Definitive dictionary of power
It can be found under number 3 in Power University of
Module 2.4: Micro-Aggressions and Social Calibration
Do you think it should be added to the dictionary as well?
I found it in the dictionary. My bad:
Similar to: “giving them rope” (as in “giving them enough rope to hang themselves”)
New definitions added:
- Covert manipulation: see Capitol Hill riots post
- Social bean counter: the exaggerated "tit for tat" attitude where every single favor means you will either be asked something back, or that they will "throw it back in your face"
- Power borrowing: see this post
Quote from John Freeman on October 23, 2020, 12:34 pmThank you for your feed-back, guys. You helped me to see more clear:
So here is my modification:
- Inner Power: the ability to affect the World through your own qualities (character, knowledge, skills, experience, body language, etc).
- Outer Power: the ability to affect the World through external means (relationships, status, money, titles, etc.)
Regarding classification, here is my proposition:
In the Outer Power category, we find Social Power. In Social Power, we find borrowing power (tactics).
Coming back to :
Protocols and Guidelines: if you don't understand why they are in place or what they mean, then you're borrowing the power from a written paper.
Titles: if you say "do that because I'm the chief", it means that as soon as you don't have this title, people don't respect you.
Other people's authority: people do what you're telling them because of the other person, not because of your knowledge, experience, know-how or inner qualities.
I think these are cases of borrowing power from an external source:
- Protocols and Guidelines: from institutions and groups
- Titles: from institutions and groups, especially states (doctor) or business (senior business associate)
- Other people's authority : from somebody else who has a formal (title) or informal (high social status within any group) authority
Of course you can then borrow power in a legitimate/official way or in a deceptive way, which I think would be a form of power scalping.
If I remember well, we talked about it here some time ago.
True, I had totally forgotten that, John -or maybe the "borrowing" got stuck in my subconscious from there-.
I added the credit now (albeit I know you might not care about that).
Added:
- IOU: social signals that acknowledge the receipt of value from someone and either directly or indirectly promise, imply, or suggest the willingness to pay back the favor ( thanks to Ali)
And I didn't make two separate entries, but made a note to divide "honest exchange talk" into "honest exchange credit talk" and "honest exchange debt talk", also thanks to @aliscarlett message.
On value-takers:
- Disagreeable taker / giver
- Involuntary taker / voluntary taker
- Passive / active value taker
- Matcher
Many thanks to John (@amerok ) for expanding on this all-important concept of social strategies and social effectivenesss (which is also life effectiveness) from this thread.
On covert power moves:
- Covert framing compliments: a compliment, praise, (positive) evaluation, or a general sign of appreciation that comes at the end of a frame.
It can reinforce the value-giving of the original frame if it's honest, which is most often the case, but it can also empower and strengthen the value-taking effects of the initial frame if the initial frame was value-taking.
And as part of the general "frame cementing":
- Cementing appreciation: a compliment, praise, (positive) evaluation, or a general sign of appreciation that comes at the end of a frame.
It can reinforce the value-giving of the original frame if it's honest, which is most often the case, but it can also empower and strengthen the value-taking effects of the initial frame if the initial frame was value-taking.
Thank you to Matthew for these last two!
New important definition, and a property of frames:
- Self-cementing: self-cementing is a property of frames that tend to cement themselves when they unchallenged.
Explanation: if a frame goes unchallenged, then people's subconscious tends to derive that the frame is valid, and real.
This is especially true for value-taking frames and (micro)-aggressions, since people think that if the person who lost value had the power and skills to challenge the frame, he would have.
Hence, it must mean that he did not have the power or skills to challenge the frame. Meaning, it's true that the value-taker must be of higher power /status.
Self-cementing is the reason why it's a good idea to get in the habit of reacting to any value-taking frame, joke, micro-aggression that comes your way.
So far we've used "value-taking" in general.
However, to be more specific, I think it's good to add the same concept to power and status:
- Power-giving: any action, words, or frame, that empowers the receiver
- Giving back power: to give back power after having taken it
Example: to say "sorry", and to ask for forgiveness (the power of choice, whether to forgive or not, is given to the receiver, and that empowers them back)
- Giving back power: to give back power after having taken it
- Power-taking: any action, words, or frame, that disempowers the receiver
- Retaking back power: techniques and strategies to re-empower oneself against power-takers
- Power-protecting: to position or phrase a potentially power-taking action or sentence in a way that does not take power from the receiver, or that takes less power from the receiver
Example: instead of "do X", you say: "a good option could be to try X. (What do you think about it)?" this type of phrasing empowers the receiver with the final decision. If you ask what they think about it, they can add their own thoughts, which also makes them part of the decision making, and raise them very near to your level
Explanation: power-protecting options are more likely to be well-received and appreciated by high-power folks, power-aware folks, high-ego folks, and by those who are above you in ranking / status
- Status-giving: any action, words, or frame, that increases the status of the receiver
- Giving back status: to give back status after status was taken away
- Status-taking: any action, words, or frame, that disempowers the receiver
- Retaking back status: techniques and strategies to re-gain status
- Status-protecting: to position or phrase a potentially power-taking action or sentence in a way that does not take power from the receiver, or that takes less power from the receiver
Of course these concepts overlap.
For example, taking power away from someone within a group is very likely to also take his status away.
Still, it's helpful to differentiate.
I really like these concepts. To me as a learner, an example for each concept helps me to understand it clearly.