do not use cold language that makes you distant and detached (e.g., This is the third time your code has these issues); instead use language that you would use to a friend (e.g., Is there something going on that I should know about?)
“As a person becomes more and more defensive, he or she becomes less and less able to perceive accurately the motives, the values and the emotions of the sender.”
Such a great insight. The content of defensive communication isn’t a requirement here. Anything that increases the defensiveness of the communicator/listener lowers the ability to perceived.
Fear makes us stupid. No plan for future civilization can succeed on fear-based tactics alone.
I wonder, is there any research on offensive communication? Like, people who seize control of a conversation by going on the attack, who respond to another person's statements by changing the subject to something they've done wrong. Defensive communication is unattractive and tends to be ineffective, and I think there are people who pursue a consistent strategy of trying to make others look bad by triggering defensive behavior in them.
It's all in the article, the "offensive" communication examples you describe fall into author's definition of defensive communication categories, which he names "Control", "Strategy" etc.
The paper says about those, "Behavior which a listener perceives as possessing any of the characteristics listed in the left-hand column arouses defensiveness." So the author doesn't describe it as defensive behavior, and he's not even concerned with it as behavior, only as a perception that might arouse defensive behavior.
If you're talking about Trump, I feel like the offensive communication there has done a bad job of convincing people who the offense is aimed at, and only a good job of motivating people who perceive themselves to be aligned with the offense.
Or if they’re talking about those calling people extreme names like Hitler and fascist, it didn’t do a very job convincing people to vote the way the name-callers wanted.
Works and works best may be far apart. His approach was not battle tested against very many alternatives and only against alternatives saddled with severe constraints.
I think lawyers do a really effective job of offensive communication. Their job essentially boils down to redirecting the conversation.
One side poses a question that the judge or jury needs to answer. The other side then responds with: "The question we really need to answer is...". I.e., "You're trying to solve the wrong problem. Let me show you the real problem that needs to be solved."
Reframing the conversation is offensive communication.
The first pair (evaluation/description) is especially tricky to separate in a management situation. I have seen many times an employee make a mistake and be given proper descriptive feedback, they will take it as evaluative and their performance will degrade due to the added pressure - and eventually be let go. Similarly, if the manager doesn't mention the performance and is unconditionally supportive, the employee will continue to do poor quality work, will be let go and then complain that they were not given enough feedback and the chance to do a better job. It takes real finesse to understand the person, see their potential and set a path for improvement.
As someone reasonably early in their career, I'd be really interested to hear from you or other people with experience in this area. How does one handle this correctly? I'm sure it's a case-by-case basis, but what are the commonalities of the solutions in those cases?
> Wikipedia is acknowledged to have been home to “some bitter disputes”. Indeed, conflict at Wikipedia is said to be “as addictive as cocaine”. Yet, such observations are not cynical commentary but motivation for a collection of social norms. These norms speak to the intentional stance and communicative behaviors Wikipedians should adopt when interacting with one another. In the following pages, I provide a survey of these norms on the English Wikipedia and argue they can be characterized as supportive based on Jack Gibb’s classic communication article “Defensive Communication”.
I used to be defensive a lot, that's when I realized one of the main reason was due to low self-esteem and lack of self acceptance, many times people weren't trying to devalue me or offend me but because of I couldn't really accept myself, I usually thought they were attacking me instead of actually engage in the conversation to see if they really meant to judge me.
After therapy, lots of reading and learning to accept myself, now I feel better and more efficient communicating, sometimes I don't even notice people are judging me or making fun of me, because now I seek very little validation from people, this makes me focus on the issue and supporting kind people around me.
it's still a work in progress, but this new perspective of the world brings me more freedom and happiness.
this is a very good read, and I did found some of the mistakes I sometimes make in communication, this is one of the post that'll make me want to reread in the future.
> Besides talking about the topic, he thinks about how he appears to others, how he may be seen more favorably, how he may win, dominate, impress or escape punishment, and/or how he may avoid or mitigate a perceived attack... Such inner feelings and outward acts tend to create similarly defensive postures in others; and, if unchecked, the ensuing circular response becomes increasingly destructive.
