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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for an older episode. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This one originally aired September eleventh, two thousand eighteen, and

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Speaker 1: it's an episode we did about teasing. Yeah, this one,

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Speaker 1: this one was really fun, you know, getting into like

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Speaker 1: what teasing means, both when you know children are doing

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Speaker 1: it or if a parent is doing it like or

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Speaker 1: adults doing it to each other. Like what is this

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Speaker 1: thing we call teasing? And how does it factor into

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Speaker 1: the complexities of human communication and our social structures. Let's

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Speaker 1: jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey you, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I've got a question

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Speaker 1: for you. You ever find yourself in that situation where

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Speaker 1: you're hanging out with people, it's all good fun, everybody's

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Speaker 1: there's banter going on. One person is teasing another person

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Speaker 1: over something kind of funny, some funny foible of their personality,

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Speaker 1: and there's that moment, there's that awful little moment where

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Speaker 1: there's kind of a pause after somebody says some some

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Speaker 1: teasing joke and then you realize like, oh no, suddenly

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Speaker 1: it has gotten serious. Oh yes, I mean it's especially

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Speaker 1: if it it's a multi person group and and there's

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Speaker 1: a bit of piling on occurring. They'll be there, I've

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Speaker 1: seen this, this happened, where they'll they'll be a breaking

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Speaker 1: point where the person has had enough and and and

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Speaker 1: you realize, oh, no, lines have been crossed and now

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Speaker 1: this person is gonna leave and we're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: resolve this uh via emails later. Uh yeah, And it's

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Speaker 1: as ter it's a terrible feeling because things have spiraled

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Speaker 1: out of control. Something that was playful and um and

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Speaker 1: just part of hanging out has now become divisive. Male

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Speaker 1: the best place to work out tents, social disputes, Well

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Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes it depends, and I mean, I guess it

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Speaker 1: depends on what role one had in the in the breakdown.

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Speaker 1: I've been fortunate enough to to not be like at

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Speaker 1: the epicenter of the of the breakdown generally, so um

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Speaker 1: email tends to suffice for me. You know, you never

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Speaker 1: have to worry that when you type a smiley emoji

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Speaker 1: that will look like a fake smile. When you actually

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Speaker 1: smile at somebody, you always gotta worry like does this

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Speaker 1: look real? Is my face moving? Right? So you just

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Speaker 1: have to use the authentic smiling emoji, not the unauthentic one.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's all on the micro expressions of the emoji.

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Speaker 1: What's the inauthentic one that's like colon and clothes brackets.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm talking about the ones that actually, like

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Speaker 1: the little yellow face with a smile, like you'll know

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Speaker 1: it when you see it. Okay, but is everyone can

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Speaker 1: realize that at this point we're talking about teasing today

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Speaker 1: on the show, and teasing is weird territory to try

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Speaker 1: and figure out deceptively, so really um for many of

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Speaker 1: us looking back on our child hoods, it's it makes

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Speaker 1: up some of our worst memories of social interaction. And

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Speaker 1: as as a parent, I have a lot of apprehension

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Speaker 1: about it, you know, regarding my own child, the inevitable

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Speaker 1: struggles that he's gonna gonna face. And at the same time,

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Speaker 1: there's this weird cult of the tease that is often

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Speaker 1: difficult to understand. We see teasing in our media and

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Speaker 1: it's sometimes presented as in a fun comical light. We

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Speaker 1: also see adults for whom teasing is a standard part

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Speaker 1: of their interactions, not fighting with each other, but but

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Speaker 1: just picking in various ways that it's it seems like

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Speaker 1: they're just terms of endearments, joking, benign criticism. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it and uh, it's often a case where I look

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Speaker 1: at it and I realized, well, this is clearly part

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Speaker 1: of their social dynamic. It wouldn't necessarily work in my

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Speaker 1: social dynamic, but I guess it's okay. Uh. We see

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Speaker 1: it factor into courtship as well, which also has a

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Speaker 1: way of of seeming weird and sour at times of

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Speaker 1: an outside perspective. Well, I mean, there's there's two very

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Speaker 1: different ways it can take place. There's a kind you

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Speaker 1: can see, a kind of friendly sweet teasing that takes

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Speaker 1: place between people in the courtship relationship. And then there's

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Speaker 1: like the pickup artist version of it, where somebody's clearly

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Speaker 1: like making a power play, right. And then likewise, we

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Speaker 1: also see this this space, this sort of ambiguous space

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Speaker 1: where playful teasing gives over to what is clearly something

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Speaker 1: based in hate and abuse name calling, uh, that occurs

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Speaker 1: among children and even among adults. Obviously, even at the

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Speaker 1: highest levels of government, you see name calling used in

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Speaker 1: a in a hurtful fashion. So if you start, if

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Speaker 1: you start picking out, and I imagine a lot of

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Speaker 1: your doing this as well, thinking of all the varying

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Speaker 1: levels of teasing that are going on in your immediate

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Speaker 1: environment and um in politics and the media, etcetera. On

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Speaker 1: the street as you're driving your car and listen to

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Speaker 1: this podcast. You know, it's enough to make you wonder

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Speaker 1: if if we're just nothing more than just cruel apes

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Speaker 1: jockeying for social position. Uh, And it's any wonder we

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Speaker 1: managed to emerge from these social interactions with self esteem

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Speaker 1: and respect for our fellow humans. But part of the

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Speaker 1: issue here is that while all forms of teasing share

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Speaker 1: common features, there are at least three distinctive forms of

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Speaker 1: teasing that are often signal, that are often singled out

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Speaker 1: and definitely deserve mention here. Okay, well what would those

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Speaker 1: forms be? All right? Well, the first is pretty obvious,

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Speaker 1: and that is that is the hurtful teasing. And I

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Speaker 1: think it's one of those things where we all we

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Speaker 1: all know it when we see it right or hear it.

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Speaker 1: This is obviously the domain of bullying and harassment, and

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Speaker 1: yet at the same time it's the sort of teasing

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Speaker 1: you might see in a celebrity roast, or some of

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Speaker 1: you are more viciously charged humor or political humor. I

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Speaker 1: guess you could also say it's maybe the domain of

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Speaker 1: the jesture, the fool and the clown. Uh and important.

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Speaker 1: These are important roles throughout human history. Oh yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean I might argue that the fool in the

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Speaker 1: Shakespearean sense requires its own category here, because the fool

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Speaker 1: has a lot of power and freedom, and that's important

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Speaker 1: power and freedom. Like they're the only member of the

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Speaker 1: lower classes who can point out the flaws of the

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Speaker 1: monarchs and the upper classes and get away with it.

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Speaker 1: There's something about the ridiculousness of the fool that allows

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Speaker 1: a critique of power that might result in a beheading

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Speaker 1: if you made the same critique in a serious tone.

