September 11, 2018 • 53 mins
We all know teasing when we see it or experience it, but what role does it play in human interactions? Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind as they explore hurtful, playful and educative teasing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe
McCormick and Robert. I've got a question for you. You
ever find yourself in that situation where you're hanging out
(00:23):
with people. It's all good fun, everybody's there's banter going on.
One person is teasing another person over something kind of funny,
some funny foible of their personality, and there's that moment,
there's that awful little moment where there's kind of a
pause after somebody says some some teasing joke and then
(00:43):
you realize like, oh no, suddenly it has gotten serious.
Oh yes, I mean it's especially if it it's a
multi person group and and there's a bit of piling
on occurring. They'll be there, I've seen this, this happened,
where they'll they'll be a breaking point where the person
has had an enough and and and you realize, oh, no,
lines have been crossed, and now this person who is
(01:05):
gonna leave and we're gonna have to resolve this uh
via emails later. Uh yeah. And it's a ter it's
a terrible feeling because things have spiraled out of control.
Something that was playful and um and just part of
hanging out has now become a divisive email the best
place to work out tense social disputes. Well sometimes sometimes
(01:27):
it depends. I mean, I guess it depends on what
role one had in the in the breakdown. I've been
fortunate enough to to not be like at the epicenter
of the of the breakdown generally, so um email tends
to suffice for me. You know, you never have to
worry that when you type a smiley emoji that will
look like a fake smile. When you actually smile at somebody,
(01:49):
you always gotta worry like does this look real? Is
my face moving? Right? You just have to use the
authentic smiling emoji, not the inauthentic one. You know, it's
all on the micro expressions of the emoji. What's the
authentic one that's like colon and clothes brackets? Oh no,
I'm talking about the ones that actually like the little
yellow face with the smile, like you'll know what when
you see it. But is everyone can realize at this point,
(02:11):
we're talking about teasing today on the show, and teasing
is weird territory to try and figure out deceptively, so really, um,
for many of us looking back on our childhoods, it's
it makes up some of our worst memories of social interaction.
And as a as a parent, I have a lot
of apprehension about it, you know, regarding my own child,
the inevitable struggles that he's gonna gonna face. And at
(02:34):
the same time, there's this weird cult of the tease
that is often difficult to understand. We see teasing in
our media, and it's sometimes presented as in a fun
comical light. We also see adults for whom teasing is
a standard part of their interactions, not fighting with each other,
but but just picking in various ways that it's it
seems like they're just terms of endearments, joking, benign criticism. Yeah,
(02:59):
and it and uh. It's often a case where I
look at it and I realized, well, this is clearly
part of their social dynamic. It wouldn't necessarily work in
my social dynamic. But I guess it's okay. Uh. We
see it factor into courtship as well, which also has
a way of of seeming weird and sour at times
of an outside perspective. Right. Well, I mean there's there's
(03:20):
two very different ways it can take place. There's a
kind you can see, a kind of friendly, sweet teasing
that takes place between people in a courtship relationship. And
then there's like the pickup artist version of it, where
somebody's clearly like making a power play. Right. And then
likewise we also see this this space, this sort of
ambiguous space where playful teasing gives over to what is
(03:43):
clearly something based in hate and abuse name calling uh
that occurs among children and even among adults. Obviously even
at the highest levels of government, you see name calling
used in a in a hurtful fashion. So if you start,
if you start picking out and I imagine a lot
of your doing this as well, thinking of all the
varying levels of teasing that are going on in your
(04:04):
immediate environment and um in politics and the media, etcetera.
On the street as you're driving your car and listen
to this podcast. You know, it's enough to make you
wonder if if we're just nothing more than just cruel
apes jockeying for social position, uh, And it's any wonder
that we managed to emerge from these social interactions with
(04:24):
self esteem and respect for our fellow humans. But part
of the issue here is that while all forms of
teasing share common features, there are at least three distinctive
forms of teasing that are often signal, that are often
singled out and definitely deserve mention here. Okay, well, what
would those forms be? All right? Well, the first is
pretty obvious, and that is that is the hurtful teasing.
(04:47):
And I think it's one of those things where we
all we all know it when we see it, right
or hear it. This is obviously the domain of bullying
and harassment, and yet at the same time it's the
sort of teasing you might see in a celebrity post
or some of you are more viciously charged a humor
or political humor. I guess you could also say it's
maybe the domain of the jester, the fool, and the clown.
(05:10):
Uh and important These are important roles throughout human history.
Oh yeah, well, I mean I might argue that the
fool in the Shakespearean sense requires its own category here,
because the fool has a lot of power and freedom,
and that's important power and freedom. Like they're the only
member of the lower classes who can point out the
flaws of the monarchs and the upper classes and get
(05:31):
away with it. There's something about the ridiculousness of the
fool that allows a critique of power that might result
in a beheading if you made the same critique in
a serious tone. And likewise, a king who beheads a
jester every week is a terrible king. They look weak. Yeah,
it makes the king look foolish if the king overreacts
(05:52):
to a to a comical critique, right, I think you're
pointing Joffrey from Game of Thrones is this type of
ruler where you realize how he's terrible. He's totally incompetent.
Look how thin Skinndy is against Uh, the humorous criticism
of the the court fool. Well, it codes so easily
for us. I mean, one of the clearest signs of
(06:15):
a toxic personality is somebody who's unable to accept criticism
and even benign criticism, or to be the butt of
a joke. You know, somebody who cannot tolerate that, especially
because of the positive role that teasing plays in our culture.
I mean, there's so much teasing that is not hurtful, hateful.
(06:35):
I mean it is a constant feature of conversation between friends,
between couples, between family members, between educators and the people
they educate. Teasing, you know, there's like a sweet, benign
form of teasing that's absolutely essential to these relationships. You know.
I do have to add one more thing about the
gesture first, though, and there is there is this this
(06:58):
curious aspect of the dying ammic you see with kind
of a classic gesture situation, but also in modern political humor,
there are two extremes that are both equally well, maybe
not equally, but they're both cringe worthy. Certainly when the king,
the rule or the politician, whoever the celebrity is too
thin skinned to let humorous bashing go where they have
(07:21):
to call out, say, you know an episode of Saturday
Night Live, right, if you made a joke about me,
how dare you right? Yeah? That is is cringeworthy and awful.
But on the same hand, and this is something that
I believe it was pointed out on an episode of
Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast, there's also this danger in
what happens when the king says, yeah, this gesture guys, great,
(07:43):
I'm going to hang out with him and do a
skit with him, or or yeah, that's Saturday Night Life
skit is funny. I'm gonna appear on that Saturday Night
Life skit with the person doing an impression of me.
There can be uh, too much protection of one's dignity
is a bad sign, but too much surrender of one's
dignity also looks kind of bad. Like you got to
find the middle ground. You want the ruler that that
(08:05):
ultimately has very little to do with the gesture and
doesn't politely laughs perhaps but leaves it at that. I
know exactly what you're talking about. Like when presidential candidates
go on SNL, that's always like, I don't know, it's
just always terrible. Yeah. But one of the points that
Malcolm Gladwell made in his show is that it takes
the punch out of the political humor, like you managed
(08:27):
in a way. It's like it's a genius move I
guess for the politician, because you have you have killed
the humorous skit. You have you have killed the power
of the humor in a way that you could never
do by attacking it. Well, yeah, I guess it doesn't
make you look great, but it also is a type
of defense mechanism. It undercuts any truly biting criticism that's
(08:49):
hidden there in the in the comedy. If you go
on stage with the comedian. Yes, oh, but before we
were talking about the jester, we were we were about
to get into playful teasing. You know, the sweet form
of teasing, right, And obviously there's a line between hurtful
and and u and playful teasing good luck finding, especially
with people you're maybe not that familiar with. But yeah,
(09:12):
especially in close relationships, you tend to see these you know,
you see in jokes and you see established safe zones
for playful teasing. Uh. For instance, if my wife teases
me about some nerdy hobby of mine, uh, it's it's
really more of a form, more of a term of endearment.
Or if she teases me about liking robot music, like
(09:32):
like really robotic sounding electronic music, and uh and teasing
me about how awful it sounds. Uh like like this
is that this feels good when we're doing it. I
don't feel hurt or defensive about you know, my my
love of dungeons and dragons, or or or my miniatures
painting miniatures, or yeah, or my affinity for the music
(09:53):
of autech or that sort of thing. Yeah, I think
almost all good romantic relationships include an element of teasing.
I don't, you know. I don't want to be overly general.
