Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition • Hacker News Board

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#21

Post by your-nanny » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #2

The article starts out about hypocognition but ends up being about availability of vocabulary to express certain concepts. I would argue that many people can still fluidly intuit a concept even if they don't have a convenient shortcut to express it. Of course, the unavailability of a linguistic shortcut can also point to a poor and unformalized understanding of that concept.

yes, the article does slip from touching on something interesting to the tired ol' Sapir-Whorf framework.

On the other hand while "hypocognition" seens to be an neologism, the concept has been the bread and butter of anthropologists for the last century ...

one only has to spend a little bit of time with a dog to discover hypocognition in action. in fact, seeing how little my dog understands how the world works (simple things like how to get a ball when it's rolled into an empty box)...is diconcerting because humility suggests the same must be true of me. what painfully obvious things about the world around me am I just oblivious to?

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#22

Post by lostmsu » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:13 PM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #19

Sangermaine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. “It’s dysfunctional because it’s dysfunctional.” I hope I don’t have to explain why this is, again, begging the question. What is “dysfunctional”? That’s largely culturally determined, because what’s “functional” is relative to the environmental you’re in. You seem to conflating morality or human ri…

Good thing we have a thoroughly cross-cultural construct for developing an understanding of exactly that: clinical psychology. So, yes, we do know what dysfunction looks like, to an extent.

Psychology has a poor track of reproducibility, so it is not good at understanding yet.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#23

Post by dorchadas » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #22

WalterSear wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing we have a thoroughly cross-cultural construct for developing an understanding of exactly that: clinical psychology. So, yes, we do know what dysfunction looks like, to an extent.

Psychology has a poor track of reproducibility, so it is not good at understanding yet.

Not to mention that results can also vary depending on, you guessed it, culture.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#24

Post by Sangermaine » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #19

Sangermaine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. “It’s dysfunctional because it’s dysfunctional.” I hope I don’t have to explain why this is, again, begging the question. What is “dysfunctional”? That’s largely culturally determined, because what’s “functional” is relative to the environmental you’re in. You seem to conflating morality or human ri…

Good thing we have a thoroughly cross-cultural construct for developing an understanding of exactly that: clinical psychology. So, yes, we do know what dysfunction looks like, to an extent.

Your response demonstrates your ignorance of psychology if you’re not even aware of how results often vary across cultures. One area to start educating yourself in is looking into the discussion in the last decade or so of how psychological research has been skewed by over-reliance on “WEIRD” (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Democratic) test subjects, and that studies with subjects from places without these attributes often produce different results.

You don’t seem to understand what you’re talking about in the slightest.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#25

Post by darkerside » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:56 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #9

Endama wrote: post #3

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other. For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given per…

IMHO as a bi-racial person who has spent over a decade on three separate continents, I have come to a very different perspective on culturally-driven explanations for mores and behaviours like Amae, and appeals to duty /conformism/emotional repression. I don't beleive they are anything more than rationalizations for ingrained society-wide behavioral dysfunction. IMHO, that is.

What exactly do you mean by societal dysfunction? Or is it like pornography: you know it when you see it.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#26

Post by projektir » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 2:54 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #9

Endama wrote: post #3

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other. For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given per…

IMHO as a bi-racial person who has spent over a decade on three separate continents, I have come to a very different perspective on culturally-driven explanations for mores and behaviours like Amae, and appeals to duty /conformism/emotional repression. I don't beleive they are anything more than rationalizations for ingrained society-wide behavioral dysfunction. IMHO, that is.

I'm inclined to agree, having lived in two different cultures. And most of these dysfunctions are rooted in very similar things when you dig down far enough into them, they pretty much always come down to status issues, just differently expressed and differently rationalized.

The trick is to realize that pretty much no culture is free from this, but I won't say that all cultures are the same.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#27

Post by wbillingsley » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 3:50 AM UTC

azhu wrote: post #4

Endama wrote: post #3

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other. For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given per…

Merging research and anecdotal experience, I can say that east Asians tend to understand life in terms of duty. Happiness and satisfaction are understood as intrinsic to the fulfillment of those duties, and as a result any perceived shortcoming in emotional payoff is seen as the fault of the feeler, not the fault of the stimulus. Not happy? Just get check whatever box on the "what you're supposed to be doing with you…

That's not an exclusively cross-cultural issue. The tension between duty and emotion is fairly common in western literature.

For example, the entire premise of Lady Windermere's Fan (an Oscar Wilde play) is Lady Windermere interpreting her husband's slightly stiff and dutiful manner as disinterest. To the point where she starts suspecting him of an affair where he turns out to be looking after her mother.

Or more recently, most of the Richard Curtis movies play off similar "comedy of manners" themes as various characters find it hard to express what they feel for one reason or another.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#28

Post by buth_lika » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 5:30 AM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #25

WalterSear wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO as a bi-racial person who has spent over a decade on three separate continents, I have come to a very different perspective on culturally-driven explanations for mores and behaviours like Amae, and appeals to duty /conformism/emotional repression. I don't beleive they are anything more than rationalizations for ingrained society-wide behavioral dysfunction. IMHO, that is.

What exactly do you mean by societal dysfunction? Or is it like pornography: you know it when you see it.

Maybe something like this?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minority-report/2014...

> in shame-based cultures, public humiliation, scorn, or censure are relied upon more heavily to keep individuals in obedience whereas the western notion of guilt and corrective behaviors comes from an individual’s development of an internal conscience.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#29

Post by WalterSear » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

Sangermaine wrote: post #24

WalterSear wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing we have a thoroughly cross-cultural construct for developing an understanding of exactly that: clinical psychology. So, yes, we do know what dysfunction looks like, to an extent.

Your response demonstrates your ignorance of psychology if you’re not even aware of how results often vary across cultures. One area to start educating yourself in is looking into the discussion in the last decade or so of how psychological research has been skewed by over-reliance on “WEIRD” (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Democratic) test subjects, and that studies with subjects from places without these attrib…

I have an MS in research psychology.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#30

Post by WalterSear » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 6:54 AM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #25

WalterSear wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO as a bi-racial person who has spent over a decade on three separate continents, I have come to a very different perspective on culturally-driven explanations for mores and behaviours like Amae, and appeals to duty /conformism/emotional repression. I don't beleive they are anything more than rationalizations for ingrained society-wide behavioral dysfunction. IMHO, that is.

What exactly do you mean by societal dysfunction? Or is it like pornography: you know it when you see it.

I'm not using the phrase with any formality, I was just trying to find a term that encompassed every situation where people behaved according to publicly acknowledge social scripts, and suffered as a result.

So, any situation where dictates of a society creates a suboptimal social interaction could be considered a social dysfunction?