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Comment by keefe | Hacker News Reader

Penalty for failure should also be considered. If you play a game like this and someone notices what you are doing, that person will lose all respect for you. I had a boss once that had read some article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology) and how it makes people more comfortable with you. Similarly with people who try to live by the "rules of power" and all this other nonsense. How about not playing games and focusing on achieving something? If I am working for someone I acknowledge this gives them a certain authority, but I really want to see reason prevail and progress made towards a common goal - I just would really rather not interact with people who play games with me unless I have to.

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Actually, status (as described on that page) is something you play, moment to moment. You are giving off a signal of "don't come near me, I bite" or "don't bite me, I'm not worth the trouble" or something somewhere in between, every second that you interact in person with someone else. Unlike stupid tricks like "mirroring", giving off status signals is not something you can stop doing. What you can do, though, is become more aware of it, better able to modulate it. Socially adept people are very good at varying their status moment by moment. For many of them, it's probably not even conscious.

The main reason an actor needs to learn about status is to be able to make scenes realistic. When the characters don't have a status relationship, a scene looks wooden and fake.

BTW, playing high status is not necessarily better. People who relentlessly play high status in every situation are commonly called "assholes". (Usually behind their backs.)

It's not something you have to play. Some of the dominant behaviors such as disinterest etc. are a result of your current state - I'm preoccupied with an important problem and not interested in other people, for example. Mirroring also happens naturally under certain circumstances. There are certainly subconscious things like this that come out- but the minute you decide to "play" status and deliberately take an action because of your status game and you get caught, whoever you are playing loses absolutely all respect for you. You've also got a much higher chance for failure with the people you really need (as they will be competent). I don't care to be manipulated whatsoever and I don't care about hierarchical power structures or power games that dominate many lives. All I (and many other people) care about is advancing our goals - if I work for someone, I am going to behave differently because I am working towards their goals, not mine - but I expect all my professional interactions to be goal oriented or problem oriented.

I wonder if we're having a Violent Agreement.

I'm not saying that you have to consciously play status ("decide to play"). I'm saying that when you interact with someone else, you are playing a certain level of status in relation to them, whether you are aware of it or not.

Engaging in some phony behavior will, of course, make people perceive you as a phony, with all the loss of respect that that entails. Respect, of course, is a big part of status. When you don't respect someone, you tend to play higher status toward them.

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