7 ms·

Defensive Communication (1961)

138 points by rzk 2y ago

matthewmorgan 2y ago
[flagged]
- n4r9 2y ago
  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.
  - gwd 2y ago
    > 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
    - n4r9 2y ago
      Totally agree that "they" strikes a good balance of readability and inclusivity.
    - dmichulke 2y ago
      > using "she" consistently good Just for clarification: What if the article has a negative bias, i.e. an article about criminals, do you still suggest using "she"?
      - n4r9 2y ago
        The example they give already has a negative connotation: someone that is behaving defensively.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      > 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.
    - hunter2_ 2y ago
      > People will complain that this is "wrong" 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: > to refer to an unknown person But who knows!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pvg 2y ago
  Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - afh1 2y ago
    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.
    - pvg 2y ago
      It is actually relevant 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.
      - tolerance 2y ago
        [flagged]
        pvg 2y ago
        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.
        2y ago
- pringk02 2y ago
  Why not?
- strken 2y ago
  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.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - another-dave 2y ago
    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")
    - svat 2y ago
      The original journal article (just posted another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42139081 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).
- elric 2y ago
  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?
  - klez 2y ago
    To be fair I'm the exact opposite of "reactionary", I'm all for inclusive language, but I still find it an odd choice.
  - matthewmorgan 2y ago
    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
  - dghughes 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure the editor was the one being "reactonary" (reactionary) editing a 63 year old article. It is ironic though considering the topic of the document. Every line in it and the comments here are gold it's amazing to see.
  - TeeMassive 2y ago
    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?
- tolerance 2y ago
  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. https://archive.org/details/sim_et-cetera_1965-06_22_2/page/n5/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/sim_et-cetera_1965-06_22_2/page/... I know that HN tolerates archive.is links...not so sure about shadow libraries. But if you know where to look for it, it's available for download.
  - svat 2y ago
    For what it's worth, I manually compared the original journal article (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1961.tb00344.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1961.tb00344.x obtained via sci-hub) against the transcribed version in the OP, and the diffs are here: https://www.diffchecker.com/CZRjh0fb/ https://www.diffchecker.com/CZRjh0fb/ or https://www.jstoolset.com/diff/3c9ff80979b6e808 https://www.jstoolset.com/diff/3c9ff80979b6e808 (or in case both go down: https://gist.github.com/shreevatsa/0d1aa90e73a7bfbe12e4b4888729a9ab/revisions https://gist.github.com/shreevatsa/0d1aa90e73a7bfbe12e4b4888...) 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).
    - tolerance 2y ago
      Interesting work. I appreciate this. It would be interesting to compare the original article with the one that appears in the so-called “Trust” book that the OP refers to and derives their own version from. I’m even less keen on OP’s changes than before. They might as well have written a review of it or an inspired work of their own than render the integrity of the text questionable, even to the slightest extent.
      - svat 2y ago
        Well, I'm not so sure… we computer people care about integrity checksums, bit-for-bit copies, lossless compression, version control, and the like. (Copies not differing even to the slightest extent more or less distinguishes digital from analog copies.) But it is not clear that this is something everyone cares about, or should. An equally viable attitude is that an author has some ideas which are the “actual” thing, and the words in which they are expressed are somewhat incidental. From this perspective, making changes to render the text less distracting is not tampering with the integrity of what actually matters (the ideas), just removing irrelevant obstacles that prevent the ideas from spreading. In fact, if you look around to find