A series of social experiments...

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Over the course of my life, I've been surprised many times with how my relationships with people have turned out and have on occasion found myself asking how certain social dynamics came to be. I can only assume that a lot of you have felt the same way. You see a group of people behaving strangely or are part of a group that you struggle to understand the exact nature of and find yourself wondering what sociological phenomena might have caused what you are now witnessing.

While I've made excellent impressions on anybody who has (or had) any sort of institutional power over me (teachers, professors, bosses, etc.) I've always had trouble interacting with my peers. Those relationships are a lot more complex. After all, pretty much all any boss has ever asked of me is that I show up on time every day and do whatever I'm told. It's pretty linear. Peers are entirely different.

Recently, I've been even more acutely aware of my own social shortcomings than usual. It's been a seemingly inexorable thorn in my side. So, I've resolved to make it a priority of mine to develop a much better understanding of human social interaction. That way, I'll be able to take strategic actions to reduce the risk of finding myself in situations where my own lack of social grace destroys my ability to accomplish the objective I've been given. I can only assume that many of you can empathise with me being unable to achieve my goals because to do so would require cooperating with other people who don't seem to want anything to do with me.

If anybody knows of any good literature on the subject (or any other resources that might be helpful), please let me know. In addition to studying existing works on the subject, I intend to study the interactions of certain groups in my area and potentially even conduct a few social experiments of my own. I think it might be interesting to try working with people here who share that same goal, but I'm not entirely sure yet if I'd be willing to commit to making this a group project (ironically enough).

So, what do you think?

How to Win Friends and Influence People...
It references seemingly obvious, yet often overlooked and highly effective methods of interaction.

I'll second How to Win Friends and Influence People. Am I the only one who thinks the title sounds super creepy? The actual content is good though. In most cases I would like if other people tried to "influence" me using the book's advice, and of all the behaviors I wouldn't like, it's just not to my taste (rather than unethical). Anyway, I like that the book gives some insights into what people are usually thinking when they act a certain way and why they prefer certain behavior from you.

I like reading about relationships, communication, parenting, and psychology... although I mostly just read online articles (and sometimes magazine articles) because I'm too lazy to obtain and sit through a lot of books. Well, I've summarized a lot of info in this blog post. I feel like there's a lot of not-so-great info out there. Especially with dating advice made for heterosexual people, I feel like it often gives good advice for how to behave but it gives stupid fake reasons for the "logic" behind it, and that's the info we particularly need.

Our difficulty "reading" people (e.g. figuring out their current emotion) gets a lot of attention, but I think the most important part of good social skills is actually being able to predict how someone would feel in regards to a particular event. Obviously you can't predict the future perfectly, and there's always going to be a few people with uncommon preferences, but the more info the better.

Dear lord, I positively can't wait to use the "pass the bean dip" technique in a situation lacking bean dip. Now there is an experiment in absurdism. I am so exited to observe the reaction!

They probably won't understand what you're saying. I've noticed that if someone goes too far "off script" from expected social interaction, their speech may actually sound like gibberish, or they'll be misheard as saying something else. At first I thought this was just my poor verbal communication (both hearing and speaking), but I've noticed other people have the same problem.

I am well aware that the statement will confuse some, but as I am a Belgian - think Matisse ("Ceci n'est pas une pipe") and twitter getting flooded with kitties when the police were searching for suspected terrorists to hide the information pertaining to the actual movements of the police - absurdism is as traditional as beer and chocolate
However, I had only planned to use this one around my family and friends, just for good measure. They are familiar with my 'sense of humor'.

Thank you for the heads-up and the amazing ideas!

I like the scientific approach..

Reading about group dynamics, conformity and related topics has been extremly helpful.
I just wish, that I had done it many years ago.

I have used the knowledge to analyze situations from my past, and found surprising answers.
Using the knowledge to make predictions - live - is more challenging, but I belive that it is possible.

after all ...
Jane Goodall did it