'Negative intensification bias' and unintended meaning

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210830-why-emails-often-read-more-negative-than-they-actually-are

by avastmick • 5 years ago

44 84 5 years ago

corysama• 5 years ago

See also: Every flame war in the history of the Internet.

fsckboy2• 5 years ago

see also, HN, where "the system" that keeps discussion civil focuses entirely on silencing any even slight negatives, and scant attention is paid to the hypersensitivities of the numerous offendees

dane-pgp• 5 years ago

Oh yeah? Well your face focuses entirely on silencing any even slight negatives! Ha, got 'em!

dang2• 5 years ago

That's a misperception of the strategy, which isn't about keeping discussion "civil" (we stopped using that word years ago), let alone protecting oversensitive feelings, but rather about staving off the default tendency for internet discussion to turn into lame repetitive shit. We just want an internet forum that stays interesting instead of burning itself to the ground. Scorched earth is not interesting (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).

If you know a better way to do that, I'm all ears.

It might be good to first read some past explanations about why the rules are the way they are, so as not to repeat arguments that have already been answered. This subthread gives a worked, detailed example (but it's long): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27161447.

A few other past explanations:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157447 (Feb 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22805993 (April 2020)

sovok_x5• 5 years ago

TLDR: don't be passive-agressive and don't pressure the respondent.

ComputerGuru3• 5 years ago

That’s really not the conclusion of the article whatsoever.

sovok_x5• 5 years ago

Given their examples of the bad things in emails I think it should be close enough.

vmception• 5 years ago

I have a bias against the people who create names of biases

They’re making up names on the spot and we’re nodding our heads as if these are accepted academic phenomenon

pbhjpbhj2• 5 years ago

I'm so offended that you didn't even acknowledge us as worthy of proper punctuation in your comment. /s

_Adam• 5 years ago

The article would be way more helpful with examples. What's an email that sounds "negative" but isn't?

thatsamonad2• 5 years ago

Maybe it’s just me, but one email or IM response that really comes off that way is someone just replying with “Ok” and nothing else.

kayodelycaon3• 5 years ago

Or worse: “Ok.”

A period can completely change the meaning of a message.

One of the managers in my company has the bad habit of making speech to text replies to everything. The end result is:

“Okay, Kayodé.

Thanks.”

Those replies do not help my anxiety disorder. XD

sovok_x5• 5 years ago

No, from my experience, many people consider short reply to a long message a sort of dismissal of their effort, and if it uses slang it seems doubly offensive.

orev• 5 years ago

“Ok” to me is just acknowledgement of the message. It should not be seen as negative, just neutral.

rdtsc• 5 years ago

I think it all depends on how that person usually responds, both in-person, and in written communication. If they are usually chatty and like to over-explain, and sprinkle emojis everywhere, and then, to this one particular message, they respond with just "ok.", then there could be something to it.

However, if they are simply terse and serious most of the time anyway, then they are just being themselves. I would be nice if they were chattier, but it's just their usual personality.

slownews45• 5 years ago

The apple harassment and discrimination claims that related to a manager providing feedback that they thought a presentation was better when it didn't sound like every sentence was a question? Does someone have a link to that. It was pretty recent I think.

The employee was female and was very offended.

The manager may have intended to be helpful.

It looks like this is called tone policing so maybe it is offensive feedback in fact:

https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1422380335703101443

rjsw• 5 years ago

Don't have a link to the Apple case but your description sounds like this [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal

re• 5 years ago

The article has examples. It's not about emails "sounding" one way but "actually" not being that way, it's about how different people perceive the same email (the recipient versus outside parties).

We asked them questions about the email and then asked objective observers to read the same messages. We found people who had received the emails directly rated the messages far more negatively than did the observers.
Many were outwardly civil and even polite: “We acknowledge that our request has a very short timeline and certainly appreciate that you are very busy.” Or, “Just wondering why no update has been received. No news is good news hopefully!”

dpedu2• 5 years ago

Hello _Adam,
The x project - I think it needs y and z aspects. Let's meet Monday and discuss.
Boss

Since context is important, let's say this is the message you received after a largely successful demonstration of something you've been working on.

dwighttk2• 5 years ago

Not an office worker and spend much less than 2.5hrs a day reading and responding to emails, but man I don’t get this at all. Maybe people just don’t send me emails that make me feel bad?