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Speaker 1: And likewise, a king who beheads a jester every week

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Speaker 1: is a terrible king. They look weak. Yeah, it makes

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Speaker 1: the king look foolish if the king overreacts to a

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Speaker 1: to a comical critique, right, I think you're pointing Joffrey

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Speaker 1: from Game of Thrones, is this type of ruler where

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Speaker 1: you realize, oh, he's terrible, he's totally incompetent. Look how

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Speaker 1: thin skinny is against uh, the humorous criticism of the

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Speaker 1: court fool. Well, it codes so easily for us. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one of the clearest signs of a toxic personality is

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Speaker 1: somebody who's unable to accept criticism and even benign criticism,

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Speaker 1: or to be the butt of a joke, you know,

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Speaker 1: somebody who cannot tolerate that, right, especially because of the

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Speaker 1: positive role that teasing plays in our culture. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's so much teasing that is not hurtful, hateful. I

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Speaker 1: mean it is a constant feature of conversation between friends,

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Speaker 1: between couples, between family members, between educators and the people

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Speaker 1: they educate. Teasing, you know, there's like a sweet, benign

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Speaker 1: form of teasing that's absolutely essential to these relationships. You know.

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Speaker 1: I do have to add one more thing about the

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Speaker 1: gesture first, though, Okay, And there is there is this

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Speaker 1: this curious aspect of the dynamic you see with kind

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Speaker 1: of a classic gesture situation, but also in modern political humor,

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Speaker 1: there are two extremes that are both equally well maybe

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Speaker 1: not equally, but they're both cringe worthy, certainly when the king,

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Speaker 1: the rule, or the politician, whoever the celebrity is too

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Speaker 1: thin skin to let humorous bashing go where they have

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Speaker 1: to call out, say, you know an episode of Saturday

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Speaker 1: Night Live, right, if you made a joke about me,

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Speaker 1: how dare you? Right? Yeah, that is is cringeworthy and awful.

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Speaker 1: But on the same hand, and this is something that

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Speaker 1: I believe It was pointed out on an episode of

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Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist history podcast, there's also this danger in

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Speaker 1: what happens when the king says, yeah, this gesture guys great,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to hang out with him and do a

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Speaker 1: skit with him, or yeah, that's Saturday Night Life skit

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Speaker 1: is funny. I'm gonna appear on that Saturday Night Life

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Speaker 1: skit with the person doing an impression of me. There

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Speaker 1: can be uh, too much protection of one's dignity is

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Speaker 1: a bad sign, but too much surrender of one's dignity

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Speaker 1: also looks kind of bad. Like, you gotta find the

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Speaker 1: middle ground. You want the ruler that that ultimately has

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Speaker 1: very little to do with the gesture and doesn't politely

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Speaker 1: laughs perhaps but leaves it at that. I know exactly

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Speaker 1: what you're talking about, Like when presidential candidates go on SNL,

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Speaker 1: that's always like, I don't know, it's just always terrible. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But one of the points that Malcolm Gladwell made in

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Speaker 1: his shows that it takes the punch out of the

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Speaker 1: political humor, like you managed in a way, it's like

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Speaker 1: it's a genius move I guess for the politician, because

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Speaker 1: you have you have killed the humorous skit. You have

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Speaker 1: you have killed the power of the humor in a

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Speaker 1: way that you could never do by attacking it. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess it doesn't make you look great, but it

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Speaker 1: also is a type of defense mechanism. It undercuts any

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Speaker 1: truly biting criticism that's hidden there in the in the

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Speaker 1: comedy if you go on stage with the comedian. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but before we were talking about the Jester, we were

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Speaker 1: we were about to get into playful teasing, you know,

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Speaker 1: the sweet form of teasing, right, And obviously there's a

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Speaker 1: line between hurtful and and u and playful teasing. Good

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Speaker 1: luck finding, especially with people you're maybe not that familiar with.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, especially in close relationships, you tend to see

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Speaker 1: these you know, you see in jokes and you see

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Speaker 1: established safe zones for playful teasing. Uh. For instance, if

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Speaker 1: my wife teases me about some nerdy hobby of mine, Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's really more of a form, more of a

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Speaker 1: term of endearment. Or if she teases me about liking

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Speaker 1: robot music, like like really robotic sounding electronic music, and

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Speaker 1: uh and teasing me about how awful it sounds. Uh,

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Speaker 1: like like this is that this feels good when we're

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Speaker 1: doing it. I don't feel hurt or defensive about you know,

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Speaker 1: my my love of dungeons and dragons, or or or

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Speaker 1: my miniatures painting miniatures, or yeah, or my affinity for

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Speaker 1: the music of autech or that sort of thing. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think almost all good romantic relationships include an element

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Speaker 1: of teasing. I don't you know. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: be overly general. So maybe some people people make it

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Speaker 1: work in all kinds of ways, but I rarely see

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Speaker 1: what seems like a happy couple that doesn't tease one another, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like you do. And this is

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Speaker 1: something we're gonna return to throughout this episode. This idea

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Speaker 1: that that teasing it is is an opportunity for bond

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Speaker 1: for me and the establishment and the maintaining of bonds.

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Speaker 1: And but obviously you need a safe place for the

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Speaker 1: teasing just you know that all of us, I think

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Speaker 1: we're going to have unless we are some sort of

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Speaker 1: like inhuman politician type, you know, we're going to have

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Speaker 1: those areas that we are cool being teased about in

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Speaker 1: areas that we're less comfortable being teased about. You know,

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Speaker 1: thinking about several of the areas that that teasing functions

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Speaker 1: in our our social interactions, one of which is sort

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Speaker 1: of reminding people of hierarchies or establishing hierarchies. That it

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Speaker 1: does something of enforcing a pecking order. Number two is

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Speaker 1: maybe like establishing a criticism of somebody's behavior, and number

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Speaker 1: three is allowing bonding. Put these three things together, and

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Speaker 1: it seems like a key place where teasing should come

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Speaker 1: into play is education, right, because that's a place where

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Speaker 1: you need a hierarchy between teacher and student. You want

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Speaker 1: to teach lessons and you also want to have a

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Speaker 1: good relationship. That's right. So this brings us to this

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Speaker 1: third area of teasing, educative teasing, and this pops up

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Speaker 1: in areas that you wouldn't quite expect it as as

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Speaker 1: we'll discuss a little later. One example is that is

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Speaker 1: that of a frat boys giving each other's nicknames based on,

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Speaker 1: you know, various bone headed things they've done. Uh and

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Speaker 1: and this can be viewed as a way of of educating,

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Speaker 1: of laying down various um moral rules or or social expectations.

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Speaker 1: Right d a teasing, you might get nicknamed like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, toilet head because you fell asleep with your

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Speaker 1: head in the toilet, right, And the idea is, don't

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Speaker 1: do that, don't drink so much that you sleep in

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Speaker 1: the toilet. But then again, one of the things I

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Speaker 1: noticed about that kind of teasing is that toilet head

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Speaker 1: might originally be applied as a sort of like moral injunction,

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Speaker 1: but the toilet head make may well come to identify

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Speaker 1: with the nickname and say, that's right, that's who I am.