So maybe some people people make it work in all
kinds of ways, but I rarely see what seems like
a happy couple that doesn't tease one another, right, I mean,
it seems like you do. And this is something we're
(10:14):
going to return to throughout this episode, this idea that
that teasing it is, is an opportunity for bond forming
and the establishment and the maintaining of bonds. And but
obviously you need a safe place for the teasing. Just
you know, all of us, I think we're going to have,
unless we are some sort of like in human politician type,
(10:35):
you know, we're going to have those areas that we
are cool being teased about in areas that we're less
comfortable being teased about. You know, thinking about several of
the areas that that teasing functions in our our social interactions,
one of which is sort of reminding people of hierarchies
or establishing hierarchies. That it does something of enforcing a
(10:56):
pecking order. Number two is maybe like establishing a criticism
of somebody's behavior. And number three is allowing bonding. Put
these three things together, and it seems like a key
place where teasing should come into play is education, right,
because that's a place where you need a hierarchy between
teacher and student. You want to teach lessons and you
(11:17):
also want to have a good relationship. That's right. So
this brings us to this third area of teasing, educative teasing,
and this pops up in areas that you wouldn't quite
expect it as, as we'll discuss a little later. One
example is that is that of a frat boys giving
each other nicknames based on, you know, various bone headed
things they've done. Uh And and this can be viewed
(11:38):
as a way of of educating, of laying down various
um moral rules or or social expectations. Right, you teasing,
you might get nicknamed like, I don't know, toilet head
because you fell asleep with your head in the toilet, right,
And the idea is, don't do that. Don't drink so
much that you sleep in the toilet. But then again,
(12:00):
one of the things I noticed about that kind of
teasing is that toilet head might originally be applied as
a sort of like moral injunction. But that toilet Head
make may well come to identify with the nickname and say,
that's right, that's who I am. I am toilet Head forevermore,
and I will embrace it. Yeah. Now, some anthropologists point
(12:21):
to specific traditions of educated teasing between parents and children
in various Indigenous American um cultures, and the idea here
is that it's a form of teasing that can work
better to impart knowledge of social rules and emotionally instilled ideas. However,
we we didn't really focus on any of that for
this research, but I just want to let everyone know
(12:42):
that that that is an area of study. Now, as
far as these three terms for types of teasing go,
I I feel like there's some difficulty in how we
use terms here because I admit that I would typically
reserve the word teasing for the more benign or playful
forms what we were calling hurtful teasing, the kind that's
(13:03):
actually cruel and mean spirited. I would not usually call teasing.
I'd probably call it bullying or harassment or something. Um though.
It's what what this highlights is that the line between
playful teasing and hurtful bullying is not always clear. It's
not always clear to the person doing it. It's always
not always clear to the person receiving it. What sometimes
(13:25):
ment is benign or playful by the teaser can feel
like bullying to the teaz and sometimes more benign or
playful forms of teasing. I bet you've been there for this.
I think we sort of talked about it at the beginning.
It starts off as a friendly and playful session of
ribbing that somehow catches this terrible momentum. I don't know
what causes it, but that momentum it edges into harder
(13:48):
and meaner stuff as it escalates, and it's this enormously
painful and uncomfortable thing to witness, And looking back, I
can remember instances of this in my life where I
watch something like this happened to somebody else, and in retrospect,
like I wish I'd found a way to step in
in the moment and stop it. But it's so much
(14:09):
easier to to to feel that kind of policing authority
in retrospect in the moment, to step in like that
into clear teasing. To have gone too far requires you
to take this major risk. It feels like you're violating
a taboo, you're making it weird, you know, you know
about making it weird, right, um, And in the moment
you're never really sure if you've like misread some kind
(14:31):
of unspoken set of cues. Maybe everything is actually okay,
and you're the one who's making people feel bad by
getting serious from out of nowhere. It can be a
really difficult and complicated uh dance to to navigate. All right,
on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and
when we come back, we're gonna we're gonna really get
into the question of teasing and what purpose it truly serves.
(14:53):
Thank thank thank Alright, we're back. So one of the
big names that comes up in teasing resear is that
of psychiatry and psychology researcher Dr Keltner, who has written
on this, researched on this, and one of the big
pieces that has often circulated is a two thousand and
eight New York Times piece titled in Defensive Teasing. Uh.
(15:16):
And he also directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. So
this is like right in his uh, his area of focus. Yeah,
Keltner makes an interesting point, which is that a lot
of our social conventions in the modern age, I think
are centered around trying to make social interactions more safe,
which in a way is a good thing. Right. We
(15:38):
we all know how destructive and terrible bullying can be.
We've all seen the kind of teasing in a relationship.
And you know, somebody's somebody's got a new boyfriend and
he's teasing her, but he's like going a little hard.
It doesn't quite seem so sweet. And when you think
about stuff like that, it can be very easy to
(15:58):
start to to start to view teasing is this really
negative thing. It's this this cruel, malicious force that permeates
our culture and and make you want to do things
to eliminate it. Right, Well, how can we get people
to not act like this? But I feel like teasing
is a situation where you really don't want to throw
the baby out with the bathwater. Well you don't, but
(16:19):
you you want to protect the baby. That's the thing
I mean. Throughout this episode, I kept coming I keep
coming back to um, my own son, and I just
want to protect him so much from these things. At
the same time, I realized I can't protect him there
from everything. I can't just chattow him through school and
you know, feed him excellent, you know, comebacks. Uh, anytime
(16:42):
anybody is is trying to tease him, he's going to
be teased. It's it's inevitable, and he it's probably inevitable
to that to engage in teasing. Um. But at the
same time, it is hard for me to just really
get behind everything Kelton is saying about just the importance
of teasing, like, I still my impulse to protect is
(17:04):
too strong. Well, I mean, I think the point he
would be making is that the good kind of teasing
is not actually hurtful, it's not actually something that needs
to be protected. And he is not advocating that that
bullying should be permitted. It's very clear about that. But
but but he does make this strong, strong case that
that teasing is an essential part of our social interactions,
(17:27):
and in fact, he points out that the teasing is
pervasive in the animal world. Right now, we generally think
of teasing as you know, as a verbal phenomenon, right
and I guess you do have to think of of
human teasing as as a lot of things with humans
happens to be you think of it as a linguistic
and cultural complication of an impulse that may also be
(17:49):
found within uh language less animals, and so, for instance,
Keltner says, quote, the centrality of teasing in our social
evolution is suggests by just how pervasive teasing is in
the animal world. Younger monkeys pull the tales of older monkeys.
African hunting dogs jump all over one another, much like
(18:09):
pad slapping joking football players moments before kickoff. In every
corner of the world, human adults play peekaboo games to
stir a sulking child. Children as early as age one
mimic nearby adults and teenagers prod one another to gauge
romantic interest. In rejecting teasing, we may be losing something
vital and necessary to our identity as the most playful
(18:33):
of species. I mean, I think I'm pretty on board
with his message there. It's the the difficulty comes in
our uncertainty about recognizing the line between benign teasing and
hurtful teasing. And and I think it's because there's that ambiguity,
because there's always the danger that you you're not necessarily
going to be able to recognize immediately the difference between
(18:57):
one or the other. It's exactly the same problem. I
was mentioning a minute go where you like, I think
back on a time you saw somebody getting teased and
it went over the line, but you didn't stop it. Um,
it's because of that ambiguity, like you didn't know if
you should step in or not. And that ambiguity makes
us uncomfortable because we know teasing this over the line
is wrong, but you can't always see the line in
(19:18):
the moment. It would be interesting to hear from from
educators out there who are listening to the show on this,
because it does make one think that the message should
not be hey, kids, don't tease one another. It should
maybe be more. Here areas where it is not cool
to tease, you know, like it's not cool to tease
someone about their physical appearance or the characters or stereotypes, etcetera. Uh,
(19:41):
but various behavioral teasing. I don't know how, I mean,
how do you end up teaching such nuance? Maybe you
to a certain extent, you can't. It has to generate
via the social interactions. Here's something I would say, Um, well,
with a with a big exception for we can talk
about the jester in a second, with a big exception
for the jester. Maybe one thing is that you shouldn't
tease somebody unless you like them and they know you
(20:05):
like them. That's true, because otherwise, if the if the
existing social dynamic is is is anything different, than you
are perhaps not engaging in pure teasing. No, I mean,
then it becomes bullying. When you tease somebody you don't
even like her respect, obviously you're you're going to be
tempted to edge over into some form of cruelty. Now,
(20:25):
speaking of cruelty, we have to think again of of kings,
and of course the jester. Keltner points out then that
in the tradition of the court jester, you could say
teasing is quote a playful, provocative mode of commentary. Yeah,
I think that's right. I mean, as Touchstone said in
Shakespeare's as you Like It quote, the fool don't think
(20:45):
he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to
be a fool. You know, that's hundreds of years before
all the modern research on illusory confidence and dunning Krueger
and all that. I think this reveals that a key
social good of even harder edged thing is that when
it's properly applied, it can be kind of a leveling
tool like it knocks down the wickerman of big egos
(21:07):
and and pops the balloons of unearned self confidence that
we see so often in our highest levels of leadership.
