Jordan Peterson: The Mind of Highly (Dis-)Agreeable People
Summary
TLDRThe script discusses the potential evolutionary reasons behind women's heightened sensitivity to negative emotions, such as fear and punishment, attributing it to the greater dangers women face, including physical and sexual threats. It also explores how women's nervous systems may be adapted for mothering, making them more vulnerable and responsive to infants' needs, which can be at odds with the competitive, assertive behaviors required in certain adult environments. The narrative contrasts agreeable and disagreeable personalities, highlighting the challenges faced by highly agreeable individuals in competitive settings and the importance of learning to assert oneself.
Takeaways
- 🧠 The script suggests that women's heightened sensitivity to negative emotions may be due to the historical dangers they face, such as physical and sexual threats.
- 🤰 It discusses the evolutionary perspective that women's vulnerability increases at puberty due to the potential consequences of sex, such as pregnancy, which has historically had severe repercussions.
- 👶 The speaker posits that women's nervous systems are adapted for the mother-infant relationship, requiring high sensitivity and responsiveness to care for infants effectively.
- 🍼 Women's caregiving role, particularly for infants under nine months, is emphasized as demanding and emotionally loaded, shaping their nervous system's wiring for optimal care.
- 🚫 The script implies that the traits developed for caregiving may not be well-suited for competitive environments, such as the business world, where assertiveness and toughness are often valued.
- 🤝 The contrast between agreeable and disagreeable personalities is highlighted, with agreeable individuals being compassionate and polite, while disagreeable individuals are described as tough-minded and competitive.
- 💪 Disagreeable people are characterized by their predatory aggression and dominance behavior, viewing the world as a place to compete and win, rather than being volatile or defensively aggressive.
- 🏢 The speaker shares a story about a highly disagreeable individual who was effective in identifying and removing underperforming employees in corporations, enjoying the process due to their competitive nature.
- 🔍 The importance of conscientiousness in judging performance is underscored, with conscientious people focusing on accomplishments rather than personal circumstances or feelings.
- 👩💼 The script suggests that large corporations often exploit the agreeable and conscientious nature of women, benefiting from their hard work and lack of complaint.
- 💭 It is noted that agreeable people may struggle with assertiveness and conflict due to their wiring to avoid disturbance around infants, which can be a disadvantage in environments requiring negotiation and self-advocacy.
Q & A
Why might women be more sensitive to negative emotions according to the speaker?
-The speaker suggests that women may be more sensitive to negative emotions due to the historical and evolutionary reasons that make the world more dangerous for women, such as the dangers of physical altercation and sexual vulnerability.
What does the speaker mean by the 'cost of sex for women is higher'?
-The speaker refers to the potential consequences of sexual encounters, such as pregnancy, which historically have had more significant impacts on women's lives, affecting their societal roles and personal freedom.
How does the speaker describe the nervous system of women in relation to the mother-infant relationship?
-The speaker posits that women's nervous systems are adapted to care for infants, requiring them to be highly responsive, sensitive to threats, and capable of expressing vulnerability, which may not be as advantageous in adult interactions or competitive environments.
What is the difference between 'predatory aggression' and 'defensive aggression' as described by the speaker?
-Predatory aggression is described as a proactive, competitive behavior aimed at dominance, whereas defensive aggression is more reactive and protective, often associated with high neuroticism.
Why does the speaker believe that agreeable people are more prone to exploitation in the workplace?
-Agreeable people are naturally inclined to avoid conflict, prioritize the needs of others, and be accommodating, which can make them susceptible to exploitation, especially in competitive or hierarchical work environments.
What role does the speaker suggest agreeable people play in large institutions?
-The speaker suggests that agreeable people, often disproportionately women, are the backbone of large institutions due to their conscientiousness and agreeableness, which leads them to perform tasks diligently without seeking credit or complaining.
How does the speaker describe the personality of the friend who is highly disagreeable?
-The friend is described as blunt, extraordinarily polite, and enjoys firing underperforming employees in corporations, viewing it as a way to clear out those who do not contribute effectively to the organization.
What is the speaker's view on the necessity of assertiveness training for agreeable people?
-The speaker believes that assertiveness training, or learning to negotiate on one's own behalf, is crucial for agreeable people to avoid being exploited and to ensure their own needs and desires are recognized and met.
