Caring in advance

The fact that we spend most of our time surrounded by people unavoidably means that essentially any action that can be traced back to us (e.g. because someone saw us doing it) becomes a social signal in whatever the scale of the group is, whether it is our family, our volleyball team or the department at work. This gives every activity a dual meaning, one for the action itself and one for the interpretation that the spectators can make of them. For instance, an anonymous donation is a private activity that obviously lacks the social component, but once we make anyone else aware of it, it instantly becomes a message that the recipient will try to decode: Why do they tell me about the donation? Is this to make them look good (a.k.a. virtuous signaling)? Is it to invite me to do the same? Is it just to flaunt the amount of money they have, from which they can part without any hesitation? Or maybe it is an apology because they were not in the position to make an even bigger donation as they would have wanted? Am I supposed to spread this information or keep it to myself? And so the poor bystander gets to spend the night wondering what to do in respect to this donation that they did neither invite nor want to know about.

Anyone aspiring to communicate successfully (and I believe this is something that we all care to a greater or lesser extent depending on the particular circumstances) has to understand that the state of mind of the recipient can be, and frequently is, different from ours. Considerations that are all-important for us can be completely irrelevant for them and vice versa, past experiences, fears, and even differences in professional career can alter significantly the interpretation of a message. That is why it is so important to "read the room", to understand the kind of beliefs and expectations that are shared among the audience. To some extent we all do this automatically when we coo for a baby or speak in an almost patronizing tone to a small child, but somehow once we get to deal with adults we seam to forget that there are differences among them and that it might be worth using different tones (or even change the subject) depending on the peculiarities of the people we are talking to.

Photo: Raphaël Labbé

In politics this adaptability is often referred to as "likeability". If the candidate can adapt themselves to resemble the audience they are much more likely to be appreciated by them and, eventually, voted into office. And while this behavior might seem manipulative it still conveys one important aspect that can be applied to any kind of communication: any message has a better chance to be listened to if it carries the idea that the emitter cared for the recipient. This is a very remarkable psychological quirk, that we feel indebted to people who give us something, even if we never asked for it in the first place. In that sense, if a message (or an action) is configured in a way that it openly displays the care that the emitter has put into it, the recipient is bound to have a much stronger appreciation. As a somewhat excessive example of this, let us consider the bento lunches that many mothers prepare for their children in Japan. The fact that the rice balls have faces on them does not add or detract from the nutritional value of the lunch, but it conveys very visibly the readiness of the mother to go the extra mile of providing not only nutritious but also entertaining food. It is likely that the scale of the effort eludes most of the children in school age, but there is no doubt that they can appreciate the difference between plain and faced rice balls.

Notably, this kind of messages need to be adapted to the recipient: the same kind of bento that an 8-year-old loves would probably shame very painfully their 13-year-old sibling, because that level of caring is fine for one age but not for the other, so the teenager will understand it as a message that their mother believes they are still a small kid. The action is literally the same, but the context is so radically different that the meaning is completely reversed, which is why it is so important learning to know your audience.

It can sometimes be problematic to tailor your words or your actions to please everybody, particularly if the audience is widely diverse: you might accidentally touch on a particularly painful aspect for an unusually vocal person, that would not have any second thoughts about criticizing you for your views. However, there is one aspect that is almost universally well received: putting work into whatever you are displaying. To illustrate this effect, let us just compare the looks of two very visible figures such as former U.S. President Donald Trump and the current U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson, on the one hand, does not seem to care at all for what his hair looks like. There are two possible readings to this attitude: the first one is that he considers combing his hair as an unimportant, so he just does not do it; the second option is that he purposefully combs himself in this wild way. Both options are equally problematic, because the first one means he does not care enough to look presentable, while the second one means he feels entitled to irritate my eyesight with that wild hair of his. Trump, on the other hand, is always carefully combed (one could even say "coiffed" by the sheer amount of time it must take him). Although I have not particular respect for his political or social view, I have to side with him on this occasion because, admittedly, he tries to look presentable, to provide a visual aspect to which I can relate. Some say that he just puts too much effort in hiding his baldness, but one way or another he obviously cares for how people will see him.

I came to think about this "preemptive care" on occasion of a comment by one of the secretaries, who pointed out how vivid and colorful my messages were. The fact is that, in the same way that I would actually wear black tie to the opera and at least a suit to a job interview, I would not dare to send an email to my coworkers unless it is properly formulated, and the bigger the audience the more work I am ready to put into it. Because, in the same way that for a job interview a proper suit and shoes and well-trimmed hair and beard (or a clean shave) signal that the candidate is willing to please, writing a grammatically correct email with, when possible, entertaining phrasing can show that the author really made an effort to try to connect with the audience. It might not resonate with everyone, but even those who do not share in the taste have to admit that the emitter is trying. And just the signal that they are trying almost immediately that you, as recipient, should really try to understand on your end. Have a nice weekend.