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Speaker 1: I am toilet head forevermore, and I will embrace it. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: some anthropology just point to specific traditions of educated teasing

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Speaker 1: between parents and children in various Indigenous American um cultures,

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Speaker 1: and the idea here is that it's a form of

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Speaker 1: teasing that can work better to impart knowledge of social

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Speaker 1: rules and emotionally instilled ideas. However, we We didn't really

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Speaker 1: focus on any of that for this research, but I

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Speaker 1: just want to let everyone know that that that is

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Speaker 1: an area of study now. As far as these three

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Speaker 1: terms for types of teasing go, I I feel like

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Speaker 1: there's some difficulty in how we use terms here because

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Speaker 1: I admit that I would typically reserve the word teasing

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Speaker 1: for the more benign or playful forms, like what we

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Speaker 1: were calling hurtful teasing, the kind that's actually cruel and

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Speaker 1: mean spirited. I would not usually call teasing. I'd probably

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Speaker 1: call it bullying or harassment or something. Um though. It's

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Speaker 1: what What this highlights is that the line between playful

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Speaker 1: teasing and hurtful bullying is not always clear. It's not

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Speaker 1: always clear to the person doing it, It's always not

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Speaker 1: always clear to the person receiving it. What sometimes ment

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Speaker 1: is benign or playful by the teaser can feel like

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Speaker 1: bullying to the tea Z and sometimes more benign or

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Speaker 1: playful forms of teasing. I bet you've been there for this.

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Speaker 1: I think we sort of talked about it at the beginning.

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Speaker 1: It starts off as a friendly and playful session of

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Speaker 1: ribbing that somehow catches this terrible momentum. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what causes it, but that momentum it edges into harder

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Speaker 1: and meaner stuff as it escalates, and it's this enormously

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Speaker 1: painful and uncomfortable thing to witness. And looking back, I

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Speaker 1: can remember instances of this in my life where I

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Speaker 1: watch something like this happened to somebody else, and in retrospect,

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Speaker 1: like I wish I'd found a way to step in

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Speaker 1: in the moment and stop it. But it's so much

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Speaker 1: easier to to to feel that kind of policing authority

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Speaker 1: in retrospect in the moment, to step in like that

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Speaker 1: into clear teasing to have gone too far requires you

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Speaker 1: to take this major risk. It feels like you're violating

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Speaker 1: a taboo. You're making it weird. You know you know

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Speaker 1: about making it weird right um, And in the moment

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Speaker 1: you're never really sure if you've like misread some kind

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Speaker 1: of unspoken set of cues. Maybe everything's actually okay, and

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Speaker 1: you're the one who's making people feel bad by getting

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Speaker 1: serious from out of nowhere. It can be a really

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Speaker 1: difficult and complicated UH dance to to navigate. All right,

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Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and

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Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna we're gonna really get

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Speaker 1: into the question of teasing and what purpose it truly serves. Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So one of the big names that comes

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Speaker 1: up in teasing research is that of psychiatry and psychology

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Speaker 1: researcher Dr Keltner, who has written on this, researched on this,

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Speaker 1: and one of the big pieces that is often circulated

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Speaker 1: is a two thousand and eight New York Times piece

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Speaker 1: titled in Defense of Teasing. Uh, And he also directs

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Speaker 1: the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab, So this is like right

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Speaker 1: in his uh, his area of focus. Yeah. Kiltner makes

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Speaker 1: an interesting point, which is that a lot of our

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Speaker 1: social conventions in the modern age, I think, are centered

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Speaker 1: around trying to make social interactions more safe, which in

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Speaker 1: a way is a good thing. Right. We we all

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Speaker 1: know how destructive and terrible bullying can be. We've all

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Speaker 1: seen the kind of teasing in a relationship and you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: somebody's somebody's got a new boyfriend and he's teasing her,

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Speaker 1: but he's like going a little hard. It doesn't quite

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Speaker 1: seem so sweet. And when you think about stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: it can be very easy to start to start to

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Speaker 1: view teasing is this really negative thing. It's this this cruel,

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Speaker 1: malicious force that permeates our culture and and make you

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Speaker 1: want to do things to eliminate it. Right, Well, how

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Speaker 1: can we get people to not act like this? But

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Speaker 1: I feel like teasing is a situation where you really

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Speaker 1: don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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Speaker 1: Well you don't, but you you want to protect the bank.

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Speaker 1: That's the thing. I mean throughout this episode, I kept

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Speaker 1: coming I keep coming back to UM, my own son,

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Speaker 1: and I just want to protect him so much from

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Speaker 1: these things. At the same time, I realized I can't

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Speaker 1: protect him there from everything. I can't just chadow him

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Speaker 1: through school and you know, feed him excellent, you know comebacks. Uh,

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Speaker 1: anytime anybody is is trying to tease him, he's going

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Speaker 1: to be teased. It's it's inevitable, and he it's probably

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Speaker 1: inevitable to that to engage in teasing Um. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time, it is hard for me to just

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Speaker 1: really get behind everything Kelton is saying about just the

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Speaker 1: importance of teasing, Like I still my impulse to protect

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Speaker 1: is too strong. Well, I mean, I think the point

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Speaker 1: he would be making is the good kind of teasing

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Speaker 1: is not actually hurtful. It's not actually something that needs

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Speaker 1: to be protected. And he's not advocating that that bullying

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Speaker 1: should be permitted. It's very clear about that. But but

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Speaker 1: but he does, let's make this strong, strong case that

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Speaker 1: that teasing is an essential part of our social interactions.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, he points out that the teasing is

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Speaker 1: pervasive in the animal world. Right now, we generally think

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Speaker 1: of teasing as uh, well, you know, as a verbal phenomenon, right,

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Speaker 1: and I guess you do have to think of of

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Speaker 1: human teasing as as a lot of things with humans

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Speaker 1: happens to be you think of it as a linguistic

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Speaker 1: and cultural complication of an impulse that may also be

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Speaker 1: found within uh languageless animals. And so, for instance, Keltner says, quote,

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Speaker 1: the centrality of teasing in our social evolution is suggested

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Speaker 1: by just how pervasive teasing is in the animal world.

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Speaker 1: Younger monkeys pull the tales of older monkeys. African hunting

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Speaker 1: dogs jump all over one another, much like pad slapping

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Speaker 1: joking football players moments before kickoff. In every corner of

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Speaker 1: the world, human adults play peekaboo games to stir a

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Speaker 1: sulking child. Children as early as age one and mimic

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Speaker 1: nearby adults and teenagers prod one another to gauge romantic interest.

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Speaker 1: In rejecting teasing, we may be losing something vital and

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Speaker 1: necessary to our identity as the most playful of species.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think I'm pretty on board with his

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Speaker 1: message there. It's the the difficulty comes in our uncertainty

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Speaker 1: about recognizing the line between benign teasing and hurtful teasing.

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Speaker 1: And and I think it's because there's that ambiguity, because

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Speaker 1: there's always the danger that you you're not necessarily going

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Speaker 1: to be able to recognize immediately the difference between one

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Speaker 1: or the other. It's exactly the same problem I was

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Speaker 1: mentioning a minute ago, where you like, think back on

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Speaker 1: a time you saw somebody getting teased and went over

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Speaker 1: the line, but you didn't stop it. Um, it's because

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Speaker 1: of that ambiguity, like you didn't know if you should

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Speaker 1: step in or not. And that ambiguity makes us uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: because we know teasing this over the line is wrong,

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Speaker 1: but you can't always see the line in the moment.