Why does the speaker think it's challenging for agreeable people to identify their own desires?
-Agreeable people often prioritize the needs and desires of others, which can make it difficult for them to develop a clear sense of their own wants, especially if they are highly agreeable and accustomed to accommodating others.
What does the speaker imply about the conflict avoidance tendencies of agreeable people?
-The speaker implies that agreeable people's tendency to avoid conflict may be rooted in an evolutionary need to maintain peace around infants, but this can be a disadvantage in adult environments where直面conflict may be necessary for problem-solving.
How does the speaker connect the agreeableness trait with the ability to handle conflict?
-The speaker suggests that agreeable people's aversion to conflict may be beneficial in nurturing environments but detrimental in situations requiring assertiveness and direct communication, such as in business negotiations or performance management.
Outlines
🚷 Women's Sensitivity and Vulnerability
The speaker posits that women's heightened sensitivity to negative emotions may stem from the historical and evolutionary dangers they face, such as physical and sexual threats. Women's vulnerability is emphasized by the higher stakes of sexual encounters due to potential pregnancy and societal repercussions. The speaker also suggests that women's nervous systems are adapted to care for infants, which requires a high level of responsiveness and sensitivity, potentially at the cost of being less effective in competitive, adult environments like business. The narrative contrasts agreeable and disagreeable personalities, with the former being compassionate and the latter being competitive and assertive without concern for the feelings of others.
🤝 The Dynamics of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in the Workplace
This paragraph delves into the characteristics of individuals who are high in agreeableness and conscientiousness, often found in large corporations and institutions. These individuals, disproportionately women, are described as hardworking, reliable, and selfless, often taking on the unseen labor that keeps organizations running. The speaker discusses the exploitation of such traits and the need for agreeable people to be wary of being taken advantage of. The paragraph also touches on the conflict between the need for inclusiveness and high performance in hierarchical structures, and the speaker's personal experience with underperforming graduate students and the negative impact on high-performing ones. The importance of assertiveness training for agreeable individuals is highlighted, emphasizing the need to express one's thoughts and desires honestly, even if they may cause conflict.
🛑 The Challenge of Assertiveness for Agreeable Individuals
The final paragraph focuses on the challenges agreeable individuals face in asserting themselves, particularly in career development. It discusses the difficulty agreeable people have in identifying and pursuing their own desires due to their tendency to prioritize the needs and wants of others. The speaker advises agreeable people to express their true thoughts and to engage in conflicts when necessary, as avoiding them can be detrimental in the long term. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and the ability to negotiate on one's behalf for agreeable individuals to succeed in their personal and professional lives.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Sensitivity to negative emotion
💡Physical altercation
💡Sexual vulnerability
💡Evolutionary history
💡Mother-infant dyad
💡Vulnerability
💡Conscientiousness
💡Agreeableness
💡Disagreeable people
💡Assertiveness training
💡Predatory aggression
Highlights
Women's higher sensitivity to negative emotions may be due to the world being more dangerous for them, especially regarding physical and sexual dangers.
The cost of sex for women has historically been higher due to the potential consequences of pregnancy.
Women's nervous systems may be adapted to the mother-infant relationship, making them more attuned to vulnerability and care.
Caring for infants under nine months requires a high level of responsiveness and sensitivity to environmental threats.
Disagreeable individuals are characterized by toughness, bluntness, competitiveness, and a lack of willingness to do things they don't want to do.
Disagreeable people may exhibit predatory aggression and dominance behavior in competitive environments.
A case study of a highly disagreeable person who was effective at identifying and firing underperforming employees in corporations.
The importance of conscientiousness in judging performance rather than focusing on feelings.
The potential for agreeable and conscientious people, often women, to be exploited in large institutions.
The need for agreeable people to learn assertiveness to avoid exploitation and to negotiate on their own behalf.
The challenge for agreeable people to express their true thoughts and feelings, especially if they are harsh or conflict-inducing.
The tendency of agreeable people to avoid conflict, which can be beneficial in certain situations but detrimental in others.
The importance of agreeable individuals identifying and expressing their own desires and needs, rather than always prioritizing others.
The role of psychotherapy in helping agreeable people develop strategies to navigate conflict and assert their needs.