But of course, just as often it's applied the other way,
and in a very bad, destructive way. It gets applied
from the top down by the inflated ego against the
less empowered. I guess as sort of like a hierarchy
enforcement mechanism, but the bottom up form, the jester driven form.
(21:30):
I think that's a that leveling instinct is a useful
social good and a form of freedom. Teasing is an
arena that allows us to experiment with language, with personality
and relationships. It's sort of an open ended game that
we can use to manage relationships and learn about each other. Now,
Culton A. Keltner also turns to the work of linguistic
anthropologist Penelope Brown and cognitive anthropologist Stephen Levinson, who I
(21:56):
believe we've we've touched on both of their work before
on the podcast, but their work that he's referencing here
is more specifically aligned with the study of politeness. But
of interest here is the their focus on two forms
of communication like basically breaking down communication into two forms
that we're talking mostly about linguistic communication here, but on
(22:19):
the on record communication and off record communication. Okay, so
tell me the difference. Okay, So on record communication is
just literal direct speech. You take it literally. It's meant
meant to be taken literally. It's clear, and it's direct.
This is the kind of speech you would want from
your doctor or your lawyer or whatever. Right if you
if someone were to come up to you on the
(22:41):
street and uh and say, hey, you've got something on
your face? Um, like that's clear, Like, hey, I think
there's some food on your face. You need you might
want to get that off. Like they're they're not playing around.
They're just letting you know. It might be socially awkward,
but they are being direct in their communication. They're they're
not they're not joking, they're not being vague about it.
Off the record is veiled meeting metaphor alternative meaning. So
(23:06):
this if someone were to come up on your street
and be like, hey, um, you got a little something
right there. Hey, if you you know, if they were
kind of kind of beat around the bush a little bit,
you know, you might want to take a look in
a mirror bro right, Yeah, that kind of thing where
it can it's off the record, and it can be
in a way that is meant to, uh to to
make the the the message softer, or it can go
(23:29):
the reverse, right, it can, it can make it harder.
You could be straight up mocking somebody on the street
for the little bit of lunch they still have, you know,
caught in their beard. Yeah, it seems the key to
the off record communication is is some form of ambiguity.
And one reason is that off record communication is sometimes risky, right,
people want deniability if their message is not well received.
(23:51):
Off record communication is the kind of communication where you
can say I was just kidding. On record communication, you
cannot plausibly say I was just kidding. And you've all
been there when somebody delivered on record communication and then
tried to I was just kidding afterwards. It doesn't work.
There's no there's generally no room for for retreat except
(24:13):
to like physically retreat. So the point here is that
in modern human interactions, you don't always want to be direct.
On record communication doesn't always work for the same reasons
that it's not practical to always be truthful. White lies
are sometimes required or lies of emission. Uh, And so
it's it's sometimes necessary to communicate via off record communication
(24:35):
to say something and signal some other meaning, as annoying
as it can be at times. Obviously, we can all
think too situations where someone is not direct with us
and we wish they were direct. Oh yeah, I mean
pretty much everything we're talking about today that has a
possible good social good, you know, useful social role also
can be used for evil. I mean, every shifty, dishonest
(24:59):
guy you know uses a lot of off record communication
and always wants to be able to kind of weazle
around about what he said or what he meant. And
so Kellner argues that teasing is quote, just such an
act of off record communication. Provocative commentary is shrouded in
linguistic acts called off record markers that suggests that commentary
(25:20):
should not be taken literally. So there's some sort of
a uh, there's some sort of a wink there, right,
But I don't think this should cause us to sort, uh,
communication into like on record which is important, and off record,
which is not important. Yeah, I mean, to your point,
it may be very important, It just might be socially
delicate or you don't want to overstep the boundaries of
(25:43):
your established relationship with someone, and it may be essential
to to to to to to provide that wink to
let them know via you know, some sort of hand
signal or some alteration of your voice, or even the
use of rhyme or the mimicking of of of some
other individual. It could be key to letting them know.
I'm I'm using off record communication here, even even though
(26:06):
what I'm about to tell you is important. Well, yeah,
it on record communication and off record communication. I would say,
our respectively analogous to work and play, and play is
very important. Play is where we learn how to work. Ultimately,
it allows us to send messages in a in a
masked way, or at least a kind of like a
lubricated way. Socially. Uh. This this may be a terrible example,
(26:29):
but but one that I have observed before. If you've
ever seen, say, an individual come out of a public
restroom and uh, and they say, who, do not go
in there. We'll give you some sort of like joking warning,
that's a good one. Maybe it tends it are it Definitely,
I would say, definitely works better than if they were
to look you square in the eyes and say do
(26:49):
not go in there. Though that's sort of like five minutes,
you know, like then that's self deprecating. Yeah, but it's
also it's like awkward for both parties. But if but
if there's a joke there, like then it's kind of
like I'm kind of making fun of myself and I'm
also kind of making fun of fun of you. But
I'm also providing definite information that you should be aware
of regarding the the the aromatic state of this bathroom
(27:13):
you're about to enter. Well to to incorporate teasing, I
can see how in that situation, teasing if somebody else
could actually be used to diffuse tension and make them
feel less bad. So like say you have to go
into a bathroom after somebody else and it smells bad,
and the other person knows that they've been in there,
and you know they're probably feeling embarrassed. You might be
able to say something that's like a tease of them
(27:35):
that indicates that they shouldn't actually be you know, you
can both laugh about it, which actually feels better than
just leaving it, leaving it unsaid on the person feeling
awkward and embarrassed. Though I'm not necessarily advocating making fun
of people's body smells. You've got to judge the situation
case by case, Keltner says. Quote, in teasing, we become actors,
taking on playful identities to manage the inevitable conflicts of
(27:58):
living in social group. Which is as kind of crude
as this example we just laid out, is it? I
mean it that is an example of what we're talking
about here. I mean that is the inevitable conflict of
living in social groups, of going to restaurants and sharing restrooms.
And they also may allow us Kelton argues, to engage
in the sort of social contest that may prove physical
(28:19):
and deadly in other species. And indeed, we see plenty
of non human species that have evolved drama dramatized status
contests that don't involve combat, you know, uh, some sort
of like feathery display or or even a display of
something that might otherwise be used for for combat. But
some mean, some means of of engaging in social contest
(28:41):
that doesn't actually require two individuals to to fight until
one backs off. Yeah, I don't know if this is
the kind I would call teasing. I guess there might
be elements you call this gets up against when exactly
I would actually use the word again, But it's clearly yeah,
it's clearly part of human culture that we use words
(29:02):
and like insults and humor and stuff like that to
manage hierarchy navigation. You're trying to take down the person
above you, and you can do it with a witty comment.
But stuff like that isn't always isn't always in this playful,
sweet realm of teasing, I mean that kind of stuff
can actually be pretty biting, right, But but the argument
(29:23):
here is that even in playful teasing, there is this
potential for uh, for establishment of a pecking order. And
that's just another way that teasing and requires us to
walk a fine line, right uh, enhancing social connection while
also establishing a pecking order. Like it it's sounds it's
one of those things that when you when you boil
it down, um, like imagine like setting out to do
(29:46):
that consciously, Like, all right, I've got a I need
to walk into the office today. I needed I need
to tear everybody down just the appropriate amount so that
we all feel a little closer, but also that it's
so that everybody thinks that I'm superior or that I
of the appropriate place in the social dynamics of the
office you're describing management strategy. Probably probably so, No, no, no,
(30:09):
that's not fair. But yeah, I mean I unfortunately, I
think there are some people who are that deliberate and
that calculating about the kind of stuff they say in
a workplace. They're not just talking to you about whatever
they're thinking about. They're making a comment to you in
front of an audience based on how it will benefit them.