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Speaker 1: It would be interesting to hear from from Edrick writers

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Speaker 1: out there who are listening to the show on this

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Speaker 1: because it does make one think that the message should

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Speaker 1: not be hey, kids don't tease one another. It should

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Speaker 1: maybe be more here areas where it is not cool

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Speaker 1: to tease. You like, it's not cool to tease someone

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Speaker 1: about their physical appearance or the characters or stereotypes, etcetera. Um,

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Speaker 1: but various behavioral teasing. I don't know how, I mean,

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Speaker 1: how do you end up teaching such nuance? Maybe you

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent, you can't. It has to generate

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Speaker 1: via the social interactions. Here's something I would say, Um, well,

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Speaker 1: with a with a big exception for we can talk

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Speaker 1: about the jester in a second. With a big exception

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Speaker 1: for the jester. Maybe one thing is that you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: tease somebody unless you like them and they know you

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Speaker 1: like them. That's true because otherwise, if the if the

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Speaker 1: existing social dynamic is is anything different than you are

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Speaker 1: perhaps not engaging in pure teasing. No, I mean, then

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Speaker 1: it becomes bullying. When you tease somebody you don't even

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Speaker 1: like her respect obviously you're you're going to be tempted

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Speaker 1: to edge over into some form of cruelty. Now, speaking

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Speaker 1: of cruelty, we have to think a kaind of of kings,

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Speaker 1: and of course the jester. Keltner points out that that

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Speaker 1: in the tradition of the court jester, you could say

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Speaker 1: teasing is quote, a playful, provocative mode of commentary. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's right. I mean, as Touchstone said and

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Speaker 1: Shakespeare's as you like it quote, the fool don't think

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Speaker 1: he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to

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Speaker 1: be a fool. You know, that's hundreds of years before

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Speaker 1: all the modern research on illusory confidence and dunning Krueger

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Speaker 1: and all that. I think this reveals that a key

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Speaker 1: social good of even harder edge teasing is that when

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Speaker 1: it's properly applied, it can be kind of a leveling tool,

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Speaker 1: Like it knocks down the wicker men of big egos

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Speaker 1: and and pops the balloons of unearned self confidence that

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Speaker 1: we see so often in our highest levels of leadership.

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Speaker 1: But of course, just as often it's applied the other way,

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Speaker 1: and in a very bad, destructive way. It gets applied

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Speaker 1: from the top down by the inflated ego against the

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Speaker 1: less empowered. I guess it's sort of like a hierarchy

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Speaker 1: enforcement mechanism. But the bottom up form, the jester driven form.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a that leveling instinct is a useful

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Speaker 1: social good and a form of freedom. Teasing is an

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Speaker 1: arena that allows us to experiment with language, with personality

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Speaker 1: and relationships. It's sort of an open ended game that

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Speaker 1: we can use to manage relationships and learn about each other. Now,

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Speaker 1: Calton and Keltner also turns to the work of linguistic

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Speaker 1: anthropologist Penelope Brown and cognitive anthropologist Stephen Levinson, who I

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Speaker 1: believe we've we've touched on both of their work before

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, but their work that he's referencing here

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Speaker 1: is more specifically aligned with the study of politeness. But

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Speaker 1: of interest here is the their focus on two forms

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Speaker 1: of communication, like basically breaking down communication into two forms.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking mostly about linguistic communication here, but on

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Speaker 1: the on record communication and off record communication. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: tell me the difference. Okay. So on record communication is

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Speaker 1: just literal direct speech. You take it literally. It's meant

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Speaker 1: meant to be taken literally. It's clear, and it's direct.

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Speaker 1: This is the kind of speech you would want from

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Speaker 1: your doctor or your lawyer or whatever. Right if you

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Speaker 1: if someone were to come up to you on the

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Speaker 1: street and uh and say, hey, you've got something on

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Speaker 1: your face? Um, Like that's clear, Like, hey, I think

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Speaker 1: there's some food on your face. You need you might

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Speaker 1: want to get that off Like they're they're not playing around.

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Speaker 1: They're just letting you know. It might be socially awkward,

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Speaker 1: but they are being direct in their communication. They're they're

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Speaker 1: not they're not joking, they're not being vague about it.

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Speaker 1: Off the record is veiled meeting metaphor alternative meaning. So

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Speaker 1: this is if someone were to come up on your

426
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: street and be like, hey, um, you got a little

427
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: something right there. Hey, if you you know, if they

428
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: were kind of kind of beat around the bush a

429
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, you might want to take a

430
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:57,199
Speaker 1: look in a mirror. Bro right, Yeah, that kind of

431
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: thing where it can it's off the record, and it

432
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 1: can be in a way that is meant to, uh

433
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: to make the the the message softer, or it can

434
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: go the reverse, right, it can it can make it harder.

435
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 1: You could be straight up mocking somebody on the street

436
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: for the little bit of lunch they still have, you know,

437
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: caught in their beard. Yeah, it seems the key to

438
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 1: the off record communication is is some form of ambiguity.

439
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:26,120
Speaker 1: And one reason is that off record communication is sometimes risky, right,

440
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: people want deniability if their message is not well received.

441
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: Off record communication is the kind of communication where you

442
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 1: can say I was just kidding. On record communication, you

443
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: cannot plausibly say I was just kidding. And you've all

444
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 1: been there when somebody delivered on record communication and then

445
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: tried to I was just kidding afterwards. It doesn't work there. No,

446
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: there's generally no room for for retreat, except to like

447
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,920
Speaker 1: physically retreat. So the point here is that in modern

448
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: human interactions, you don't always want to be direct on record.

449
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: Your communication doesn't always work for the same reasons that

450
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 1: it's not practical to always be truthful. White lies are

451
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: sometimes required or lies of emission. Uh, And so it's

452
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: it's sometimes necessary to communicate via off record communication to

453
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: say something and signal some other meaning, as annoying as

454
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: it can be at times. Obviously, we can all think

455
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 1: too situations where someone is not direct with us and

456
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 1: we wish they were direct. Oh yeah, I mean pretty

457
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,680
Speaker 1: much everything we're talking about today that has a possible

458
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: good social good, you know, useful social role also can

459
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: be used for evil. I mean, every shifty, dishonest guy

460
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: you know uses a lot of off record communication and

461
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: always wants to be able to kind of weasel around

462
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: about what he said or what he meant, And so

463
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: Kellner argues that teasing is quote just such an act

464
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: of off record communication. Provocative commentary is shrouded in linguistic

465
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: acts called off record markers that suggests that commentary should

466
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: not be taken literally. So there's some sort of uh,

467
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: there's some sort of a wink there, right, But I

468
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: don't think this should cause us to sort uh communication

469
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: into like on record which is important, and off record

470
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: which is not important. Yeah, I mean, to your point,

471
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: it may be very important. It just might be socially delicate,

472
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: or you don't want to overstep the boundaries of your

473
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: established relationship with someone, and it may be essential to

474
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: to to to to to provide that wink to let

475
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: them know via you know, some sort of hand signal

