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What if, and this might blow your mind, we tweak things so that agreeableness is rewarded more? Society is constructed too adversarially for my tastes. More co

What if, and this might blow your mind, we tweak things so that agreeableness is rewarded more? Society is constructed too adversarially for my tastes. More collaboration would be better.

Fordrus 8y ago
There isn’t some function we can feed a different argument here to value agreeableness more highly though. I generally agree, but that more collaboration would be good isn’t so much the question - the question is HOW these tweaks can be done.
- damnyou 8y ago
  I think getting more women into positions of power will be a start. Testosterone really does affect aggression.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Perhaps more importantly, there is lots of evidence that exclusively male environments seriously amplify the effect and make aggression a fundamental part of the culture. Even very aggressive men tend to behave differently in mixed gender groups.
    - jasonm23 8y ago
      Very true. I think it's worth noting the inverse. That less aggressive men will become more competitive and aggressive over time in all male groups.
  - belorn 8y ago
    I wish people would stop spreading this myth and actually follow current science when calling out biological difference between women and men. Testosterone does not cause or create aggression. The link between testosterone has the same root as the link between emotional instability and estrogens, which is deeply seated into gender roles and gender discrimination. Consistently when people look at aggression the same findings pops up. Men more likely to engage physical aggression, women are more likely to engage low-risk aggression, and women and men show to be equally likely to engage in verbal aggression. Unless Linus goes around and are physical violent with fellow developers then his gender has nothing to do with it. Take a look at this nice lecture from a professor of biology, neurology and neurological sciences (https://youtu.be/2bnSY4L3V8s?t=30m17s https://youtu.be/2bnSY4L3V8s?t=30m17s). Recent studies into testosterone levels has shown that it has no relation to initiating aggression in both men and women. What it did find is that different level of testosterone impact how much of an defense behavior is triggered in response to social status threats. An interesting fact is that higher level of testosterone in women actually have a bigger impact compared to men, but men on average showed a larger response. That might sound like aggression but here is the deal. If you create a social structure which rewards cooperation and social status is maintained through non-aggressive behavior then testosterone is correlated to lower aggression. That mean that it should tell you a lot about the community or company if testosterone correlate to aggression.
- wpietri 8y ago
  As a start, we could stop exalting and rewarding powerful sociopaths. And slowly, I think, we are. E.g., the MeToo movement has forced some powerful sociopaths to face at least a small amount of accountability. Rich people at least occasionally go to jail if their crimes are egregious enough. But it could be faster.
humanrebar 8y ago
Most people would put sarcasm on the adversarial side if the spectrum.
mingee 8y ago
So how do we 'we' as the collective whole tweak things?
- damnyou 8y ago
  Get more women into positions of power.
  - nyberg 8y ago
    They would have to get themselves in such positions thus this is yet another place where it sounds nice to say but in practice it doesn't seem to be working. Atrificially placing them would harm the work force yet them making their own way seems to be also rather difficult thus we're stuck in a wonderful situation were it's not exactly clear how to get there. There's also the change that this is not the solution as certain positions do require some form of aggression unless you're willing to persuade the other companies in different countries from the one you propose the change in to do the same. Otherwise it may prove to be a disadvantage even to have a more "argeeable" person in such a position. I would love for the solution to be as simple "get more women into power" but as it currently stands from my perspective, we have deeper issues to deal with where it doesn't matter if it's a woman or a man. I'm open to be proven wrong though.
nomel 8y ago
You can’t be 100% collaborative, or agreeable. There almost always has to be one solution out of many that needs to be be perused. How does the group select one solution, without being disagreeable? “Ok we’ll choose that one just because we don’t want to rock the boat” is not an effective way to select. Conflicting thought will always exist, from conflicting observation and experience in the problem space. Those with the better perspective have to push, often hard, to make sure the correct path, which others may not see, is selected. At some point bad ideas need to be halted. I think this is what “disagreeable” is. How you halt them is another matter, but charisma, manipulation, or favors, which are often the “agreeable” approach, just means you’re steering the path using emotion. I think that’s separate from being “disagreeable”.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

What if, and this might blow your mind, we tweak things so that agreeableness is rewarded more? Society is constructed too adversarially for my tastes. More collaboration would be better.

