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Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing
- roldie 3y agoThis is so interesting, thanks for sharing! (Might want to add 2020 to the title)
- dheera 3y agoI feel like teasing isn't exclusive to primates. Cats do it to each other all the time, I feel this is how they learn to stay alert and defend themselves from actual threats, but I'm not an expert on this.
- sambazi 3y agoit's also the way to learn about, establish and work with personal boundaries
- freddie_mercury 3y agoThe article is about the distinction between playful teasing and aggressive teasing. What cats do is aggressive teasing, not playful teasing. The paper talks about how aggressive teasing is well known outside of humans. The question was whether playful teasing exists outside of humans, since it requires a more fully developed concept of the other's mind. They give the example of offer & withdrawal in an affiliative context. It could be done in an aggressive manner: imagine a bully on the playground offering a ball and then taking it away. But it can also be done in a playful way: imagine a parent playing keep away with a toddler with both sides laughing the whole time. That you characterise feline teasing as about staying alert and not about building bonds further reinforces that cats aren't doing the same kind of playful teasing being described in the paper.
- RugnirViking 3y agoHmm, I think this is interesting. I went and looked at the paper and the distinction here seems very interesting. I always thought of agressive teasing type behavior as a way to probe the percieved hierarchy. Like someone only a bit above you in the hierarchy would get annoyed by it, a stranger would get hostile, someone far above would ignore you, a peer would play back etc. I do think it builds bonds though. If you watch two dogs playfighting you can see them pause occasionally, looking at each other, gauging the other's reaction. They can often go from agressive play to laying in a heap together very quickly.
- Jensson 3y agoDogs do a lot of clearly playful teasing, they signal that it is playful by wagging their tail. You see it all the time when dogs meet new dogs.
- circuit10 3y agoIt seems like there’s a whole thing they go through: go and sniff the other dog to make their presence known, then crouch down and wag their tail, then start running away to provoke the other dog to chase them and see if the other dog wants to and start playing if so At least that’s what I often see happen, and aggression looks quite different
- ordu 3y agoI'm not sure that this is a teasing by definition of the article. Running away dog does nothing surprising for another dog. They just follow a protocol.
- 4death4 3y agoMy dog definitely teases me. She’ll grab one of my socks and sit in front of me with the sock laying on the floor. As soon as I go to pick it up, she’ll snatch it and run away.
- johnchristopher 3y agoBut is it playful or aggressive ? I often hear the behavior you describe is about the dog asserting dominance, which should be a no-no.
- 4death4 3y agoDominance theory in dogs is largely discredited.
- johnchristopher 3y ago
- james-revisoai 3y agoI don't think cats only do aggressive teasing (presumably, you are focusing on how they can treat other cats or rats/mice) Cats can be found playing with weaker animals like ducks or rabbits, and comfortable yet playful in the same nature as puppies with dogs and puppies. Lots of this teasing isn't of agressive nature, but it usually happens within the home/safe place for the animal
- lynx23 3y agoSorry, but as someone who had a cat for 14 years, I have already read too many scientific claims about cats which were obviously totally bonkers that I am inclined to no longer care what scientists figure out about cats.
- mettamage 3y agoRough and tumble play can still be playful. Playfulness is a state of mind, not a mode of soft play
- lynx23 3y agoI immediately thought about my cat as well when reading this. It was fun playing with him. And everyone who has ever been really bitten by a cat (me at the age of 10, went through the hand) knows that 99.999% of cat activities in a typical household are playful.
- monero-xmr 3y ago[flagged]
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago> Uh if I offended you maybe just stay poor > Cryptocurrency username I'm soooo jealous, I'll never get to work alongside powerful stable men like you, ehhh
- monero-xmr 3y agoWhen you don't like the message, attack the source!
- post_below 3y agoThe first half of the post actually does refer to the message. Hyperbolically sure, but I don't think they're wrong. Here's a less hyperbolic interpretation: Women don't seem to like our banter, which is why they aren't successful. They need to change or leave. I think, in context, the crypto bro reference is more relevant than it is ad hominem.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoShoe Dog notes that the highest executives at Nike were referred to collectively as Buttfaces.
- n8cpdx 3y agoI think I’d rather see it go the other way - humor, except the least offensive (think “dad joke”), should be excised from the workplace. I’ve been involved in close-knit friends/like-a-family organizations and sterile, professional organizations. It might be fun to be ball-busting and telling racist/sexist jokes at work, but it is long-term harmful to the organization and the ability of the workers/managers to faithfully execute the organization’s mission. I also think it leads to general corruption and enablement of bad behavior, whether it’s cops protecting their own, or executives ignoring workplace misconduct (quid pro quo, embezzlement, pursuing vendettas, etc). I’ll take professionalism any time, and I hope to see boys club mentality die out within my lifetime.
- strogonoff 3y agoI wonder whether playful teasing could play a similar defensive role to what dares can be argued to play[0]: provoking certain detectable socially healthy reactions, and using absence of such reactions as a negative signal (psychopathy in case of dares, perhaps something like narcissism in case of teasing). [0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-signals-and-psychopaths/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-signals-a..., Sarah Perry with many references to late Pieter Hintjens as well as other research.
- killjoywashere 3y agoWhy do I feel that seeing this article here hints that people are leaning harder into causal inference problems?
- Daub 3y agoMost of my experience of teasing falls into one of two catagories: teasing of a female by a male, teasing of a child by an adult. I can't remember the last time I (m) was teased by another male. This begs the question... at some level is the teasing of females by males an attempt to infantalise them? A mating ploy perhaps?
- reb 3y agoYou don’t tease your male friends and coworkers? I think it’s more of a bonding ritual than anything (a moment of false vulnerability/social danger that resolves into safety), with different outcomes depending on the folks involved.
- Daub 3y agoMaybe we (males to other males) do something similar to teasing... But with a crueler streak. I knew I could call my Irish colleague a freind the day he called me an Englsh wanker. Conversely, a former girlfriend said that she did not consider me as a romantic partner until the first time I teased her. I can't remember what form it took, but there is no way it would have involved me calling her a wanker.
- chaorace 3y agoWhat you describe sounds almost exactly like the definition of playful teasing laid out in the article: > For playful teasing to be successfully interpreted as affiliative rather than aggressive, the teaser, to some extent, has to understand the recipient's expectations and predict their likely reaction. Likewise, the recipient needs to draw accurate inferences and correctly identify the teaser's intent as affiliative, looking beyond any mildly abrasive behavioural elements. The stark difference in social boundaries you observe is actually an affirmation of the hypothesis that playful teasing acts as a social tool for discovering how to navigate different individual social dynamics.
- purerandomness 3y agoIt's a way to flirt. Teasing communicates effectively: * I'm not a threat to you, being around me is safe. * I have humour * I am fun to be around As the other commenter said, it creates bonding. You only tease people you like. I can't think of a faster way to demonstrate these qualities, which are perceived as very attractive.
- fsckboy 3y agohaving experienced a lot of psychoanalysis, I feel most of these descriptions in TFA and here in the comment section are missing something. Declaring play to be aggressive vs non-aggressive is missing the element of conflict in our emotions. A particular mode of play is going to entail a mix of "sub-emotions": some aggression is always there, the question is how much, and how much it is being concurrently balanced by other conflicting emotions such as attraction or need, etc. The way you pretend to be an opponent is by being an opponent, just not too much or by also being a friend; the way you pretend to be selfish is to be selfish, just not too much. We are not one way or another, our emotions are in conflict all the time; we are a balance, or with some frequency, an imbalance.