476
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,640
Speaker 1: or some alteration of your voice, or even the use

477
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 1: of rhyme or the mimicking of of of of some

478
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: other individual. It could be key to letting them know

479
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: I'm I'm using off record communication here, even even though

480
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,640
Speaker 1: what I'm about to tell you is important. Well, yeah,

481
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: it's on record communication and off record communication. I would

482
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: say our respectively analogous to work and play, and play

483
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 1: is very important. Play is where we learn how to work. Ultimately,

484
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 1: it allows us to send messages in a in a

485
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: masked way or at least a kind of like a

486
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,959
Speaker 1: lubricated way. Socially. Uh, this this may be a terrible example,

487
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: but but one that I have observed before. If you've

488
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: ever seen say an individual come out of a public

489
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: restroom and uh, and they say, who do not go

490
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,640
Speaker 1: in there, or give you some sort of like joking warning,

491
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Made. It tends it are it

492
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: Definitely I would say definitely works better than if they

493
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: were to look you square in the eyes and say

494
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: do not go in there. Though that's sort of like

495
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: five minutes, you know, Like then that's self deprecating. Yeah,

496
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: but it's also it's like awkward for both parties. But

497
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: if but if there's a joke there, like then it's

498
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 1: kind of like I'm kind of making fun of myself

499
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: and I'm also kind of making fun of fun of you.

500
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: But I'm also providing definite information that you should be

501
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 1: aware of regarding the the the aromatic state of this bathroom.

502
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: You're about to enter well to to incorporate teasing. I

503
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: can see how in that situation, teasing if somebody else

504
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 1: could actually be used to diffuse tension and make them

505
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 1: feel less bad. So like say you have to go

506
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: into a bathroom after somebody else and it smells bad,

507
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: and the other person knows that they've been in there,

508
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: and you know they're probably feeling embarrassed. You might be

509
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 1: able to say something that's like a tease of them

510
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: that indicates that they shouldn't actually be You know, you

511
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: can both laugh about it, which actually feels better than

512
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: just leaving it, leaving it unsaid and the person feeling

513
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: awkward and embarrassed. Though I'm not necessarily advocating making fun

514
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: of people's body smells, You've got to judge the situation

515
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: case by case, Keltner says. Quote in teasing, we become actors,

516
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: taking on playful identities to manage the inevitable conflicts of

517
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: living in social groups, which is as kind of crude

518
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: as this example we just laid out, is it. I mean,

519
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:45,479
Speaker 1: that is an example of what we're talking about here.

520
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: I mean that is the inevitable conflict of living in

521
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: social groups, of going to restaurants and sharing restaurants, and

522
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: they also may allow us Keltner argues to engage in

523
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: the sort of social contest that may prove physical and

524
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: deadly in other species and ded we see plenty of

525
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: non human species that have evolved drama dramatized status contests

526
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:09,479
Speaker 1: that don't involve combat. You know, uh, some sort of

527
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: like feathery display or or even a display of something

528
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: that might otherwise be used for for combat. But some mean,

529
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: some means of of engaging in social contest that doesn't

530
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 1: actually require two individuals to to fight until one backs off. Yeah,

531
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the kind I would

532
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: call teasing. I guess there might be elements you call

533
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: this gets up against when exactly I would actually use

534
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: the word again, But it's clearly Yeah, it's clearly part

535
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: of human culture that we use words and like insults

536
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: and humor and stuff like that to manage hierarchy navigation.

537
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: You're trying to take down the person above you, and

538
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: you can do it with a witty comment. But stuff

539
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 1: like that isn't always isn't always in this playful, sweet

540
00:29:57,840 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: realm of teasing. I mean that kind of stuff can

541
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: actually you pretty biting, right. But but the argument here

542
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: is that even in playful teasing, there is this potential

543
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: for uh for establishment of a pecking order. And that's

544
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: just another way that teasing and requires us to walk

545
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: a fine line right enhancing social connection while also establishing

546
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: a pecking order. Like it's sounds it's one of those

547
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: things that when you when you boil it down, um,

548
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: like imagine like setting out to do that consciously, like

549
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: all right, I've gotta I need to walk into the

550
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: office today. I needed I need to tear everybody down

551
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: just the appropriate amount so that we all feel a

552
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: little closer, but also that it's so that everybody thinks

553
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: that I'm superior or that I have the appropriate place

554
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: in the social dynamics of the office. You're describing management

555
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: strategy probably probably so no, no, no, that's not fair.

556
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I unfortunately, I think there are

557
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: some people who are that deliberate and that calculating about

558
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff they say in a workplace. They're

559
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: not just talking to you about whatever they're thinking abou out.

560
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: They're making a comment to you in front of an

561
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: audience based on how it will benefit them. Now, we

562
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: mentioned frat frat brothers. Earlier, Keltner observed it among frat brothers.

563
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: In one study, teasing nicknames seemed to be quote more

564
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: morality plays based on misdeeds that they were encouraged to

565
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: move beyond. And among teens, teasing is a vital part

566
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: of a flirtation, a way of testing out others and

567
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: looking for genuine signs of interest. Yeah, and as I

568
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, I mean I feel like this can easily

569
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: go two ways. There is a very sweet kind of

570
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: teasing that takes that takes place in courtship, and then

571
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: there's definitely a gross form of it that's some kind

572
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: of social leverage trick, right, And then there's also something

573
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: problematic too about like if you established this rule that like, oh,

574
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: they're teasing you because they like you, like, then that

575
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: that and that may be the case, I mean that

576
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: it often is the case. It clearly is. But if

577
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: you but then it goes too far. If you established it,

578
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: then is this excuse for for problem amatic teasing, right,

579
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 1: like oh, that's just boys being boys or girls being girls?

580
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: Then you know, is it or are we using that

581
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: to cover up something that should be um policed in

582
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: some fashion? Well, often we are. This is yet another

583
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: case where it would be great if we could always

584
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: clearly see what the line is. And people's discomfort comes

585
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: in because sometimes it's not clear where the line is. Now.

586
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: On the subject of of teasing among committed partners, uh,

587
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,239
Speaker 1: he points out that there is a language to it,

588
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: you know, they're all these little in jokes, and he

589
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: points to two studies that have shown that married couples

590
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: with a rich vocabulary of you know, various teasing nicknames

591
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: and ends of formulate insults, they tend to be happier

592
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: and more satisfied. And that's the sweet kind. Yeah. And

593
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: he also adds that it may help diffuse arguments over

594
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: really explosive issues, and that the terminology of the teasing

595
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: as well as often drawn from the same metaphors we

596
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,479
Speaker 1: use for for love. They have to do, for instance,

597
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: with with food or small animals, right, like referring to

598
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: somebody as like a dum playing or a muffin or

599
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: something like that, or a or a bunny. Yes, though

600
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: apparently they did. It does depend on the language. Here.

601
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: I remember speaking with U, an individual of Thai descent,

602
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: and about how the use of pig or piggy or

603
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: you know, it's tie equivalent was a term of endearment,

604
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: especially for young children, whereas in English that the term

605
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: maybe has a has a bit more like spike to it,

606
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: if you're gonna call someone a pick or a piggy.