Slightly worried I’m constantly offending people like back when I heard that putting a period at the end of a text is the same thing as stabbing them through the neck with a letter opener.

neltnerb• 5 years ago

I'm honestly curious when that convention would have seeped into my brain; in checking, I only use periods for multi-sentence texts. And I've practically forgotten what it felt like to be in my 20s. Even my mother's text messages don't end in periods if they're a single sentence. Bizarre how the conventions of a particular communication medium just seep into your brain.

aaron5• 5 years ago

had to laugh at your second point - same for me. i was like, "but periods go after sentences, right?" but now i don't do it

the super weird one is (i live in china currently) that there's a smiley face that is not a smiley face. i always used it. i was hip. i was fitting in. my emoticon game was making progress and then apparently i found out i was doing the equivalent of a reddit /s at the end of all my messages: "that smiley face is a fake smile" how could i know that? it's a yellow smiley face! haha

dwighttk2• 5 years ago

A long time ago I decided I’d not use emoji, just smilies, but that went away once I got a smartphone and the emoji keyboard was right there

pif• 5 years ago

I couldn't care less. Proper grammar can be sacrificed for my own sake (read: laziness) but never for someone's "I'm in the mood of inventing a new rule thus a I state that...".

avsteele2• 5 years ago

Here's how I avoid any appearance of a negative tone:

Before I try to correct an error, or ask for anything, I always preface it with "Thanks a lot for <replying, doing something previously, I agree with X, etc...>"

mjburgess• 5 years ago

As soon as I noticed that pattern in your comms, I'd discount it. And probably be annoyed by the apparent insincerity, esp. when it would prefix something like "correcting an error".

However, this would probably work on most.

junon2• 5 years ago

There's no solution here. Everyone is debating what is offensive or not, bike shedding over subjectivity and emotion.

Either you cushion the blow and do what the GP does and have the effect you mention, or they don't and come off as "offensive".

It seems communication of any kind these days is a double-edged sword.

pbhjpbhj2• 5 years ago

I have someone who reviews some of my work and will tell me how great my work is then points out all the changes they want made -- it's clear nothing about the work is what they wanted, so the "well done with ..." just feels like being gas-lighted.

In this case, however, I don't think they realise they're doing it.

avsteele2• 5 years ago

There's nothing insincere about it. It's a simple acknowledgement of the other persons contribution to a positive interaction.

Trust me, no normal person is gets upset if you give them thanks or a compliment.

literallyaduck• 5 years ago

Observers don't have insight into the receiver's perception of the senders repartee, demeanor, and past history.

What might be innocent to an observer may have an undercurrent only seen from the historical context of the receiver.

dpedu2• 5 years ago

One of the few ideas out of an "employee handbook" that has ever stuck with me is the idea that you should always interpret messages like in this situation - in a professional setting - with vast assumptions that the author isn't trying to offend or upset you. They're just conveying information.

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

This is why I use emoticons :)

fermentation• 5 years ago

I had never seen anyone use these non-ironically until starting my first job, at which point I assumed every message containing one was passive-aggressive.

I now realize that’s not the case, and use them myself

itisit• 5 years ago

Those are just as prone to misinterpretation. Emojis too [0].

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/sending-a-smiley-face-make-sure...

kevinskii• 5 years ago

A few years ago I had a classmate who was rudely terse in his replies to group emails. For instance, if someone asked, "Here is my understanding of blah blah. Is this correct?" This person would reply to all with only the word: "No."

I was surprised to eventually learn that the person behind these weird emails was the friendliest student in the class. Apparently he just wasn't used to emailing. To him, "no" was equivalent to "No, sorry, I don't think that's quite right. I'll try to follow up shortly with a more detailed answer."

dwaltrip• 5 years ago

How strange. Humans are interesting critters :)

gerdesj• 5 years ago

What seems to missing from this discussion is fundamental understanding of the mediums used for communication and why you might choose one of the other. We all know about them and yet skirt around the obvious issues with articles like this.

Email generally gets through way faster than a mail letter but is often thought of as being similar. (E)mail gets the text through and no more in general although it can carry pictures and other media. (E)mail is store and forward - it will tolerate delays and eventually arrive.

A phone call/direct conversation is immediate and generally requires more setup cost in time and effort. If the other end is unavailable it wont work at all. Telephone calls may suffer from lag and drop outs. Vocal comms do allow subtle extra information without needing crass emojis etc. Vocal comms are much faster.

There are other factors such as delaying tactics and the like. For example if your work stack is too much, you can simply ignore emails for a while but an incoming call has to be answered or not at that point in time. To be fair, most people understand that non answer means try again later even if you know they could have answered at that time.

Emails can be sat on. Emails can also be fibbed about: "Sorry, my spam filter must have eaten it" or "Your GMail is not sending to my Hotmail".

Email is also often treated as IM. The thing about IM is it is instant by design and is supposed to be a two way chat. smtp isn't.

On balance: for me, I prefer telephony or direct contact than email unless it is impractical or I need a record - even then I still can record a conversation.

Arech• 5 years ago

We found people who had received the emails directly rated the messages far more negatively than did the observers.

I wonder, how did they control for the context? Obviously, the person who received the mail knows much more context about it, than a side observer.

'Negative intensification bias' and unintended meaning

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