> You only know you’ve shipped when your company’s leadership acknowledge you’ve shipped. A congratulations message in Slack from your VP is a good sign, as is an internal blog post that claims victory. For small ships, an atta-boy from your manager will do. This probably sounds circular, but I think it’s a really important point.
i have somewhat ..doubts.. about the latter. Showing Empathy and Being Empathic are different things, first being just a theather, easily overdone and moving into familiarity (How are you Honey, today? You're so great! from some random nurse in hospital. Or hairdresser.. Like that robot from Wall-E..). And that puts me into defensive, or maybe even, "ignore-those-BS" mode. Maybe i've seen too many Fake smiles.. and i overreact it. But IMO the border between above two is very difficult to walk.
It is actually relevant in this case because the text portraits defensive communication as bad, and this editing stance fits the bill. In fact the current state of political speech in the west puts everyone in defense, such as with this kind of crap.
Anyway a great read, it applies to various contexts, from work and family to politics and online discourse.
I call this the 'everything is related to everything somehow' truism - sure, you can make the case for almost any comment or submission but it's not some universal beat-the-forum-conventions cheat code. Could one write some sort of reasonable comment critiquing this edit? Maybe. But generic, reflexive harumphing is not that and tends to trash threads which is one of the many reasons it's discouraged.
Appealing to the rule books is a lazy way to avoid a discussion that if approached according to the rules can be held enjoyably. I don't want to believe that you are arguing in bad faith, but it feels like you are, because you conveniently ignored the rest of the reasonable criticism ahead of you to further your appeal.
Disdain for the alterations of this article speak to the intent behind the article itself. Ironically, the editor places the focus of a possible reader's defenses at the top.
The article can be seen as a justification or explanation of why a person would be averse or become defensive toward arbitrary (and possibly unauthorized) edits for the sake of gender inclusivity.
The edits themselves can be read as exclusionary if we speculate that they were made to signal to the editor's own audience rather than to be shared with the general public...
or as an attempt by the editor to impose the norms of his age and culture otto that of the original author's...
in addition to imposing his perceived norms and culture onto contemporary readers.
It's worth noting that Joseph Reagle is an academic with an interest in "geek feminism". I don't bring this up to paint him is blameworthy, but to add context as to why he may have made these changes. And I doubt he ever intended an audience beyond the scope of his profession and interests to see his edition of the article.
So there's that. Harumph-humph-harumph. Maybe your appeal was not made in bad faith after all. You have received two attempts at criticizing the edits. Harumph-humph-harumph.
Appealing to the rule books is a lazy way to avoid discussion
This is the entirety of the comment we are discussing:
"Edited only to reduce gender-specific references". Really?
Effectively it just says ‘Really?’. This is neither discussion nor evidence of any effort to engage in one so if these things matter to you, you might be better off bringing them to the attention of the author of that comment.
Yeah, and in spite of that comment people are trying to offer a line of discussion that is in conformity to the guidelines you cited.
But it looks like you're more interested in policing the discussion according to guidelines than engaging in the discussion after people get hip to your policing.
At this point, I'm doubtful if you even tried to read the article that we're talking about because this exchange is starting to feel like a dramatic meta-demonstration of the subject matter (defensive communication) and the community's response to the subject matter (the editor's perceived ignorance of how their changes contribute to defensive behaviors) and I don't think that you are primed to appreciate the success of this achievement.
There are several uses of the phrases "he or she" and "himself or herself" in the linked text. I suspect it originally said "he" and "himself". Which would have made sense in a mostly-male audience (the Navy at the time).
It has not happened in every instance. Probably for readability, e.g. consider how dense this paragraph would become:
> The person who behaves defensively, even though he or she also gives some attention to the common task, devotes an appreciable portion of energy to defending himself or herself. Besides talking about the topic, he thinks about how he appears to others, how he may be seen more favorably, how he may win, dominate, impress or escape punishment, and/or how he may avoid or mitigate a perceived attack.
