Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

journals.sagepub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 131 posts

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#71

Post by coldtea »

ajkjk wrote: post #30
starkd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another pearl of his is to be "profuse in your praise". Even if it risks sounding empty or pure flattery, because it always leaves a good impression and works.

Profuse praise is so weird and off-putting to be a recipient of. I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe this was true however many years ago but it doesn't feel true all the time today.

You'd be surprised.

Also, if you are of the personality type/disposition that this doesn't work on, don't underestimate the huge percentage of people on which it does work.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#72

Post by throwaway74829 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33
asaph wrote: post #5

One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like to talk about themselves and they’ll like you more if you let them do that in a conversation. I’m paraphrasing. This research seems to counter that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...

> from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie Implementing the advice in this book too literally makes for very inauthentic sounding conversation. After reading this book, I found it easy to spot other people who had read it and were trying the techniques on me. For example, when someone uses my name 10 different times in a private conversation for no obvious reason, I have a good idea that they’…

You've put to words an intuition I've always had, but been unable to verbalize: it irritates me when someone converses with the intent to reach some end... or just enters a conversation with some notion or emotion that they're holding tight onto, and will not waver no matter what.

Worse are those people with canned lines and vocal inflections... the same ones on repeat over and over again; like they've built up a toolbox of sound bites to navigate them through all of life. It's unbelievably grating to hear.

It feels vulgar... to make one's presence and desires so known and obvious... instead of having a conversation for its own sake... for the sake of amusement or personal expression...

It's as if they're treating socialization as a constant string of business deals to be navigated... gross.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#73

Post by coldtea »

willmadden wrote: post #49
asaph wrote: post #5

One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like to talk about themselves and they’ll like you more if you let them do that in a conversation. I’m paraphrasing. This research seems to counter that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...

Dale Carnegie already had a well established reputation when he allowed the others to speak about themselves. Apples and oranges if you are not already famous.

It's not about the others knowing who you are or your reputation, and thus not needing to establish that if you're already famous, etc.

The insight is rather that others could not give less fucks if they knew about you more, what they like is to talk about themselves.

This is true even if you're totally non famous and unknown to them, like a random taxi driver and you. They still like to talk about themselves over hearing about you.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#74

Post by clnq »

rootusrootus wrote: post #50

As with everything else, it seems, my anecdotal experience suggests a balance is usually the best overall answer. People with diarrhea of the mouth aren't much fun to talk to, but either are people who won't say more than three words at a time. Same with what you talk about. People like to talk about themselves, but many of them are interested in hearing about you too. Just keep it under control, and lob that convers…

Yes, people with diarrhea of the mouth make most conversations dry, one-sided, and very dull after you already know what that person's side of the story is. It's much worse if that side of the story is self-serving.

That is a good analogy with throwing a ball in the conversation. Imagine ball sports where only one person is participating. That's what a one-sided conversation feels like.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#75

Post by winternett »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #70

"It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." (Maurice Switzer) Posting a pay-walled link is essentially click-bait advertising. Shame on you... =P

I always start out by over talking everyone and then I suddenly go 100% silent and ask everyone to pay $12 a month and give me their email to hear more myself...

That way you can always tall who really is interested in what you have to say.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#76

Post by dang »

ergonaught wrote: post #16

"Some people find some other people more likable when those people speak more in a conversation, but drawing any other conclusions than that would be fantastically stupid on its own merits, and doubly so given the recent crises in this field." There, I fixed it for you.

"Don't be snarky."

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#77

Post by coldtea »

europeanguy wrote: post #26
ergonaught wrote: post #16

"Some people find some other people more likable when those people speak more in a conversation, but drawing any other conclusions than that would be fantastically stupid on its own merits, and doubly so given the recent crises in this field." There, I fixed it for you.

Is that how you do science? I can't make my predictions 100% accurate, therefore there's nothing I can say about the subject at all.

If 80% or more of your published and "peer reviewed" predictions were non-reproducible crap (as is the case with said soft sciences), then you'd indeed better not say anything about the subject at all.

Just because you're "doing science" and getting some results back, doesn't mean you're doing something accurate or worth over not doing.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#78

Post by clnq »

openfuture wrote: post #68
MichaelZuo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

Since you got answered in downvotes I suspect the answer is "because people will switch languages on you"

I've recently seen many good and curious comments "answered in downvotes." Maybe I can't read the room, but why does that happen? Is there a way to phrase statements that challenge others in a way that leads to conversation and not flags/greying out?

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#79

Post by JadeNB »

Surely what you say is as important as how much you talk. I suppose you can assign someone literally to just fill up a certain percentage of a conversation with words (though I wouldn't trust someone accurately to gauge whether they were speaking, say, 30% of the time or 40% of the time), but you can't assign someone to have something to say a given percentage of the time.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#80

Post by MichaelZuo »

openfuture wrote: post #68
MichaelZuo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

Since you got answered in downvotes I suspect the answer is "because people will switch languages on you"

Did you reply to the wrong comment?

My prior comment doesn't seem downvoted.

Post reply on HN