Now we mentioned frat frat brothers earlier, Keltner observed that
(30:30):
among frat brothers, in one study, teasing nicknames seemed to
be quote more morality plays based on misdeeds that they
were encouraged to move beyond, and among teens, teasing as
a vital part of a flirtation, a way of testing
out others and looking for genuine signs of interest. Yeah,
And as I mentioned earlier, I mean, I feel like
(30:50):
this can easily go two ways. There is a very
sweet kind of teasing that takes that takes place in courtship,
and then there's definitely a gross form of it that's
some kind of so shull leverage trick, right, and then
there's also something problematic too, about like, if you established
this rule that like, oh, they're teasing you because they
like you like, then that that and that may be
(31:12):
the case, I mean that these but if you but
then he goes too far. If you established it, then
is this excuse for for problematic teasing? Right, like, oh,
that's just boys being boys or girls being girls? Then
you know, is it Are we using that to cover
up something that should be um policed in some fashion? Well?
Often we are. This is yet another case where it
(31:34):
would be great if we could always clearly see what
the line is and people's discomfort comes in because sometimes
it's not clear where the line is. Now. On the
subject of of teasing among committed partners, uh, he points
out that there is a language to it, you know,
they're all these little in jokes, and he points to
two studies that have shown that married couples with a
(31:55):
rich vocabulary of you know, various teasing nicknames and ends
of remulate insults, they tend to be happier and more satisfied.
And that's the sweet kind. Yeah. And he also adds
that it may help diffuse arguments over really explosive issues
and that the terminology of the teasing as well as
often drawn from the same metaphors we use for for love.
(32:19):
They have to do, for instance, with with food or
small animals, like referring to somebody as like a dumpling
or a muffin or something like that, or a or
a bunny. Yes, though apparently it does depend on the language. Here,
I remember speaking with an individual of Thaie descent and
(32:40):
about how the use of pig or piggy or you know,
it's thie equivalent was a term of endearment, especially for
young children, whereas in English that the term maybe has
a has a bit more like spite to it, if
you're gonna call someone a pick or a piggy. So
a term of endeuarment in one language or culture is
not necessarily going to translate equally into another language. Oh
(33:03):
but I can actually see, like even in English, a
great novel where you establish it character's relationship, what we're
like a wife calls her husband little piggy or something
that seems that that's good, that's good character right there. Yeah. Now,
there's a ton of material out there on teasing, and
we can't possibly touch on all of it here today.
After all, it does seem to be a major aspect
(33:23):
of human social dynamics, and the legacy of childhood teasing
seems to be quite long. A lot of studies look
at childhood teasing and and the ramifications of it for adults. Yeah,
a lot of what I saw was just study after
study looking at whether child whether children perceived teasing as
harmful or not, and generally they did. Now, one of
(33:46):
one of the problems here is that it does come
down to that perception. How is the instance of teasing
perceived and and and here we see this this this
this case where an instance of teasing might well be
perceived by one party as being played well and another
party as being harmful. I mean, going back to our
initial example. You know, in in like group social dynamics,
(34:08):
where someone goes over the line, I mean most of
the most of the cases, and the person is not
thinking I'm going over the line, I'm going for it,
I'm gonna go for the hurt point. Here, well, sometimes
they are, I mean, there there are clearly different categories here.
There's like, very often teasing is going to be perceived
as good natured by the person doing the teasing and
(34:28):
as mean and hurtful by the person receiving the teasing,
but also there there are two different versions of what's
going on in the perpetrator's mind. You've definitely seen cases
where somebody who genuinely meant no harm accidentally hurts somebody's
feelings with teasing. And then you see cases where people
try to cover their butts afterwards, like clearly they let
(34:49):
some you know, hurtful inclinations reveal itself too much. They
were being mean, but then afterwards they can be they
can retreat. It's off record communication, so they can be like, oh,
I was just kidding. I didn't mean any harm, don't
you know, don't get upset. I'm I didn't mean to
hurt your feelings, but they kind of did, right, Yeah,
I was looking at a paper here, two thousand paper
(35:10):
titled I Was Only kidding Victims and Perpetrators Perceptions of
Teasing by Robin M. Kowowski, and he points out that
via seventy two person study, I found that perspectives might
reflect the views of perpetrators and victims. The teaser remembers
it more as fun and focused on behavior, and the
person being teased remembers it more as hurtful and potentially
(35:32):
focusing on their appearance. Yeah, that's another thing. So one
area in which teasing I think is just never acceptable.
I mean, you just never want to go there is
teasing about innate characteristics, not not like about what somebody
just did, but about what they look like about their body,
about fundamental personality issues. It comes back to like the
educative aspect of teasing, like you can you if it's
(35:55):
if it's if there's something educative about it, it's like
you should be doing this differently, where you should have
done this differently. But I mean, you know, people for
the for the vast most part, cannot do anything about
their their physical appearance, you know. But but I've I'm
sure you've seen this where people tease somebody and it
edges into teasing about innate characteristics, and when they get
(36:19):
called out, they try to retreat to to like pretending
they were just reacting to behavior or something. No, no, no, no,
I didn't mean that. I meant this other thing. Yeah,
Or they're kind of like, oh, I'm sorry, I thought
we were just being mean, and so I was going
to be mean too. I didn't realize that we were
being playful or that we were critiquing things they had
choices about. Now, this this leads me to a question
(36:42):
that I've I've had in my mind for a little
while here, and that is, do certain people invite more
playful and potentially hurtful teasing than others? And if so,
what are the factors? So I've observed this in social
situations in the past, I'm sure a number of our
listeners have as well. In social dynamics, some individuals seem
to attract more teasing attention than others. And why is that?
(37:05):
I think based on some of what we've discussed here
so far, we could we could really point to various
causes apparent social status, attractiveness and desirability, but also difference
outside or status, really any area that would seem to invite,
invite off the record linguistic attention right. Well, because teasing
has so many different uses and meanings, there are a
(37:27):
lot of different ways that it can be attracted. I mean,
one thing that you can see is that obviously in
hurtful teasing, you know, the kind of cruel the thing
I wouldn't usually call teasing cruel, mean spirited bullying. I
think the people who attract that are people who look
like easy targets, people who are lower status in the
(37:49):
community where they're being teased, people who have less power
to respond. I mean, bullies pick on people they perceived
to have a weakness. Now, when it comes to the
jester type of teasing, I think obviously they're the people
who are going to be attracting it, are going to
be prominent, high status people. And high status people also
tend to invite the different kind of teasing that's not
(38:11):
even really teasing. But Keltner talked about it in this
article when he talked about how frat brothers give each
other nicknames. There's a kind of teasing as praise that
frat pledges show towards the senior brothers of the fraternity.
Uh So it's structured like teasing, but it's really more
of a veiled compliment. Do you know what I'm talking about.
(38:32):
I'm sure you've seen this before, where it like people
will be obsequious by pretending to rib somebody above them,
but in a way that's not actually for anything bad
they did, but really is more for something good about them. Yeah. Yeah,
you do see examples of this, uh from time to time,
almost kind of getting into the idea of like hot
shaming somebody, right, like making fun of them for being attractive,
(38:57):
or making fun of them for being successful or something
of that in that regard. I mean, obviously, in the
fraternity context, a lot of this is going to be
like pretending to rib an older frat brother for his
you know, drinking ability, or his sexual prowess or something. Uh,
it's not really in that context perceived as an insult,
but they structure it like one. It's a strange phenomenon.
(39:20):
But but to come back to other people who seem
to invite I think one thing that is common to
most forms of more barbed teasing is that it's invited
by people who do not appear to have a very
well developed sense of humor, or people who appear to
take themselves very seriously. I'm sure you've observed this, right, Robert. Yes,
(39:42):
I've definitely seen this implay, you know, in various work
environments over over the years, where the person who takes
themselves very seriously just it almost requires you to to
take them down to pay, not if they can't laugh
at themselves. I mean, and this is something that's not
necessarily going to take place like face to face obviously,
(40:04):
Like like if you have a say, you have a
boss that is just really self involved, you you cannot
help but make fun of them with a coworker. You know,
regardless of if you if you ever do anything or
say anything that you know that that that individual is
ever gonna hear, you still have to at least joke
about them, uh with your other coworkers. Right, And as
(40:25):
Keltner points out, the dynamics of teasing tend to change
dramatically around eleven or twelve, around that that kind of age,
which is about the age that he says kids most
often learn to hold contradictory ideas about the world in
their head at the same time these you know, that's
the the idea of negative capability, the thing that allows
(40:45):
the ironic stance, and this allows them to see subtleties
of teasing and participate in it, especially on the receiving end,
in a more graceful way, without interpreting all of it
as bullying and bad. You know. That's one big difference
is that when you're an adult, it becomes you learn
how to take a joke usually, you know, like you
(41:07):
learn how to be the butt of a of a
good natured piece of criticism. I mean, as long as
it's not like really cruel, uh, to be the butt
of a good natured piece of criticism or or teasing
and to not get too upset about it. But kids
don't have this ability. They are not good at this
at all. Kids take themselves very seriously. All right. Well,
(41:28):
on that note, we're going to take one more break,
and when we come back, we will discuss teasing U
in bonding. Thank thank you, thank you. Alright, we're back.
