For example, I recently asked a friend why she felt the need to buy a new dress for every 'special event' (galas, dances, etc.). After some thought, she said it's most likely because she will be looked down upon by other females if she is seen wearing something that she has previously been known to wear. I asked why again, and she said that sort of judgement has probably been inculcated in the majority of females; she clarified that she only bought new dresses so as not to be thought of as low status, and has no qualms wearing the same things around family.
Men have comparable status competitions and nastiness, it just isn't about clothes.
Men have comparable status competitions and nastiness it just isn't about clothes.
Part of Zaine's question is whether this is actually the case. There's an aphorism: "Men insult each other and don't mean it. Women compliment each other and don't mean it." Do groups of men who are friends engage zero-sum status games? What do those look like?
The other day, someone did something I didn't expect. It was something many people have done before; something that I thought of as very normal, but that I in no way understood and had not predicted.
As I said, this had happened many time before, so I wrote it off as "me not understanding people" or "people are weird" for a second, like I usually do, before realizing that "bad at" really means "lacking basic knowledge", which I had never realized before.
And then I thought "I should ask someone who is different from me why people do that, and eventually someone will have an answer."
But many people will have many more questions like this. So, what have you observed people doing time and time again, but never understood? Or something that you only understood after a long time or asking someone about it?
And can Less Wrong tell us, not necessarily why (I for one can make up evolutionary psychology fairy tales all day if I want) but what conscious thought process occurs behind these events?