Status Transactions - Lessons from improvisational theater on how to deal with unreasonable people.

Описание: Human beings are biologically hard-wired to be preoccupied with social status, because our hierarchy within the group is critical to our evolutionary (e.g., reproductive). Keith Johnstone's book "Impro" about acting, improvisation, and education makes clear that one of the fascinating things about the theater is witnessing the status transactions between the acters.

A simplified representation of status transactions characterizes them as making a big for either high or low status, using either pleasant or unpleasant affect. Being unpleasant is typically defensive, whereas pleasant offering are typically inviting.

Nowhere is status more important that in dating, mate selection, and intersexual relations. Athol Kay, author of 'Married Man Sex Life,' was a careful student of human behavior who applied his lessons to improve marriages. Without referencing Johnstone, he seemed to understand that the worst marriages were those that devolved into power struggles over status.

In his online forum for MMSL readers, Kay noticed that mental patients he cared for as a nurse would sometimes be violent, threatening, and demanding -- i.e., unpleasant high. Although most people would write those patients off as "crazy," Kay observed "It is amazing how reasonable crazy people get when you show them the Taser."

When you encounter people in your life making a play for unpleasant high status, you sometimes have no choice but to meet them with unpleasant high. That doesn't mean shouting or bullying. To "show them the Taser" requires you to help them see the consequences that will result from their unreasonable behavior.

When you are skilled in all 4 quadrants of Impro, you will likely reach more satisfying outcomes in all of your negotiations.