So one of the funny things I discovered in this
episode is there's this entire academic journal called Discourse Studies,
all all kinds of research about the ways people communicate.
And they have this amazing way of like mapping out
(41:52):
conversations in a way that includes all this information about
tone and about gestures and laughter and and how different
kinds of laughter sounded. It looks like computer code. It's
like conversations translated into cobal. You should look this up
if you get a chance. It's it's pretty interesting. Um.
(42:12):
But I was just looking at one study from Discourse
Studies in that was published this year in ten called
getting to Know You Teasing as an Invitation to intimacy
in initial interactions by Michael Hall and Danielle pill at
Shore and so that they write about how before the study,
teasing was often assumed to take place mostly or exclusively
(42:34):
between people who have previously who have previous relationships, who
have some degree of intimacy. But this article examined conversations
between unfamiliar people who were becoming acquainted, and I thought
this was interesting. They found that teasing does play a role, uh,
and the role it seems to play in this kind
of conversation and the getting to know you conversation is
(42:56):
a sort of experiment, is testing the new acquaint sense,
is willingness to become more intimate, because I definitely know
this feeling like you're at a party or whatever, you know,
any place you've got to meet new people, and you're
talking to somebody new for the first time, and for
a while in that first conversation, you don't know if
this conversation will sort of escalate into a relationship and
(43:20):
a point of familiarity where you might start to think
of this person as a friend, or if you're just
exchanging pleasantries until you can move on, right, Yeah, So
you never know. Some sometimes you think it's gonna go
one way, and it goes to the other. And this
study found that teasing plays an important role in this
and getting to know people as a bid for increased intimacy.
So the researchers taped and studied thirty initial interactions twenty
(43:44):
four of which twenty four out of the thirty featured
one or more sequence of teasing. And the teases were
produced by and directed at both male and female speakers
of varying ages. And this is fascinating. The researchers discovered
that there was a clear pattern to the teasing exchange
in the initial conversations. So first, something teasable would happen.
(44:06):
There's a triggering action by the tease target that affords
the tease, and then second there's the tease at a quote,
a teasing action directed at the tease target. And then
third there's affiliation, a mutual ratification of the non seriousness
of the tease and the author's right quote. Given, teasing
(44:27):
is one way of criticizing another, it constitutes a potential
breach of tact or interactional propriety in initial interactions. However,
participants can construe this potential impropriety as an invitation to intimacy,
as it involves the proposal of a shared ironic stance
that may be either accepted or declined by the target
(44:49):
of the tease. So teasing in initial interactions, teasing while
first getting to know somebody can essentially be an off
record invitation to escalate the interaction and open up possibilities
of friendship. It's a sort of ambiguous, off record way
of saying, will you play with me? And of course,
reading through these, you know these like cobal conversations, you
(45:11):
see that a lot of the signaling both ways here
is relegated to nonverbal signals. There's intonation, uh, facial expressions, laughter,
And you know, one thing I was thinking about it
is how sometimes a teasing interaction doesn't even necessarily involve
words like think about this situation. Somebody says something teasable,
and all you really need to do for a subtle
(45:32):
tease is to respond with a certain facial expression or
type of laughter, And the teased person has the option
of either joining you and and laughing along with you,
or rejecting the bid to join you in the river
of irony and staying on dry land, At which point
you realize like, oh, Okay, this conversation or this relationship
is not going to a friendly place, or that this
(45:55):
is not the this is not the safe point for teasing,
you know, I mean it, it's very possible. I think
we can all think two situations like this where you're
kind of doing this playful teasing and then you realize, oh,
maybe this individual is very serious about this particular aspect
of their personality or the world. Like they do not
They're they're not game for say, uh, you know, political
(46:17):
based humor or teasing, but they may be open in
other areas. And that is also ultimately part of the
social dynamic, right, figuring out like what is the shape
of my relationship with this person and what is this
shape of this relationship going to be? What are the
avenues for bonding and teasing that can take place. Yeah,
I was reading another article about teasing as bonding and
(46:39):
it talked about how one of the main features of
teasing is the creation of distinct alliances between participants in
a conversation. Of course, you know, we we see this
happen all the time. Teasing is going on, and it
forms factions in a conversation. People can either join in
with the teasing and now they're on a team together,
(47:00):
or they can like resist, or they can you know,
it's often a form of like joining people together against
an isolated recipient. And this can take very cruel forms.
Of course, this is where it can very easily turn
into bullying, where in group members strengthened bonds by teasing
somebody from the outgroup or somebody new. But I've also
noticed that this form of teasing as alliance formation, can
(47:23):
be really positive. It can have really really sweet forms.
Here's one very specific benign way I've seen happen a
lot in my life. It's when there's someone who's uncomfortable
or unfamiliar in a social group. Say a person's over
at your house for the first time and they've never
been there before that you know that they're not one
(47:43):
of this this social in group yet, and a member
of that social in group tries to make the new
person feel comfortable and welcome by inviting them to participate
in teasing of another member of the in group. Like.
A very common version of this is I see, um
a wife trying to make somebody feel welcome in her
(48:05):
home by inviting that guest to join in with her
in teasing her husband. Okay, yeah, I mean I can
think of examples where my wife has done this, where
essentially what she's saying is like, this is my husband, Uh,
here's this nerdy thing he likes. It's okay to tease
him about it because it is part of our dynamic
and you can share to a certain extent in this
dynamic as well. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's
(48:27):
an inviting thing, and it it also tells that person
it's safe here. It says you're not going to get
your head cut off for mocking the king, right right, Yeah,
beheading always a sign that that that that a dinner
party is going terribly wrong. It's it's a demonstration that
there is no Jeoffrey in this house, right. But it's
also a form of social bonding and alliance formation. It
(48:49):
allows the person to feel like they are you know,
the that the crucial that the bull's eye of the
in group right now. Though then again, because because teasing
has all this inbuilt uh ambiguity and risk there, there's
always the risk of seeing something like that edge into
actual mean spiritedness in a couple. I hadn't really thought
(49:09):
about this before, but I was thinking of my my
own house. A lot of teasing, linguistic teasing, mind you,
is aimed at our cat, and our son engaged in
this as well. You know, we we treat the cat
obviously like a like a queen. You know, she has
even as a pedestal that she lays upon, and you
(49:30):
know she hasn't made in the shade and OK, yeah,
we we love the cat, but at the same time
we have all sorts of ridiculous names for the cat.
We're always going, oh, what is the cat doing? Now?
We're essentially teasing the cat and it is a very
safe zone for linguistic teasing, you know, because the cat
doesn't care. The cat doesn't know what we're saying. Well,
you know why cats are great to tease, it's because
(49:51):
they take themselves very seriously. They do that, They are
very to take themselves very seriously, whereas there is there's
certainly more of a an air of the jesture to
the dog. Though. We make fun of our dog too,
and he deserves it because he's very funny. But it
does make me wonder to what extent pets then, you know,
they they are enabling this avenue of bonding, uh that
(50:14):
that that that involves teasing. I think in this world
where we're trying to be sensitive and socially conscious and
not and not hurt people and necessarily but at the
same time, but where we also recognize the absolutely necessary
value of positive teasing, if we need like a theory,
we need like a theory of teasing to guide our
teasing so so that we we always understand where it's
(50:38):
going and we don't accidentally pilot it into the rocks
of of of bullying. I agree. I wonder if we
need like posters, you know, sort of like a military
propaganda posters that are instructing us about teasing, Like what
is good teasing, what is bad teasing, what is teasing accomplished?