Fordrus 8y ago

There isn’t some function we can feed a different argument here to value agreeableness more highly though. I generally agree, but that more collaboration would be good isn’t so much the question - the question is HOW these tweaks can be done.

damnyou 8y ago
I think getting more women into positions of power will be a start. Testosterone really does affect aggression.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Perhaps more importantly, there is lots of evidence that exclusively male environments seriously amplify the effect and make aggression a fundamental part of the culture. Even very aggressive men tend to behave differently in mixed gender groups.
  - jasonm23 8y ago
    Very true. I think it's worth noting the inverse. That less aggressive men will become more competitive and aggressive over time in all male groups.
- belorn 8y ago
  I wish people would stop spreading this myth and actually follow current science when calling out biological difference between women and men. Testosterone does not cause or create aggression. The link between testosterone has the same root as the link between emotional instability and estrogens, which is deeply seated into gender roles and gender discrimination. Consistently when people look at aggression the same findings pops up. Men more likely to engage physical aggression, women are more likely to engage low-risk aggression, and women and men show to be equally likely to engage in verbal aggression. Unless Linus goes around and are physical violent with fellow developers then his gender has nothing to do with it. Take a look at this nice lecture from a professor of biology, neurology and neurological sciences (https://youtu.be/2bnSY4L3V8s?t=30m17s https://youtu.be/2bnSY4L3V8s?t=30m17s). Recent studies into testosterone levels has shown that it has no relation to initiating aggression in both men and women. What it did find is that different level of testosterone impact how much of an defense behavior is triggered in response to social status threats. An interesting fact is that higher level of testosterone in women actually have a bigger impact compared to men, but men on average showed a larger response. That might sound like aggression but here is the deal. If you create a social structure which rewards cooperation and social status is maintained through non-aggressive behavior then testosterone is correlated to lower aggression. That mean that it should tell you a lot about the community or company if testosterone correlate to aggression.
wpietri 8y ago
As a start, we could stop exalting and rewarding powerful sociopaths. And slowly, I think, we are. E.g., the MeToo movement has forced some powerful sociopaths to face at least a small amount of accountability. Rich people at least occasionally go to jail if their crimes are egregious enough. But it could be faster.

humanrebar 8y ago

Most people would put sarcasm on the adversarial side if the spectrum.

mingee 8y ago

So how do we 'we' as the collective whole tweak things?

damnyou 8y ago
Get more women into positions of power.
- nyberg 8y ago
  They would have to get themselves in such positions thus this is yet another place where it sounds nice to say but in practice it doesn't seem to be working. Atrificially placing them would harm the work force yet them making their own way seems to be also rather difficult thus we're stuck in a wonderful situation were it's not exactly clear how to get there. There's also the change that this is not the solution as certain positions do require some form of aggression unless you're willing to persuade the other companies in different countries from the one you propose the change in to do the same. Otherwise it may prove to be a disadvantage even to have a more "argeeable" person in such a position. I would love for the solution to be as simple "get more women into power" but as it currently stands from my perspective, we have deeper issues to deal with where it doesn't matter if it's a woman or a man. I'm open to be proven wrong though.

nomel 8y ago

You can’t be 100% collaborative, or agreeable. There almost always has to be one solution out of many that needs to be be perused. How does the group select one solution, without being disagreeable? “Ok we’ll choose that one just because we don’t want to rock the boat” is not an effective way to select. Conflicting thought will always exist, from conflicting observation and experience in the problem space. Those with the better perspective have to push, often hard, to make sure the correct path, which others may not see, is selected. At some point bad ideas need to be halted. I think this is what “disagreeable” is. How you halt them is another matter, but charisma, manipulation, or favors, which are often the “agreeable” approach, just means you’re steering the path using emotion. I think that’s separate from being “disagreeable”.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]