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Comment by AnthonyNagid | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone else here ever read Keith Johnstone's 'Impro'? Coming from the world of theater, Johnstone has a facinating perspective on the malleability of social status.

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Can you give a brief summary of the points he makes about social status? I'm curious but my reading backlog is already out of hand.

I was wondering if anyone had ideas on hacking social status for your own benefit :)

Disrupt Society 2016

Wear a suit?

I have noticed a lot of engineers speak very quickly because you are in a hurry and flit between points (ie. Elon Musk) this is a specific kind if social status projection. Another way is to change how you dress. Another way is how you carry your body. Interesting how much people use these signaling queues to categorise each other.

Go sigma.

brief summary, improvisational acting is a lot funnier when the social status between the actors is toyed with. Keith finds it is surprisingly liberating and easy to fake a social status with certain body language, etc. When playing low status people clammed up or stammered and said less, high status they were energetic and took up more space. The audience likes when the dynamics change gradually.

Yes but I'll need to borrow Kahneman's system1 system2 model of human behavior. System1 impulsive default mode of the great average human intelligence. System2 the more resource intensive and introspective mode. Essentially the day to day activity of your average patch of humans is made mostly System1 behavior. Unfortunately when actors seek to emulate or broadcast average culture via System2 it leads to an unrealistic effect. The solution is to learn to skillfully use your System1 when broadcasting culture, but it can be tricky because of its spontaneous nature. Johnstone and 'Impro' are a one of a kind glimpse into a master's perspective on the nature of spontaneity, which happens to be among many other things absolutely status oriented. And as such Johnstone reflects deeply on his life time of knowledge acquired exploring the spectrum of the status scales.

Aha! This makes lots of sense to me.

Whenever I'm watching a movie with good actors, even though I know they are acting it's easy to let myself go and be absorbed by the story. They make it seem so easy (as most top professionals do) that sometimes I even start to think "acting can't be that hard!, I mean, you just have to reeeeally believe you are the character".

However in a low-budget movie, which usually has less skilled actors, you can definitely see this "System2-trying-to-fake-System1" behavior. This is also quite probably what would happen if someone filmed me trying to act, but I never found an explanation for why this happened.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely give it a go. It does look like a very interesting insight into human behavior.

Some of the specific ideas for demonstrating high status included not moving your head when speaking, speaking and moving slowly, beginning statements with a long 'uhhhh' (a short 'uh' sound, however, demonstrated low status), and taking up space.

I'd recommend moving it to the top of your reading list; it's one of those incredible books that i get something new out of every time I read it. It goes deep into human interaction, learning and education, consciousness - so much of what it means to be human.

If you go from low to high most of it comes naturally. It's obliquely alluded to in pg's "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss"[0].

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

Wow, that's a good essay. pg wanted to be a philosopher earlier in his life. He would have been good at it, but unfortunately I think the field is beneath him.

> Some of the specific ideas for demonstrating high status included not moving your head when speaking, speaking and moving slowly, beginning statements with a long 'uhhhh' (a short 'uh' sound, however, demonstrated low status), and taking up space.

I hope this knowledge (regardless of whether it's true) does not spread - I'm sure there would be plenty of people who will try to "hack the system" and will act according to this list, which would be insufferable.

That happened at least 10 years ago with the publication of The Game [1] and the emergence of the pickup community [2].

And if you want to know how insufferable it's been, just ask any woman who's been in the dating scene in the past 10 years how they feel about 'negging'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game:_Penetrating_the_Secr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_community

I'm more of a relationship kind a guy, but let me tell you if you workout women are no saints either. Women 'negg' as well and use very brash language of your body parts and what they would do with you.

>That happened at least 10 years ago with the publication of The Game

Despite what you may feel about pickup artists, The Game is genuinely worth a read.

The trick is not to read it as a "how to meet girls" manual.

What's most interesting about it is the behaviour of them belies their own insecurity and an uncomfortableness around women. The book itself alludes to this.

Wouldn't it be better if those hacking techniques are more commonly known, making it harder to measure a stranger's social status, so we treat everyone equally?

This will not solve the root problem of the existence of social ladder, but I don't see how spreading this knowledge can cause harm.

Let me try to move it up your backlog. Impro is one of 10 books I keep around on a permanent basis. I've been reading it for a couple of years now, and I'm not done yet. This isn't because it's a large book. Indeed, it weighs in at a slim 200 pages. I'm not done yet because after I read a chapter I can't bear to move forward, and I spend the next few months looking at the world around me with new eyes.

Other commenters here allude to the value of status in improvisational comedy. This isn't all the book is about. It is a window into human nature in general.

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