What should we tolerate, what should we not tolerate? Yeah,
I don't know exactly what the best rules of the
(50:59):
road are. I mean, I know some things you should
not do, but it would be good to have positive
rules as well. How do you know you're on the
right track when you're teasing somebody? Yeah, for the most part,
we're all just winging it, aren't we. Well, I mean
you're trying to you're trying to read read their reaction,
like if it's good natured teasing, if it's between people
who are friends or in a relationship, they're teasing each
(51:19):
other that you know, you're reading their their facial expressions
and all that, and you can generally tell if things
are going well, but it's harder to tell for some
people than others. And it's harder to tell in some
situations than others. Alright, we're gonna go and close it
out there. But obviously this is a topic that everyone
is going to have some contribution for. I mean, everyone
has experience with teasing or being teased, both you know,
(51:42):
as children, as adolescents, as adults and uh, and we
would love to hear how you take some of the
ideas that we've discussed here to uh to dissect teasing
that has occurred in your life, you see occurring around you.
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(53:05):
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stuff works, dot com b
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe
McCormick and Robert. I've got a question for you. You
ever find yourself in that situation where you're hanging out
(00:23):
with people. It's all good fun, everybody's there's banter going on.
One person is teasing another person over something kind of funny,
some funny foible of their personality, and there's that moment,
there's that awful little moment where there's kind of a
pause after somebody says some some teasing joke and then
(00:43):
you realize like, oh no, suddenly it has gotten serious.
Oh yes, I mean it's especially if it it's a
multi person group and and there's a bit of piling
on occurring. They'll be there, I've seen this, this happened,
where they'll they'll be a breaking point where the person
has had an enough and and and you realize, oh, no,
lines have been crossed, and now this person who is
(01:05):
gonna leave and we're gonna have to resolve this uh
via emails later. Uh yeah. And it's a ter it's
a terrible feeling because things have spiraled out of control.
Something that was playful and um and just part of
hanging out has now become a divisive email the best
place to work out tense social disputes. Well sometimes sometimes
(01:27):
it depends. I mean, I guess it depends on what
role one had in the in the breakdown. I've been
fortunate enough to to not be like at the epicenter
of the of the breakdown generally, so um email tends
to suffice for me. You know, you never have to
worry that when you type a smiley emoji that will
look like a fake smile. When you actually smile at somebody,
(01:49):
you always gotta worry like does this look real? Is
my face moving? Right? You just have to use the
authentic smiling emoji, not the inauthentic one. You know, it's
all on the micro expressions of the emoji. What's the
authentic one that's like colon and clothes brackets? Oh no,
I'm talking about the ones that actually like the little
yellow face with the smile, like you'll know what when
you see it. But is everyone can realize at this point,
(02:11):
we're talking about teasing today on the show, and teasing
is weird territory to try and figure out deceptively, so really, um,
for many of us looking back on our childhoods, it's
it makes up some of our worst memories of social interaction.
And as a as a parent, I have a lot
of apprehension about it, you know, regarding my own child,
the inevitable struggles that he's gonna gonna face. And at
(02:34):
the same time, there's this weird cult of the tease
that is often difficult to understand. We see teasing in
our media, and it's sometimes presented as in a fun
comical light. We also see adults for whom teasing is
a standard part of their interactions, not fighting with each other,
but but just picking in various ways that it's it
seems like they're just terms of endearments, joking, benign criticism. Yeah,
(02:59):
and it and uh. It's often a case where I
look at it and I realized, well, this is clearly
part of their social dynamic. It wouldn't necessarily work in
my social dynamic. But I guess it's okay. Uh. We
see it factor into courtship as well, which also has
a way of of seeming weird and sour at times
of an outside perspective. Right. Well, I mean there's there's
(03:20):
two very different ways it can take place. There's a
kind you can see, a kind of friendly, sweet teasing
that takes place between people in a courtship relationship. And
then there's like the pickup artist version of it, where
somebody's clearly like making a power play. Right. And then
likewise we also see this this space, this sort of
ambiguous space where playful teasing gives over to what is
(03:43):
clearly something based in hate and abuse name calling uh
that occurs among children and even among adults. Obviously even
at the highest levels of government, you see name calling
used in a in a hurtful fashion. So if you start,
if you start picking out and I imagine a lot
of your doing this as well, thinking of all the
varying levels of teasing that are going on in your
(04:04):
immediate environment and um in politics and the media, etcetera.
On the street as you're driving your car and listen
to this podcast. You know, it's enough to make you
wonder if if we're just nothing more than just cruel
apes jockeying for social position, uh, And it's any wonder
that we managed to emerge from these social interactions with
(04:24):
self esteem and respect for our fellow humans. But part
of the issue here is that while all forms of
teasing share common features, there are at least three distinctive
forms of teasing that are often signal, that are often
singled out and definitely deserve mention here. Okay, well, what
would those forms be? All right? Well, the first is
pretty obvious, and that is that is the hurtful teasing.
(04:47):
And I think it's one of those things where we
all we all know it when we see it, right
or hear it. This is obviously the domain of bullying
and harassment, and yet at the same time it's the
sort of teasing you might see in a celebrity post
or some of you are more viciously charged a humor
or political humor. I guess you could also say it's
maybe the domain of the jester, the fool, and the clown.
(05:10):
Uh and important These are important roles throughout human history.
Oh yeah, well, I mean I might argue that the
fool in the Shakespearean sense requires its own category here,
because the fool has a lot of power and freedom,
and that's important power and freedom. Like they're the only
member of the lower classes who can point out the
flaws of the monarchs and the upper classes and get
(05:31):
away with it. There's something about the ridiculousness of the
fool that allows a critique of power that might result
in a beheading if you made the same critique in
a serious tone. And likewise, a king who beheads a
jester every week is a terrible king. They look weak. Yeah,
it makes the king look foolish if the king overreacts
(05:52):
to a to a comical critique, right, I think you're
pointing Joffrey from Game of Thrones is this type of
ruler where you realize how he's terrible. He's totally incompetent.
Look how thin Skinndy is against Uh, the humorous criticism
of the the court fool. Well, it codes so easily
for us. I mean, one of the clearest signs of
(06:15):
a toxic personality is somebody who's unable to accept criticism
and even benign criticism, or to be the butt of
a joke. You know, somebody who cannot tolerate that, especially
because of the positive role that teasing plays in our culture.
I mean, there's so much teasing that is not hurtful, hateful.
(06:35):
I mean it is a constant feature of conversation between friends,
between couples, between family members, between educators and the people
they educate. Teasing, you know, there's like a sweet, benign
form of teasing that's absolutely essential to these relationships. You know.
I do have to add one more thing about the
gesture first, though, and there is there is this this
(06:58):
curious aspect of the dying ammic you see with kind
of a classic gesture situation, but also in modern political humor,
there are two extremes that are both equally well, maybe
not equally, but they're both cringe worthy. Certainly when the king,
the rule or the politician, whoever the celebrity is too
thin skinned to let humorous bashing go where they have
(07:21):
to call out, say, you know an episode of Saturday
Night Live, right, if you made a joke about me,
how dare you right? Yeah? That is is cringeworthy and awful.
But on the same hand, and this is something that
I believe it was pointed out on an episode of
Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast, there's also this danger in
what happens when the king says, yeah, this gesture guys, great,
(07:43):
I'm going to hang out with him and do a
skit with him, or or yeah, that's Saturday Night Life
skit is funny. I'm gonna appear on that Saturday Night
Life skit with the person doing an impression of me.
There can be uh, too much protection of one's dignity
is a bad sign, but too much surrender of one's
dignity also looks kind of bad. Like you got to
find the middle ground. You want the ruler that that
(08:05):
ultimately has very little to do with the gesture and
doesn't politely laughs perhaps but leaves it at that. I
know exactly what you're talking about. Like when presidential candidates
go on SNL, that's always like, I don't know, it's
just always terrible. Yeah. But one of the points that
Malcolm Gladwell made in his show is that it takes
the punch out of the political humor, like you managed
(08:27):
in a way. It's like it's a genius move I
guess for the politician, because you have you have killed
the humorous skit. You have you have killed the power
of the humor in a way that you could never
do by attacking it. Well, yeah, I guess it doesn't
make you look great, but it also is a type
of defense mechanism. It undercuts any truly biting criticism that's
(08:49):
hidden there in the in the comedy. If you go
on stage with the comedian. Yes, oh, but before we
were talking about the jester, we were we were about
to get into playful teasing. You know, the sweet form
of teasing, right, And obviously there's a line between hurtful
and and u and playful teasing good luck finding, especially
with people you're maybe not that familiar with. But yeah,
(09:12):
especially in close relationships, you tend to see these you know,
you see in jokes and you see established safe zones
for playful teasing. Uh. For instance, if my wife teases
me about some nerdy hobby of mine, uh, it's it's
really more of a form, more of a term of endearment.