> Which would have made sense in a mostly-male audience (the Navy at the time).
Also, use the male form for when you meant both men and women was at that time the prescribed grammatical "style" (as in "A Chicago Manual of Style").
Personally I think just switching, or using "she" consistently, is just as good:
"The person who behaves defensively, even though she also gives some attention to the common task..."
If you really want to be generic, I think using them/they is a much better option:
"The person who behaves defensively, even though they also give some attention to the common task, devotes an appreciable portion of energy to defending themselves. Besides talking about the topic, they think about how they appear to others, how they may be seen more favorably, how they may win..."
People will complain that this is "wrong", but:
1. As you say, the prescription to use "he or she" is clumsy and awkward.
2. It's been in use in English since the 1400s, and has been used in published works by authors like Lord Byron and Jane Austen [1].
It's convenient and well-established; I don't see any reason to continue forbidding it in formal writing.
> Also, use the male form for when you meant both men and women was at that time the prescribed grammatical "style" (as in "A Chicago Manual of Style").
This was still taught in US primary and secondary schools through at least the early '00s.
I think most such "people" (those who oppose the use of singular they) would limit their opposition to a particular subset of usage, which is pointed out in the Wikipedia article you linked to as follows:
> In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals emerged
I doubt they'd be opposed to the centuries-old usage being proposed in this thread, which Wikipedia mentions like so:
The closest thing that I could find to a freely available unedited version of the text is in Etc: A Review of General Semantics, 1965-06: Volume 22 Issue 2.
The he-or-she changes are numerous but insignificant (not consistently done though), but some of the changes to word choices I wouldn't have made (and some are clear errors, e.g. debating -> doubting), and three paragraphs have gone missing (don't know if they got dropped while transcribing into the web page, or were made by the original author at some point).
I'm not sure what the point of your comment is. Are you surprised that this happened? Is this a value judgement? Would like you discuss the merit of this change?
Or are you just being reactonary because someone mentioned the word gender?
The point of my comment was to express surprise at the hubris of someone editing the dead for their own private political reasons, and to find out more about this practice
The point is that the text is not authentic. How do we know that the "reduced references", which basically means that the editor removed what he disliked for his own arbitrary and personal reasons, did not affect the meaning of the text?
I agree that this is an odd choice. It hasn't been edited all that well, so the "person" who is "he or she" becomes a "he" in the next sentence. More than that, there's a clumsy instance of find-replace, "person-is-an-object-study", where the intention of the author was almost certainly "humanity-is-an-object-study".
On a personal level, I think editing old language for political correctness smacks of revisionism, but if such language must be edited, then the editing should at least preserve the meaning of the original.
If you do a search for "person-is-an-object-study" it seems to be a phrase from the original author (appearing in other quoted material that hasn't edited "he" to "he or she")
The original journal article (just posted another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42139081) had "person-is-an-object-of-study" which makes more sense. And this is also the only version you find quoted if you search in Google Books; all quotes of the other material are probably propagating errors from some earlier transcription error (that precedes the he-or-she).
Text at this level of emotional abstraction can be quite difficult to internalise, especially for those with less practise or who might be "on the spectrum". It's helpful to have one or two illustrative examples in each category. For example:
Evaluative: "Sort out your code before sending it for review, it's an absolute mess yet again and wastes my time."
Descriptive: "After an initial review I can see code style issues A, B, C, some of which also occured in PRs X, Y, Z. Please make sure you're checking through for these in future review request as it would greatly streamline the review process."
Also, listing out a set of categories is useful, and even sufficient for many people. But it doesn't tell you how to stop being defensive, just what being defensive looks like and how to deal with defensiveness in others. Defensiveness often stems from some insecurity about yourself. Reassuring that insecurity can resolve the issue. In my above example with Evaluative and Descriptive text, the speaker may be more evaluative if they're stressed about time-pressures and resent having to mentor more junior employees. It might be helpful for them to cultivate the part of themselves that values broad, long-term knowledge and skills growth in the team, and to take some perspective regarding the relative seriousness of those time pressures.
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