out who made this transcription (and the minor edits), it turns out this page is a copy from a Geocities website that is now preserved at https://www.oocities.org/toritrust/ https://www.oocities.org/toritrust/ and https://www.geocities.ws/toritrust/ https://www.geocities.ws/toritrust/ — it says “This Web site contains the words of Dr. Jack R. Gibb, and is respectfully dedicated to his memory and to his work” and even carries some unpublished work from him, so it is clearly interested in spreading his ideas, and many of the (minor) changes seem indeed in that spirit. Also it was maintained by Donald Skiff, which matches the "des" signature in: > Edited only to reduce gender-specific references. des The OP page (from the submission here) has now a disclaimer at the top saying “I provide this HTML version of a historical article because it was not easily available […] I am not responsible for the transcription or edits otherwise” — no doubt added a result of the discussion on this HN post. It is unfortunate that the carping on this thread (some comment was even trying to use his interests to ascribe motivations to him, assuming he made the edits) has wasted someone's time like this. Anyway I bought a used copy of the Trust book (1991 edition; the older edition doesn't have this article attached), and will update the gist or add a comment on it comparing the book's version with the webpage's.
n4r9 2y ago
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.
- taylorius 2y ago
  " 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.
  - chikere232 2y ago
    Also, as the article points out, there are better and worse ways to point out a mistake If someone completely flips out over a relatively minor mistake, going on the defensive or disengaging isn't necessarily a bad response
ulnarkressty 2y ago
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.
- the5avage 2y ago
  It depends on so many things, but in a climate where someones income depends on the performance it is easy to understand they behave defensive. As a counter example I worked for a small company where the owner is a very good software engineer. I knew that he knew that I know what I'm doing. So we could freely talk about problems without the toxicity that often comes with it.
- rglynn 2y ago
  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?
dkarl 2y ago
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.
- the5avage 2y ago
  It's quite old but german philosopher Schopenhauer wrote about it in "The art of being right" He talks about dirty tricks to win an argument regardless of the content You can easily see that behavior in politics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
  - russfink 2y ago
    Number 14 is “Claim Victory Despite Defeat” - coincidentally, there was a lot of “14/88” being thrown around in recent weeks in USA politics.
    - daveguy 2y ago
      And a metric shit-ton more than that thrown around in 2020.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  I think recent events have shown clearly that, regrettably, offensive communication works wonders in convincing people.
  - briandear 2y ago
    Luckily it didn’t work well enough.
    - 2y ago
jkaptur 2y ago
> 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. Interesting to read in light of the other recent item "How I ship projects at big tech companies": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42111031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42111031 > 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.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Defensive communication applies to interpersonal relationships. A business is not your friend.
  - jkaptur 2y ago
    You certainly have interpersonal relationships with the people you work with, but not the business itself.
sirspacey 2y ago
“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.
NotYourLawyer 2y ago
> Transcribed from a mimeographed paper discovered at the University of Toledo, 4/88. Edited only to reduce gender-specific references. Why do people do this? By all means write new documents the way you like, but… it’s from 1988, just let it be.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
changexd 2y ago
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.
svilen_dobrev 2y ago
> Neutrality and Empathy 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.
reagle 2y ago
I provide this because it was the basis of this paper: "”Be Nice”: Wikipedia Norms for Supportive Communication" https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/06/reagle-nrhm-special-collab-norms.html https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/06/reagle-nrhm-special-collab... > 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”.