Or if she teases me about liking robot music, like
(09:32):
like really robotic sounding electronic music, and uh and teasing
me about how awful it sounds. Uh like like this
is that this feels good when we're doing it. I
don't feel hurt or defensive about you know, my my
love of dungeons and dragons, or or or my miniatures
painting miniatures, or yeah, or my affinity for the music
(09:53):
of autech or that sort of thing. Yeah, I think
almost all good romantic relationships include an element of teasing.
I don't, you know. I don't want to be overly general.
So maybe some people people make it work in all
kinds of ways, but I rarely see what seems like
a happy couple that doesn't tease one another, right, I mean,
it seems like you do. And this is something we're
(10:14):
going to return to throughout this episode, this idea that
that teasing it is, is an opportunity for bond forming
and the establishment and the maintaining of bonds. And but
obviously you need a safe place for the teasing. Just
you know, all of us, I think we're going to have,
unless we are some sort of like in human politician type,
(10:35):
you know, we're going to have those areas that we
are cool being teased about in areas that we're less
comfortable being teased about. You know, thinking about several of
the areas that that teasing functions in our our social interactions,
one of which is sort of reminding people of hierarchies
or establishing hierarchies. That it does something of enforcing a
(10:56):
pecking order. Number two is maybe like establishing a criticism
of somebody's behavior. And number three is allowing bonding. Put
these three things together, and it seems like a key
place where teasing should come into play is education, right,
because that's a place where you need a hierarchy between
teacher and student. You want to teach lessons and you
(11:17):
also want to have a good relationship. That's right. So
this brings us to this third area of teasing, educative teasing,
and this pops up in areas that you wouldn't quite
expect it as, as we'll discuss a little later. One
example is that is that of a frat boys giving
each other nicknames based on, you know, various bone headed
things they've done. Uh And and this can be viewed
(11:38):
as a way of of educating, of laying down various
um moral rules or or social expectations. Right, you teasing,
you might get nicknamed like, I don't know, toilet head
because you fell asleep with your head in the toilet, right,
And the idea is, don't do that. Don't drink so
much that you sleep in the toilet. But then again,
(12:00):
one of the things I noticed about that kind of
teasing is that toilet head might originally be applied as
a sort of like moral injunction. But that toilet Head
make may well come to identify with the nickname and say,
that's right, that's who I am. I am toilet Head forevermore,
and I will embrace it. Yeah. Now, some anthropologists point
(12:21):
to specific traditions of educated teasing between parents and children
in various Indigenous American um cultures, and the idea here
is that it's a form of teasing that can work
better to impart knowledge of social rules and emotionally instilled ideas. However,
we we didn't really focus on any of that for
this research, but I just want to let everyone know
(12:42):
that that that is an area of study. Now, as
far as these three terms for types of teasing go,
I I feel like there's some difficulty in how we
use terms here because I admit that I would typically
reserve the word teasing for the more benign or playful
forms what we were calling hurtful teasing, the kind that's
(13:03):
actually cruel and mean spirited. I would not usually call teasing.
I'd probably call it bullying or harassment or something. Um though.
It's what what this highlights is that the line between
playful teasing and hurtful bullying is not always clear. It's
not always clear to the person doing it. It's always
not always clear to the person receiving it. What sometimes
(13:25):
ment is benign or playful by the teaser can feel
like bullying to the teaz and sometimes more benign or
playful forms of teasing. I bet you've been there for this.
I think we sort of talked about it at the beginning.
It starts off as a friendly and playful session of
ribbing that somehow catches this terrible momentum. I don't know
what causes it, but that momentum it edges into harder
(13:48):
and meaner stuff as it escalates, and it's this enormously
painful and uncomfortable thing to witness, And looking back, I
can remember instances of this in my life where I
watch something like this happened to somebody else, and in retrospect,
like I wish I'd found a way to step in
in the moment and stop it. But it's so much
(14:09):
easier to to to feel that kind of policing authority
in retrospect in the moment, to step in like that
into clear teasing. To have gone too far requires you
to take this major risk. It feels like you're violating
a taboo, you're making it weird, you know, you know
about making it weird, right, um, And in the moment
you're never really sure if you've like misread some kind
(14:31):
of unspoken set of cues. Maybe everything is actually okay,
and you're the one who's making people feel bad by
getting serious from out of nowhere. It can be a
really difficult and complicated uh dance to to navigate. All right,
on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and
when we come back, we're gonna we're gonna really get
into the question of teasing and what purpose it truly serves.
(14:53):
Thank thank thank Alright, we're back. So one of the
big names that comes up in teasing resear is that
of psychiatry and psychology researcher Dr Keltner, who has written
on this, researched on this, and one of the big
pieces that has often circulated is a two thousand and
eight New York Times piece titled in Defensive Teasing. Uh.
(15:16):
And he also directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. So
this is like right in his uh, his area of focus. Yeah,
Keltner makes an interesting point, which is that a lot
of our social conventions in the modern age, I think
are centered around trying to make social interactions more safe,
which in a way is a good thing. Right. We
(15:38):
we all know how destructive and terrible bullying can be.
We've all seen the kind of teasing in a relationship.
And you know, somebody's somebody's got a new boyfriend and
he's teasing her, but he's like going a little hard.
It doesn't quite seem so sweet. And when you think
about stuff like that, it can be very easy to
(15:58):
start to to start to view teasing is this really
negative thing. It's this this cruel, malicious force that permeates
our culture and and make you want to do things
to eliminate it. Right, Well, how can we get people
to not act like this? But I feel like teasing
is a situation where you really don't want to throw
the baby out with the bathwater. Well you don't, but
(16:19):
you you want to protect the baby. That's the thing
I mean. Throughout this episode, I kept coming I keep
coming back to um, my own son, and I just
want to protect him so much from these things. At
the same time, I realized I can't protect him there
from everything. I can't just chattow him through school and
you know, feed him excellent, you know, comebacks. Uh, anytime
(16:42):
anybody is is trying to tease him, he's going to
be teased. It's it's inevitable, and he it's probably inevitable
to that to engage in teasing. Um. But at the
same time, it is hard for me to just really
get behind everything Kelton is saying about just the importance
of teasing, like, I still my impulse to protect is
(17:04):
too strong. Well, I mean, I think the point he
would be making is that the good kind of teasing
is not actually hurtful, it's not actually something that needs
to be protected. And he is not advocating that that
bullying should be permitted. It's very clear about that. But
but but he does make this strong, strong case that
that teasing is an essential part of our social interactions,
(17:27):
and in fact, he points out that the teasing is
pervasive in the animal world. Right now, we generally think
of teasing as you know, as a verbal phenomenon, right
and I guess you do have to think of of
human teasing as as a lot of things with humans
happens to be you think of it as a linguistic
and cultural complication of an impulse that may also be
(17:49):
found within uh language less animals, and so, for instance,
Keltner says, quote, the centrality of teasing in our social
evolution is suggests by just how pervasive teasing is in
the animal world. Younger monkeys pull the tales of older monkeys.
African hunting dogs jump all over one another, much like
(18:09):
pad slapping joking football players moments before kickoff. In every
corner of the world, human adults play peekaboo games to
stir a sulking child. Children as early as age one
mimic nearby adults and teenagers prod one another to gauge
romantic interest. In rejecting teasing, we may be losing something
vital and necessary to our identity as the most playful
(18:33):
of species. I mean, I think I'm pretty on board
with his message there. It's the the difficulty comes in
our uncertainty about recognizing the line between benign teasing and
hurtful teasing. And and I think it's because there's that ambiguity,
because there's always the danger that you you're not necessarily
going to be able to recognize immediately the difference between
(18:57):
one or the other. It's exactly the same problem. I
was mentioning a minute go where you like, I think
back on a time you saw somebody getting teased and
it went over the line, but you didn't stop it. Um,
it's because of that ambiguity, like you didn't know if
you should step in or not. And that ambiguity makes
us uncomfortable because we know teasing this over the line
is wrong, but you can't always see the line in
(19:18):
the moment. It would be interesting to hear from from
educators out there who are listening to the show on this,
because it does make one think that the message should
not be hey, kids, don't tease one another. It should
maybe be more. Here areas where it is not cool
to tease, you know, like it's not cool to tease
someone about their physical appearance or the characters or stereotypes, etcetera. Uh,
(19:41):
but various behavioral teasing. I don't know how, I mean,
how do you end up teaching such nuance? Maybe you
to a certain extent, you can't. It has to generate
via the social interactions. Here's something I would say, Um, well,
with a with a big exception for we can talk
about the jester in a second, with a big exception
for the jester. Maybe one thing is that you shouldn't
tease somebody unless you like them and they know you
(20:05):
like them. That's true, because otherwise, if the if the
existing social dynamic is is is anything different, than you
are perhaps not engaging in pure teasing. No, I mean,
then it becomes bullying. When you tease somebody you don't
even like her respect, obviously you're you're going to be
tempted to edge over into some form of cruelty. Now,
(20:25):
speaking of cruelty, we have to think again of of kings,
and of course the jester. Keltner points out then that
in the tradition of the court jester, you could say
teasing is quote a playful, provocative mode of commentary. Yeah,
I think that's right. I mean, as Touchstone said in
Shakespeare's as you Like It quote, the fool don't think
(20:45):
he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to
be a fool. You know, that's hundreds of years before
all the modern research on illusory confidence and dunning Krueger
and all that. I think this reveals that a key
social good of even harder edged thing is that when
it's properly applied, it can be kind of a leveling
tool like it knocks down the wickerman of big egos
(21:07):
and and pops the balloons of unearned self confidence that
we see so often in our highest levels of leadership.