Transcripts
so let's assume that the reason that
women are higher in sensitivity to
negative emotion is because the world is
actually more dangerous to women right
because that would be the most logical
reason why there would be a sex
difference in a sex difference in it
something like fear or sensitivity to
punishment well first there's the danger
of physical altercation second there's
the sexual danger
so women become sexually vulnerable at
puberty and why do I say vulnerable
well it's straightforward it's because
the cost of sex for women is way higher
than it is for men or it certainly has
been throughout our evolutionary history
because if a man has an unwanted sexual
encounter well then he walks away and
maybe he's persecuted by the state or
prosecuted by the state for it but if a
woman has an unwanted unwarranted or
incautious sexual encounter and she ends
up pregnant then well in traditional
societies that's you're just done and
even in modern societies that are rich
like ours you're it's it's a I don't
have to go into that it's big trouble no
matter what you do about it it's big
trouble
so being being more nervous about that
makes perfect sense but then here's the
last thing and I think that woman's
nervous systems are not adapted to women
I think woman's nervous systems are
adapted to the mother-infant dyad and
because you are not the same creature
when you have an infant not at all
you're way more vulnerable and it's
partly because you have to express their
vulnerability of the infant and you also
have to care for it right so you think
about an infant especially under nine
months so let's say how are you going to
be wired up if you're going to optimally
care for an infant under nine months and
I'm saying under nine months because
women generally do the bulk of childcare
for infants who were under nine months
old and part of the reason for that
there's a whole host of reasons but part
of the reasons for that obviously is
that they breastfeed but imagine what
you need to be wired up biologically in
order to care for an infant first of all
they're very demanding right because
they're completely helpless and they're
demanding 24 hours a day and it's quite
it's quite it's quite an emotional load
and an infant under nine months is never
wrong right what you do to an
nine months is when they're in distress
you always respond you never tell the
infant get your act together and stop
whining right which you can do say to an
into a child that's 18 months old you
can start having that sort of
conversation but under nine months it's
like nothing is the infant's fault it's
surrounded in an extraordinarily
threatening world and you have to be
responsive to what it needs regardless
of what you want and you have to be very
sensitive to the threats that emerge in
the environment and so I think the price
that women pay for that ability to have
an intimate relationship with infants in
the very earliest stages of development
is that their nervous systems are
actually wired so that they can perform
that role optimally and the disadvantage
to that is that having a temperament
like that doesn't work that well when
you're dealing with adult man especially
when you're dealing with them and in a
business environment because it's not
the same thing not at all it's a
competitive environment so okay so
agreeable people are compassionate and
polite what are disagreeable people like
they're tough minded they're blunt
they're competitive and they won't do a
damn thing they don't want to do so it
isn't exactly that they're aggressive
although they will push you the hell out
of their way if you're in the way
they're not they're not like volatile
like you are if you're high in in
neuroticism it isn't defensive
aggression it's more like predatory
aggression its dominance behavior and so
for someone who's high who's high highly
disagreeable they look at the world as a
place in which they can compete and win
and I'll tell you a story I have a
friend I gave him my personality test
the big five aspect scale that Colin
DeYoung developed huh in my lab and I
knew he is a disagreeable guy and by
interacting with I mean he's even rude
to people sort of spontaneously on the
street I actually like him quite a bit
he's very very funny he's also very
conscientious so you can trust him but
it's disagreeable as hell and so I gave
him this test because I thought it would
be funny and he came out as the most
disagreeable person in 10,000 so
reasonably reasonable in compassion
about 30th percentile but like point
zero zero one in politeness so he's
extraordinarily blunt and he'll just say
absolutely any
no matter how horrible it is and he was
often brought in to corporations to sort
of clean them up so if a corporation was
tilting and not doing well they'd bring
him in to find out who the useless
people were and fire them and I talked
to him about that because I've had the
missed opportunity to have to not have
graduate students in my lab for example
that weren't performing well and I'd
find it very very difficult to you know
dress someone down and certainly
difficult to fire them I just hate it
because I'm actually quite an agreeable
person much to my chagrin and I asked
him about that and I said well what do
you do you have to fire people all the
time how do you handle that he says
handle it I enjoy it and I thought wow
that's so interesting that someone would
have that response I said well what do
you mean you enjoy it he said look I go
into these companies and I analyze the
performance of groups of people right
and there's in those groups there are