607
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: So a term of endearment in one language or culture

608
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: is not necessarily going to translate equally into another language.

609
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: Oh but I can actually see, like even in English,

610
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: a great novel where you establish a character's relationship, what

611
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: we're like, a wife calls her husband little piggy or something.

612
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: That seems that that's good, that's good character right there. Yeah. Now,

613
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: there's a ton of material out there on teasing, and

614
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: we can't possibly touch on all of it here today.

615
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: After all, it does seem to be a major aspect

616
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: of human social dynamics, and the legacy of childhood teasing

617
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: seems to be quite long. A lot of studies look

618
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: at childhood teasing and and the ramifications of it for adults. Yeah,

619
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:16,879
Speaker 1: a lot of what I saw was just study after

620
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 1: study looking at whether child whether children perceived teasing as

621
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: harmful or not, and generally they did. Now, one of

622
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: one of the problems here is that it does come

623
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: down to that perception, how is the instance of teasing perceived?

624
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 1: And and and here we see this this this this

625
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: case where an instance of teasing might well be perceived

626
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,879
Speaker 1: by one party as being playful and another party as

627
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:44,040
Speaker 1: being harmful. I mean, going back to our initial example.

628
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 1: You know, in in group social dynamics, where someone goes

629
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: over the line, I mean most of the most of

630
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: the cases, and the person is not thinking I'm going

631
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: over the line, I'm going for it, I'm gonna go

632
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: for the hurt point. Here, well, sometimes they are, I mean,

633
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: there there are clearly different categories here. There is like

634
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: very often teasing is going to be perceived as good

635
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: natured by the person doing the teasing and as mean

636
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: and hurtful by the person receiving the teasing. But also

637
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: there there are two different versions of what's going on

638
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: in the perpetrator's mind. You've definitely seen cases where somebody

639
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: who genuinely meant no harm accidentally hurt somebody's feelings with teasing.

640
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: And then you see cases where people try to cover

641
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: their butts afterwards, like clearly they let some you know,

642
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:33,479
Speaker 1: hurtful inclinations reveal itself too much. They were being mean,

643
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 1: but then afterwards they can be they can retreat. It's

644
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: off record communication, so they can be like, oh, I

645
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: was just kidding. I didn't mean any harm, don't you know,

646
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: don't get upset. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,

647
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: but they kind of did, right. Yeah, I was looking

648
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: at a paper here, two thousand paper titled I Was

649
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: Only Kidding Victims and Perpetrators Perceptions of Teasing by Robin M. Kowowski,

650
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,280
Speaker 1: and he points out that via seventy two person study,

651
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: I found that perspectives might refer lect of the views

652
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 1: of perpetrators and victims. The teaser remembers it more as

653
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 1: fun and focused on behavior, and the person being teased

654
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:12,879
Speaker 1: remembers it more as hurtful and potentially focusing on their appearance. Yeah,

655
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: that's another thing. So one area in which teasing, I

656
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 1: think is just never acceptable. I mean you just never

657
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:22,399
Speaker 1: want to go there is teasing about innate characteristics, not

658
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: not like about what somebody just did, but about what

659
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: they look like about their body, about fundamental personality issues.

660
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: It comes back to like the educative aspect of teasing,

661
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,439
Speaker 1: like you can you if it's if it's if there's

662
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: something educative about it, it's like you should be doing

663
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: this differently, where you should have done this differently. But

664
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, people for the for the vast

665
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: most part, cannot do anything about their their physical appearance,

666
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 1: you know. But but I've I'm sure you've seen this

667
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: where people tease somebody and it edges into teasing about

668
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,319
Speaker 1: innate characteristics, and when they get called out, they try

669
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:03,240
Speaker 1: to retreat to to like pretending they were just reacting

670
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: to behavior or something. No, no, no, no, I didn't

671
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,399
Speaker 1: mean that, I meant this other thing. Yeah, Or they're

672
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were

673
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: just being mean, and so I was going to be

674
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 1: mean too. I didn't realize that we were being playful

675
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 1: or that we were critiquing things they had choices about. Now,

676
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:21,359
Speaker 1: this this leads me to a question that I've I've

677
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: had in my mind for a little while here, and

678
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: that is, do certain people invite more playful and potentially

679
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 1: hurtful teasing than others, and if so, what are the factors?

680
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 1: So I've observed this in social situations in the past.

681
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:37,399
Speaker 1: I'm sure a number of our listeners have as well.

682
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: In social dynamics, some individuals seem to attract more teasing

683
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 1: attention than others. And why is that? I think based

684
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: on some of what we've discussed here so far, we

685
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: could we could really point to various causes apparent social status,

686
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 1: attractiveness and desirability, but also difference outside or status, really

687
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: any area that would seem to invite, invite off the

688
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 1: record linguistic attention right. Well, because teasing has so many

689
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: different uses and meanings, there are a lot of different

690
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: ways that it can be attracted. I mean, one thing

691
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: that you can see is that obviously in hurtful teasing,

692
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of cruel the thing I wouldn't

693
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: usually call teasing cruel, mean spirited bullying. I think the

694
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: people who attract that are people who look like easy targets,

695
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 1: people who are lower status in the community where they're

696
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: being teased, people who have less power to respond. I mean,

697
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: bullies pick on people they perceive to have a weakness. Now,

698
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: when it comes to the jester type of of teasing,

699
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: I think obviously they're the people who are going to

700
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: be attracting it, are going to be prominent, high status people,

701
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: and high status people also tend to invite the different

702
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: kind of teasing that's not even really teasing. But Keltner

703
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: talked about it in this article when he talked about

704
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 1: how frat brothers give each other nicknames. There's a kind

705
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: of teasing as praise that frat pledges show towards the

706
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: senior brothers of the fraternity. Uh. So it's structured like teasing,

707
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: but it's really more of a veiled compliment. Do you

708
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. I'm sure you've seen this before,

709
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: where like people will be obsequious by pretending to rib

710
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: somebody above them, but in a way that's not actually

711
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: for anything bad they did, but really is more for

712
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: something good about them. Yeah. Yeah, you do see examples

713
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: of this, uh from time to time, almost kind of

714
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: getting into the idea of like hot shaming somebody, right,

715
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 1: like making fun of them for being attractive, making fun

716
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: of them for being successful or something that in that regard.

