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handoflixue comments on Teachable Rationality Skills - Less Wrong
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Seconded. I'll throw my two anecdotes on the table:
Anecdote 1: I used to work management, and routinely got good results via "please" and "thank you" because I was raised to be polite. Other managers in the same company often got poor results using rude/bullying techniques. That said, I'd estimate that "politeness" was one of the less significant factors to one's success either way.
Anecdote 2: Working retail, I found that people who were especially rude were usually low-status. The exceptions were mid-status people who seemed to very badly want to be high-status, and people who had a pretty good reason to be rude due to previous experiences. (And the latter category was the only time I've ever felt rudeness was acceptable)
I'll admit my method is flawed, but the idea was closer to asking for something beyond what is expected without acting as if it is a huge request, treating it casually.
The "not saying please" thing struck me as a good method for ensuring it stayed casual but I can see that would probably come off as rude - politeness is surely a charachteristic of most productive behaviour.
There's actually some interesting psychological research that suggests people primarily evaluate based on how you present things: kids are only cautious when their parents seem worried, and will be much calmer and more accepting if the parents act like something is no big deal. If you present a request casually, it's more likely to be casually accepted without thought. If you seem extremely anxious, people will pick up on that and get anxious themselves. Definitely a skill I have benefited from learning.
A sub-skill I would suggest is being okay with "no". I've found that if I ask for a big favor, get a "no", and just smile and move on, then people feel safer about me in the future - I didn't make them feel bad, so they don't have to be defensive about my future requests. It also makes it much easier for me to ask for the favor, and to come off casually, because I don't have any particular investment in a "yes" answer.