138 points by rzk 2y ago

matthewmorgan 2y ago

[flagged]

n4r9 2y ago
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.
- gwd 2y ago
  > 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
  - n4r9 2y ago
    Totally agree that "they" strikes a good balance of readability and inclusivity.
  - dmichulke 2y ago
    > using "she" consistently good Just for clarification: What if the article has a negative bias, i.e. an article about criminals, do you still suggest using "she"?
    - n4r9 2y ago
      The example they give already has a negative connotation: someone that is behaving defensively.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    > 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.
  - hunter2_ 2y ago
    > People will complain that this is "wrong" 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: > to refer to an unknown person But who knows!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pvg 2y ago
Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- afh1 2y ago
  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.
  - pvg 2y ago
    It is actually relevant 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.
    - tolerance 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - pvg 2y ago
        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.
        2y ago
pringk02 2y ago
Why not?
strken 2y ago
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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- another-dave 2y ago
  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")
  - svat 2y ago
    The original journal article (just posted another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42139081 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).
elric 2y ago
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?
- klez 2y ago
  To be fair I'm the exact opposite of "reactionary", I'm all for inclusive language, but I still find it an odd choice.
- matthewmorgan 2y ago
  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
- dghughes 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure the editor was the one being "reactonary" (reactionary) editing a 63 year old article. It is ironic though considering the topic of the document. Every line in it and the comments here are gold it's amazing to see.
- TeeMassive 2y ago
  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?
tolerance 2y ago
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. https://archive.org/details/sim_et-cetera_1965-06_22_2/page/n5/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/sim_et-cetera_1965-06_22_2/page/... I know that HN tolerates archive.is links...not so sure about shadow libraries. But if you know where to look for it, it's available for download.
- svat 2y ago
  For what it's worth, I manually compared the original journal article (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1961.tb00344.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1961.tb00344.x obtained via sci-hub) against the transcribed version in the OP, and the diffs are here: https://www.diffchecker.com/CZRjh0fb/ https://www.diffchecker.com/CZRjh0fb/ or https://www.jstoolset.com/diff/3c9ff80979b6e808 https://www.jstoolset.com/diff/3c9ff80979b6e808 (or in case both go down: https://gist.github.com/shreevatsa/0d1aa90e73a7bfbe12e4b4888729a9ab/revisions https://gist.github.com/shreevatsa/0d1aa90e73a7bfbe12e4b4888...) 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).
  - tolerance 2y ago
    Interesting work. I appreciate this. It would be interesting to compare the original article with the one that appears in the so-called “Trust” book that the OP refers to and derives their own version from. I’m even less keen on OP’s changes than before. They might as well have written a review of it or an inspired work of their own than render the integrity of the text questionable, even to the slightest extent.
    - svat 2y ago
      Well, I'm not so sure… we computer people care about integrity checksums, bit-for-bit copies, lossless compression, version control, and the like. (Copies not differing even to the slightest extent more or less distinguishes digital from analog copies.) But it is not clear that this is something everyone cares about, or should. An equally viable attitude is that an author has some ideas which are the “actual” thing, and the words in which they are expressed are somewhat incidental. From this perspective, making changes to render the text less distracting is not tampering with the integrity of what actually matters (the ideas), just removing irrelevant obstacles that prevent the ideas from spreading. In fact, if you look around to find out who made this transcription (and the minor edits), it turns out this page is a copy from a Geocities website that is now preserved at https://www.oocities.org/toritrust/ https://www.oocities.org/toritrust/ and https://www.geocities.ws/toritrust/ https://www.geocities.ws/toritrust/ — it says “This Web site contains the words of Dr. Jack R. Gibb, and is respectfully dedicated to his memory and to his work” and even carries some unpublished work from him, so it is clearly interested in spreading his ideas, and many of the (minor) changes seem indeed in that spirit. Also it was maintained by Donald Skiff, which matches the "des" signature in: > Edited only to reduce gender-specific references. des The OP page (from the submission here) has now a disclaimer at the top saying “I provide this HTML version of a historical article because it was not easily available […] I am not responsible for the transcription or edits otherwise” — no doubt added a result of the discussion on this HN post. It is unfortunate that the carping on this thread (some comment was even trying to use his interests to ascribe motivations to him, assuming he made the edits) has wasted someone's time like this. Anyway I bought a used copy of the Trust book (1991 edition; the older edition doesn't have this article attached), and will update the gist or add a comment on it comparing the book's version with the webpage's.

n4r9 2y ago

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.

taylorius 2y ago
" 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.
- chikere232 2y ago
  Also, as the article points out, there are better and worse ways to point out a mistake If someone completely flips out over a relatively minor mistake, going on the defensive or disengaging isn't necessarily a bad response

ulnarkressty 2y ago

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.

the5avage 2y ago
It depends on so many things, but in a climate where someones income depends on the performance it is easy to understand they behave defensive. As a counter example I worked for a small company where the owner is a very good software engineer. I knew that he knew that I know what I'm doing. So we could freely talk about problems without the toxicity that often comes with it.
rglynn 2y ago
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?

dkarl 2y ago

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.

the5avage 2y ago
It's quite old but german philosopher Schopenhauer wrote about it in "The art of being right" He talks about dirty tricks to win an argument regardless of the content You can easily see that behavior in politics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
- russfink 2y ago
  Number 14 is “Claim Victory Despite Defeat” - coincidentally, there was a lot of “14/88” being thrown around in recent weeks in USA politics.
  - daveguy 2y ago
    And a metric shit-ton more than that thrown around in 2020.
nuancebydefault 2y ago
I think recent events have shown clearly that, regrettably, offensive communication works wonders in convincing people.
- briandear 2y ago
  Luckily it didn’t work well enough.
  - 2y ago

jkaptur 2y ago

> 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. Interesting to read in light of the other recent item "How I ship projects at big tech companies": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42111031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42111031 > 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.

jvanderbot 2y ago
Defensive communication applies to interpersonal relationships. A business is not your friend.
- jkaptur 2y ago
  You certainly have interpersonal relationships with the people you work with, but not the business itself.

sirspacey 2y ago

“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.

NotYourLawyer 2y ago

> Transcribed from a mimeographed paper discovered at the University of Toledo, 4/88. Edited only to reduce gender-specific references. Why do people do this? By all means write new documents the way you like, but… it’s from 1988, just let it be.

deleted 2y ago
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changexd 2y ago

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.

svilen_dobrev 2y ago

> Neutrality and Empathy 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.

reagle 2y ago

I provide this because it was the basis of this paper: "”Be Nice”: Wikipedia Norms for Supportive Communication" https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/06/reagle-nrhm-special-collab-norms.html https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/06/reagle-nrhm-special-collab... > 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”.