Errors From Which Positives Are Born

People can elicit praise simply by avoiding embarrassing consequences that their own carelessness made likely to occur. A good example is "Nice catch!" following the timely rescue of an object that, through lack of awareness, was sent falling to the floor.

It's a curious thing, applauding sans sarcasm someone who made a mistake. Whether the receivers of such praise consequently impart a strengthened and favorable impression on witnesses of the whole episode, and thus enjoy a more advantageous position in social-group-context than did their pre-mistake selves, is a matter of debate.

As with many concepts, graphics will help illustrate this one. Lacking the expectation that a clear, 3D representation could easily be produced, I offer instead two 2D snakes in the midst of volcanic danger.

The general shape of the plots above should be true for most circumstances which fall into the family of circumstances defined by the opening sentence of this post, and for which the mistake-maker successfully takes corrective action, but the language below is specifically in reference to the "Nice catch!" situation.

Truths common to both plots:

1. Any contact with the magma zone in either plot spells no return in both.

2. Time, predictably, finds its home on the x-axis.

3. The green square denotes that point in time when a persistent lack of awareness finally sends an object falling towards earth's center of gravity.

4. The blue square denotes the timing of remarkable corrective action taken to avoid plunging into magma.

Truth particular to the 1st plot:

1. This upper magma boundary problem could be solved by redefining the y-axis as impression weakness, but I like the notion of hot matter in the sky.

Truths particular to the 2nd plot:

1. The yellow measure is the debatable increase in favorableness of impression, over pre-fall levels, after successfully rescuing a falling item.

2. The incline connecting the blue square to the right-hand side plateau is the likely region for praise to be given.

Conjecture:

Any action taken by, or any disruption in the vicinity of, one whose initial impression on others is informed by their inaction, will increase the strength of their impression. In this way, the incline of the first plot is inevitable, even if the person fails to catch the falling item and it smashes on the floor; indeed, in that case, the incident would likely be even more memorable in the minds of witnesses than if the mistake-maker had caught the item, and the decline starting at the blue square would become an incline, ultimately terminating in the upper boundary magma zone.

Light Traffic On The Skyways

The phrase “at this time” has the unusual attribute of being ubiquitous in air travel and uncommon everywhere else. It sounds like the soft scolding of an authoritarian repression that hides its merriment at dictating when certain liberties can and cannot be exercised by cloaking itself in an innocent politeness and collectively addressing the passengers from a plane of existence far removed from the one they know. From another angle, it’s the sort of phrase one would expect a non-native English speaker to contrive from their diligent studies of this new, peculiar language and its grammar; fitting, then, that it be spoken over the PA of such a symbol of international commerce as an airplane.

Many occupations concerned with serving the public share the oft-overlooked peculiarity that their respective job description’s list of sought abilities may not even mention the abilities most prized by the public. Flight attendants are a prime example. The FAA, an organization that takes the heat for every aluminum-tube-falling incident involving the U.S., can be counted on not to relax regulations governing the safety speech before every take-off; likewise with equivalent organizations with respect to their regions of responsibility elsewhere in the world.

Meanwhile, nearly everyone on any given plane has been on a plane before; or, if they haven’t, they’re probably either too young or too enamored with the experience to care much for talentless illustrations on a laminated tri-fold. The result is that, as the plane is taxiing along morosely, roughly zero passengers are obliging the request that they extract the safety card from the seat back pocket and examine it. For many, the flight attendants thought most highly of are those who sprint through their obligatory recitation with nary a pause to inhale. Noticeably absent from flight attendant job descriptions, then, is that having the skill to speak with the speed of an auctioneer is a plus.

Degrees of Variance

People can be led to second-guess themselves when information presented to them differs slightly, in conceivable ways, from their expectations or beliefs. It’s straight-forward to state that the likelihood of second-guessing one’s self grows with the region of overlap between what one had held to be true and the new information.* And for anyone doubting the acrobatic aptitude of this social construct, witness the following 180 flip-flop: by extension of the previous statement characterizing the relationship between overlap and self-doubt, one would surmise that it is when new information is in perfect focus with previously held beliefs that the potential for questioning the accuracy of one aspect or another is at its greatest, yet we know the opposite to be true; new information that agrees in every way with pre-conceived notions reaffirms these notions. Indeed, “Objection! I fucking hate when people use that word!” carry on… Indeed, by definition of being in perfect focus, even between minor details there can exist no discrepancies to question.

What is less obvious is that the region of overlap need not be inversely proportional to the degree of variance between expectations/beliefs and new information. What I mean by this can best be explained with a couple examples.

1. At a train station, where the series of arrivals and departures comprising one hour’s time is quite possibly repeated identically (on printed schedule, at least) throughout the day, a traveler expecting to barely catch the Southbound Express at 1:10 may be more likely to second-guess their belief of the current time if the station clock displays 2:09 than if it declares the time as 1:34; this, even though the difference, in minutes, between expectation and new information, regarding the current time, is greater in the 2:09 case. Thus, here the region of overlap is greatest (increased likelihood of self-doubt) when the degree of variance (difference in minutes) is also greatest.

2. A cross-country-driving couple expecting to make a rest stop at the next town, which one of them remembers reading, when planning the trip, is 15 miles from their current location, are more likely to doubt their dashboard GPS than themselves if it reports the actual distance as 42 miles than if it says 51 miles. Here again, the region of overlap is greatest when the degree of variance (difference in miles) is also greatest.

Note: In both of these examples, the source of the two hypothetical cases of new information is the same (station clock and GPS). If one were to complicate matters through the introduction of an additional source of new information, by, for instance, supposing that the 42 mile figure was offered by a helpful gas station clerk, any further analysis becomes highly speculative.

*Information that conflicts significantly with a person’s expectations or beliefs is more likely to have its legitimacy questioned than to affect change in opinion.