717
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously in the fraternity context, a lot of

718
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: this is going to be like pretending to rib an

719
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: older frat brother for his you know, drinking ability, or

720
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: his sexual prowess or something. Uh. It's not really in

721
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: that context perceived as an insult, but they structure it

722
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 1: like one. It's a strange phenomenon. But but come back

723
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:02,919
Speaker 1: to other people who seem to invite I think one

724
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 1: thing that is common to most forms of more barbed

725
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 1: teasing is that it's invited by people who do not

726
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: appear to have a very well developed sense of humor,

727
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,359
Speaker 1: or people who appear to take themselves very seriously. I'm

728
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: sure you've observed this, right, Robert, Yes, I've definitely seen

729
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 1: this h in play, you know, in various work environments

730
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,240
Speaker 1: over over the years, where the person who takes themselves

731
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: very seriously just it almost requires you to to take

732
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 1: them down a pay not if they can't laugh at themselves, right,

733
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 1: I mean, and then this is something that's not necessarily

734
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: going to take place like face to face obviously, Like

735
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 1: like if you have a say you have a boss

736
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: that is just really self involved, you you cannot help

737
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: but make fun of them with a co worker, you know,

738
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: regardless of if you if you ever do anything or

739
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: say anything that you know that that that individual is

740
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: ever gonna hear, you still have to at least joke

741
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: about them, uh with your other coworkers. Right, And as

742
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: Keltner points out, the dynamics of teasing tend to change

743
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: dramatically around eleven or twelve, around that that kind of age,

744
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: which is about the age that he says kids most

745
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: often learn to hold contradictory ideas about the world in

746
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: their head at the same time these you know, that's

747
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:24,240
Speaker 1: the the idea of negative capability, the thing that allows

748
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 1: the ironic stance, and this allows them to see subtleties

749
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: of teasing and participate in it, especially on the receiving end,

750
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 1: in a more graceful way, without interpreting all of it

751
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: as bullying and bad. You know, that's one big difference

752
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: is that when you're an adult, it becomes you learn

753
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: how to take a joke usually, you know, like you

754
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: learn how to be the butt of a of a

755
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: good natured piece of criticism as long as it's not

756
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: like really cruel, uh, to be the butt of a

757
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: good natured piece of criticism or or teasing, and to

758
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 1: not get too upset about it. But kids don't have

759
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:03,759
Speaker 1: this ability. They are not good at this at all.

760
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: Kids take themselves very seriously. All right, Well, on that note,

761
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: we're going to take one more break, and when we

762
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 1: come back we will discuss teasing in bonding. Thank alright,

763
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: we're back, So one of the funny things I discovered

764
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: in this episode is there's this entire academic journal called

765
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:25,800
Speaker 1: Discourse Studies, all all kinds of research about the ways

766
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: people communicate, and they have this amazing way of like

767
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: mapping out conversations in a way that includes all this

768
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: information about tone and about gestures and laughter and how

769
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: different kinds of laughter sounded. It looks like computer code.

770
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: It's like conversations translated into cobal. You should look this

771
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:51,280
Speaker 1: up if you get a chance. It's it's pretty interesting. Um.

772
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: But I was just looking at one study from Discourse

773
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: Studies in that was published this year in called getting

774
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: to Know You Teasing as an Invitor Patian to Intimacy

775
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,359
Speaker 1: in Initial Interactions by Michael Hall and Danielle pill at

776
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,280
Speaker 1: Shore and so that they write about how before the study,

777
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 1: teasing was often assumed to take place mostly or exclusively

778
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: between people who have previously who have previous relationships, who

779
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: have some degree of intimacy. But this article examined conversations

780
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: between unfamiliar people who were becoming acquainted, and I thought

781
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: this was interesting. They found that teasing does play a role, uh,

782
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: and the role it seems to play in this kind

783
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: of conversation and the getting to know you conversation is

784
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:39,879
Speaker 1: a sort of experiment, is testing the new acquaintances willingness

785
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: to become more intimate, because I definitely know this feeling

786
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:46,879
Speaker 1: like you're at a party or whatever, you know, any

787
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,280
Speaker 1: place you've got to meet new people, and you're talking

788
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: to somebody new for the first time, and for a

789
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: while in that first conversation, you don't know if this

790
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: conversation will sort of escalate into a relationship and a

791
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: point of familiarity where you might start to think of

792
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 1: this person as a friend, or if you're just exchanging

793
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: pleasantries until you can move on, right, Yeah, So you

794
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: never know. Some sometimes you think it's gonna go one

795
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: way and it goes to the other. And this study

796
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 1: found that teasing plays an important role in this and

797
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: getting to know people as a bid for increased intimacy.

798
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 1: So the researchers taped and studied thirty initial interactions, twenty

799
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:25,760
Speaker 1: four of which twenty four out of the thirty featured

800
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,439
Speaker 1: one or more sequence of teasing. And the teases were

801
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: produced by and directed at both male and female speakers

802
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: of varying ages. And this is fascinating. The researchers discovered

803
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: that there was a clear pattern to the teasing exchange

804
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: in the initial conversations. So first, something teasable would happen.

805
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: There's a triggering action by the tease target that affords

806
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: the tease, and then second there's the tease at a quote,

807
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 1: a teasing action directed at the tease target. And then

808
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:02,800
Speaker 1: third there's affiliation, a mutual ratification of the non seriousness

809
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: of the tease and the author's right quote given. Teasing

810
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: is one way of criticizing another. It constitutes a potential

811
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 1: breach of tact or interactional propriety in initial interactions. However,

812
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: participants can construe this potential impropriety as an invitation to intimacy,

813
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: as it involves the proposal of a shared ironic stance

814
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: that may be either accepted or declined by the target

815
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 1: of the tease. So teasing in initial interactions, teasing while

816
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: first getting to know somebody can essentially be an off

817
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: record invitation to escalate the interaction and open up possibilities

818
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 1: of friendship. It's a sort of ambiguous, off record way

819
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: of saying will you play with me? And of course

820
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: reading through these you know these like Cobal conversations. You

821
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 1: see that a lot of the signaling both ways here

822
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 1: is relegated to nonverbal signals. There's intonation, uh, facial expressions, laughter,

823
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: And you know, one thing I think about it is

824
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: how sometimes a teasing interaction doesn't even necessarily involve words,

825
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: Like think about this situation. Somebody says something teasable, and

826
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: all you really need to do for a subtle tease

827
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 1: is to respond with a certain facial expression or type

828
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: of laughter, and the teased person has the option of

829
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: either joining you and and laughing along with you, or

830
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: rejecting the bid to join you in the river of

831
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: irony and staying on dry land, at which point you

832
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: realize like, oh, okay, this conversation or this relationship is

833
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: not going to a friendly place, or that this is

834
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: not the this is not the safe point for teasing. Yeah,

835
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: I mean it's very possible. I think we can all

836
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,479
Speaker 1: think the situations like this where you're kind of doing

837
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: this playful teasing and then you realize, oh, maybe this

838
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 1: individual is very serious about this particular aspect of their

839
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: personality or the world. Like they do not They're they're

840
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 1: not game for say, uh, you know, political based humor

841
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: or teasing, but they may be open in other areas.

842
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: And then it's also ultimately part of the social dynamic, right,

843
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 1: figuring out like what is the shape of my relationship

844
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 1: with this person and what is the shape of this

845
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 1: relationship going to be? What are the avenues for bonding

846
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 1: and teasing that can take place. Yeah, I was reading

847
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 1: another article about teasing as bonding and it talked about

848
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: how one of the main features of teasing is the

849
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: creation of distinct alliances between participants in a conversation. Of course,

850
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:28,879
Speaker 1: you know, we we see this happen all the time.

851
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: Teasing is going on, and it forms factions in a conversation.