people who are really striving really
trying hard and working themselves
really hard and being productive and
then there's these people that are just
doing nothing they're completely in the
way they don't carry their weight at all
they take advantage every chance they
get and they're always whining about why
they can't work it's like I find out who
they are I call them into my office and
I tell them exactly what they've been
doing it's like hit the road buddy
you've had your you've had your run of
it and I thought oh yeah ok fair enough
you know well I can tell you you know
I've had situations in my lab where I
had underperforming graduate students
and one of the things that was really
awful about that was that it was really
hard on the high performing graduate
students you know because they felt that
even being in the same category as the
people who weren't working hard and
pulling their weight devalued what they
were doing you know and that's exactly
right and so this is also why there's
there's a conscientiousness trait and an
agreeable this trait cuz conscientious
people judge you on your accomplishments
right they don't give a damn about your
feelings not a bit it's like are you
doing the work or not
whereas agreeable people think well you
know your mother's sick and you know
you've you've got a bunch of family
problems and and we all have to take
care of each other and it's no wonder
that you're having a rough time and like
you can't say that one of those
attitudes is correct and the other isn't
correct you can't say that there
wouldn't be those two dimensions if
there wasn't something correct about
both of them but you can certainly point
out that often they conflict you know
and so the demand for
for inclusiveness and unity and care and
the demand for high-level performance in
a hierarchical structure there are very
different orientations in the world and
so it's complicated for people who are
agreeable and conscientious and actually
I think often that large corporations
and large large institutions of any sort
run on the unheralded labor of people
who are high in agreeableness and high
in conscientiousness and they're
disproportionately women and my
experience in large institutions has
been that if you want to hire someone to
exploit appropriately no not
appropriately if you want to hire
someone to exploit productively you hire
middle-aged women who are hyper
conscientious and who are agreeable
because they'll do everything they won't
take credit for it and they won't
complain and that's nasty and I think
that happens all the time and so one of
the things you have to be careful of if
you're agreeable is not to be exploited
because you'll line up to be exploited
and I think the reason for that is
because you're wired to be exploited by
infants and so that just doesn't work so
well in that actual world and one of the
things one of the things that happens
very often in psychotherapy you know
people come to psychotherapy for
multiple reasons but one of them is they
often come because they're too agreeable
and so what they get is so-called
assertiveness training although it's not
exactly assertiveness that's being
trained what it is is the ability to
learn how to negotiate on your own
behalf and one of the things I tell
agreeable people especially if their
conscientious is say what you think tell
the truth about what you think there's
going to be things you think that you
think are nasty and harsh and they
probably are nasty and harsh but they're
also probably true and you need to bring
those up to the forefront and deliver
the message and it's not straightforward
at all because agreeable people do not
like conflict not at all
they smooth the water you know when you
can see you can see why that is in
accordance with the hypothesis that I've
been putting forward you don't want
conflict around infants it's too damn
dangerous you don't want fights to break
out you don't want anything to disturb
the the relative peace you know and if
you're also more prone to being hurt
physically and perhaps emotionally you
also may be loath to engage in the kind
of high intense
a conflict that will solve problems in
the short term because a lot of conflict
it takes a lot of conflict to solve
problems in the short term and you know
if that can spiral up to where it's
dangerous which it can if it gets
uncontrolled it might be safer in the
short term to keep the water is smooth
and to not delve into those situations
where conflict emerges the problem with
that is it's not a very good medium to
long term strategy right because lots
lots of times there are things you have
to talk about because they're not going
to go away and so partly what you do
with agreeable people is you get them to
figure out and they have a hard time
with this too if you ask a disagreeable
person what what he wants say or she
wants they'll tell you right away they
know it's like this is what I want and
this is how I'm going to get it but
agreeable people especially if they're
really agreeable are so agreeable that
they often don't even know what they
want because they're so accustomed to
living for other people and to finding
out what other people want into trying
to make them comfortable and so forth
that it's harder for them to find a
sense of their own desires as they move
through life and that's not look there's
situations where that's advantageous but
it's certainly not advantageous if
you're going to try to forge yourself a
career that just doesn't work at all so
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