852
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: People can either join in with the teasing and now

853
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: they're on a team together, or they can like resist,

854
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: or they can you know, it's often a form of

855
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:46,839
Speaker 1: like joining people together against an isolated recipient. And this

856
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 1: can take very cruel forms. Of course, this is where

857
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: it can very easily turn into bullying, where in group

858
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,360
Speaker 1: members strengthened bonds by teasing somebody from the out group

859
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: or somebody new. But I've also noticed that this form

860
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 1: of teasing as alliance formation can be really positive. It

861
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: can have really really sweet forms. Here's one very specific

862
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 1: benign way I've seen happen a lot in my life.

863
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: It's when there's someone who's uncomfortable or unfamiliar in a

864
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: social group. Say a person's over at your house for

865
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: the first time and they've never been there before that

866
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 1: you know that they're not one of this this social

867
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: in group yet, and a member of that social in

868
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: group tries to make the new person feel comfortable and

869
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 1: welcome by inviting them to participate in teasing of another

870
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 1: member of the in group. Like A very common version

871
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 1: of this is I see, um, a wife trying to

872
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 1: make somebody feel welcome in her home by inviting that

873
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:50,439
Speaker 1: guest to join in with her in teasing her husband. Okay, yeah,

874
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: I mean I can think of examples where my wife

875
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: has done this, where essentially what she's saying is like,

876
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 1: this is my husband, here's this nerdy thing he likes.

877
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:00,359
Speaker 1: It's okay to tease him about it because as it

878
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: is part of our dynamic, and you can share to

879
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: a certain extent in this dynamic as well. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah,

880
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: it's it's an inviting thing, and it also tells that

881
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:11,400
Speaker 1: person it's safe here. It says you're not going to

882
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: get your head cut off for mocking the king, right right, Yeah,

883
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: beheading always a sign that that that a dinner party

884
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: is going terribly wrong. It's it's a demonstration that there

885
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: is no Jeoffrey in this house. But it's also a

886
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 1: form of social bonding and alliance formation. It allows the

887
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 1: person to feel like they are you know, the that

888
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 1: the crucial that the bull's eye of the in group

889
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: right now. Though then again, because because teasing has all

890
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 1: this in built ambiguity and risk, there there's always the

891
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: risk of seeing something like that edge into actual mean

892
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:48,440
Speaker 1: spiritedness in a couple. You know, I hadn't really thought

893
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: about this before, but I was thinking of my own house.

894
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: A lot of teasing, linguistic teasing, mind you, is aimed

895
00:49:56,360 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 1: at our cat and our signing engaged in this is well,

896
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: you know, we we treat the cat obviously like a

897
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: like a queen. You know, she has even has a

898
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 1: pedestal that she lays upon, and you know she hasn't

899
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,840
Speaker 1: made in the shade, and you think, yeah, we we

900
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 1: love the cat. But at the same time, we have

901
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: all sorts of ridiculous names for the cat. We're always going, oh,

902
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: what is the cat? Doing. Now we're essentially teasing the cat,

903
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: and it is a very safe zone for linguistic teasing,

904
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:27,279
Speaker 1: you know, because the cat doesn't care. The cat doesn't

905
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: know what we're saying. Well, you know why cats are

906
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: great to tease. It's because they take themselves very seriously.

907
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: They do that, They are very to take themselves very seriously,

908
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 1: whereas there is there is certainly more of an air

909
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:41,879
Speaker 1: of the jesture to the dog. Though we make fun

910
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 1: of our dog too, and he deserves it because he's

911
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: very funny. But it does make me wonder to what

912
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: extent pets then, you know, they they are enabling this

913
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: avenue of bonding. Uh that that that that involves teasing.

914
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 1: I think in this world where we're trying to be

915
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: sensitive and socially conscious and not and not hurt people

916
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: and necessarily but at the same time, but where we

917
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: also recognize the absolutely necessary value of positive teasing. If

918
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: we need like a theory, we need like a theory

919
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: of teasing to guide our teasing so so that we

920
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,359
Speaker 1: we always understand where it's going and we don't accidentally

921
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:22,280
Speaker 1: pilot it into the rocks of of of bullying. I agree.

922
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,399
Speaker 1: I wonder if we need like posters, you know, sort

923
00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: of like a military propaganda posters that are instructing us

924
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:32,320
Speaker 1: about teasing, Like what is good teasing, what is bad teasing?

925
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: What is teasing accomplished? What should we tolerate? What should

926
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 1: we not tolerate? Yeah, I don't know exactly what the

927
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:38,759
Speaker 1: best rules of the road are. I mean, I know

928
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 1: some things you should not do, but it would be

929
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: good to have positive rules as well. How do you

930
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 1: know you're on the right track when you're teasing somebody? Yeah,

931
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 1: for the most part, we're all just winging it, aren't we. Well,

932
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:51,959
Speaker 1: I mean you're trying to you're trying to read read

933
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,879
Speaker 1: their reaction, Like if it's good natured teasing, if it's

934
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: between people who are friends or in a relationship, they're

935
00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:00,920
Speaker 1: teasing each other that you know, you read their their

936
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: facial expressions and all that, and you can generally tell

937
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:07,359
Speaker 1: if things are going well. But it's harder to tell

938
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 1: for some people than others. And it's harder to tell

939
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: in some situations than others. All Right, we're gonna go

940
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: and close it out there. But obviously this is a

941
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: topic that everyone is going to have some contribution for.

942
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone has experience with teasing or being teased

943
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:23,840
Speaker 1: both of you know as children is adolescence as adults

944
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: and UH, and we'd love to hear how you take

945
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:29,839
Speaker 1: some of the ideas that we've discussed here to UH

946
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: to dissect teasing that has occurred in your life where

947
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 1: you see occurring around you. We'll tell you how to

948
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: reach out to us here in a minute. But first

949
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: of all, stuff toblew your mind dot com. That of course,

950
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: is the mothership. That's where you can always go to

951
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: find past episodes of the show. You'll also find links

952
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 1: out there very social media accounts. You'll find a link

953
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 1: to our store. Are our fabulous little store where you

954
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 1: can buy our our logo on T shirts, stickers for

955
00:52:56,560 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 1: your laptops, and street signs. Have you got a ten

956
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: year old Dave Matthews band sticker on the back of

957
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:03,959
Speaker 1: your car that you've been looking to cover up? Put

958
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: our sticker over it, yeah, or just put our sticker

959
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:08,360
Speaker 1: next to it. I would love to see a picture

960
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: that I want to know who we're sharing bumpers with,

961
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,400
Speaker 1: who are sharing laptops with. We've seen a few of

962
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 1: these photos already and it's it's really really fun. So Yeah.

963
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: The store tab is at the top of our web page.

964
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: Check it out. It's a great way to support the show.

965
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: But another way great way to support the show is

966
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: simply to rate and review us wherever you have the

967
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 1: power to do so. Big thanks as always to our

968
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:33,759
Speaker 1: excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If you

969
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us directly with

970
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:38,400
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, or just to

971
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: say hi, let us know where you listen from, or

972
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: you know, anything else just to suggest a topic for

973
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,239
Speaker 1: us to cover in the future, you can email us

974
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com.

975
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: Well more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

976
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com? They man