But of course, just as often it's applied the other way,
and in a very bad, destructive way. It gets applied
from the top down by the inflated ego against the
less empowered. I guess as sort of like a hierarchy
enforcement mechanism, but the bottom up form, the jester driven form.
(21:30):
I think that's a that leveling instinct is a useful
social good and a form of freedom. Teasing is an
arena that allows us to experiment with language, with personality
and relationships. It's sort of an open ended game that
we can use to manage relationships and learn about each other. Now,
Culton A. Keltner also turns to the work of linguistic
anthropologist Penelope Brown and cognitive anthropologist Stephen Levinson, who I
(21:56):
believe we've we've touched on both of their work before
on the podcast, but their work that he's referencing here
is more specifically aligned with the study of politeness. But
of interest here is the their focus on two forms
of communication like basically breaking down communication into two forms
that we're talking mostly about linguistic communication here, but on
(22:19):
the on record communication and off record communication. Okay, so
tell me the difference. Okay, So on record communication is
just literal direct speech. You take it literally. It's meant
meant to be taken literally. It's clear, and it's direct.
This is the kind of speech you would want from
your doctor or your lawyer or whatever. Right if you
if someone were to come up to you on the
(22:41):
street and uh and say, hey, you've got something on
your face? Um, like that's clear, Like, hey, I think
there's some food on your face. You need you might
want to get that off. Like they're they're not playing around.
They're just letting you know. It might be socially awkward,
but they are being direct in their communication. They're they're
not they're not joking, they're not being vague about it.
Off the record is veiled meeting metaphor alternative meaning. So
(23:06):
this if someone were to come up on your street
and be like, hey, um, you got a little something
right there. Hey, if you you know, if they were
kind of kind of beat around the bush a little bit,
you know, you might want to take a look in
a mirror bro right, Yeah, that kind of thing where
it can it's off the record, and it can be
in a way that is meant to, uh to to
make the the the message softer, or it can go
(23:29):
the reverse, right, it can, it can make it harder.
You could be straight up mocking somebody on the street
for the little bit of lunch they still have, you know,
caught in their beard. Yeah, it seems the key to
the off record communication is is some form of ambiguity.
And one reason is that off record communication is sometimes risky, right,
people want deniability if their message is not well received.
(23:51):
Off record communication is the kind of communication where you
can say I was just kidding. On record communication, you
cannot plausibly say I was just kidding. And you've all
been there when somebody delivered on record communication and then
tried to I was just kidding afterwards. It doesn't work.
There's no there's generally no room for for retreat except
(24:13):
to like physically retreat. So the point here is that
in modern human interactions, you don't always want to be direct.
On record communication doesn't always work for the same reasons
that it's not practical to always be truthful. White lies
are sometimes required or lies of emission. Uh, And so
it's it's sometimes necessary to communicate via off record communication
(24:35):
to say something and signal some other meaning, as annoying
as it can be at times. Obviously, we can all
think too situations where someone is not direct with us
and we wish they were direct. Oh yeah, I mean
pretty much everything we're talking about today that has a
possible good social good, you know, useful social role also
can be used for evil. I mean, every shifty, dishonest
(24:59):
guy you know uses a lot of off record communication
and always wants to be able to kind of weazle
around about what he said or what he meant. And
so Kellner argues that teasing is quote, just such an
act of off record communication. Provocative commentary is shrouded in
linguistic acts called off record markers that suggests that commentary
(25:20):
should not be taken literally. So there's some sort of
a uh, there's some sort of a wink there, right,
But I don't think this should cause us to sort, uh,
communication into like on record which is important, and off record,
which is not important. Yeah, I mean, to your point,
it may be very important, It just might be socially
delicate or you don't want to overstep the boundaries of
(25:43):
your established relationship with someone, and it may be essential
to to to to to to provide that wink to
let them know via you know, some sort of hand
signal or some alteration of your voice, or even the
use of rhyme or the mimicking of of of some
other individual. It could be key to letting them know.
I'm I'm using off record communication here, even even though
(26:06):
what I'm about to tell you is important. Well, yeah,
it on record communication and off record communication. I would say,
our respectively analogous to work and play, and play is
very important. Play is where we learn how to work. Ultimately,
it allows us to send messages in a in a
masked way, or at least a kind of like a
lubricated way. Socially. Uh. This this may be a terrible example,
(26:29):
but but one that I have observed before. If you've
ever seen, say, an individual come out of a public
restroom and uh, and they say, who, do not go
in there. We'll give you some sort of like joking warning,
that's a good one. Maybe it tends it are it Definitely,
I would say, definitely works better than if they were
to look you square in the eyes and say do
(26:49):
not go in there. Though that's sort of like five minutes,
you know, like then that's self deprecating. Yeah, but it's
also it's like awkward for both parties. But if but
if there's a joke there, like then it's kind of
like I'm kind of making fun of myself and I'm
also kind of making fun of fun of you. But
I'm also providing definite information that you should be aware
of regarding the the the aromatic state of this bathroom
(27:13):
you're about to enter. Well to to incorporate teasing, I
can see how in that situation, teasing if somebody else
could actually be used to diffuse tension and make them
feel less bad. So like say you have to go
into a bathroom after somebody else and it smells bad,
and the other person knows that they've been in there,
and you know they're probably feeling embarrassed. You might be
able to say something that's like a tease of them
(27:35):
that indicates that they shouldn't actually be you know, you
can both laugh about it, which actually feels better than
just leaving it, leaving it unsaid on the person feeling
awkward and embarrassed. Though I'm not necessarily advocating making fun
of people's body smells. You've got to judge the situation
case by case, Keltner says. Quote, in teasing, we become actors,
taking on playful identities to manage the inevitable conflicts of
(27:58):
living in social group. Which is as kind of crude
as this example we just laid out, is it? I
mean it that is an example of what we're talking
about here. I mean that is the inevitable conflict of
living in social groups, of going to restaurants and sharing restrooms.
And they also may allow us Kelton argues, to engage
in the sort of social contest that may prove physical
(28:19):
and deadly in other species. And indeed, we see plenty
of non human species that have evolved drama dramatized status
contests that don't involve combat, you know, uh, some sort
of like feathery display or or even a display of
something that might otherwise be used for for combat. But
some mean, some means of of engaging in social contest
(28:41):
that doesn't actually require two individuals to to fight until
one backs off. Yeah, I don't know if this is
the kind I would call teasing. I guess there might
be elements you call this gets up against when exactly
I would actually use the word again, But it's clearly yeah,
it's clearly part of human culture that we use words
(29:02):
and like insults and humor and stuff like that to
manage hierarchy navigation. You're trying to take down the person
above you, and you can do it with a witty comment.
But stuff like that isn't always isn't always in this playful,
sweet realm of teasing, I mean that kind of stuff
can actually be pretty biting, right, But but the argument
(29:23):
here is that even in playful teasing, there is this
potential for uh, for establishment of a pecking order. And
that's just another way that teasing and requires us to
walk a fine line, right uh, enhancing social connection while
also establishing a pecking order. Like it it's sounds it's
one of those things that when you when you boil
it down, um, like imagine like setting out to do
(29:46):
that consciously, Like, all right, I've got a I need
to walk into the office today. I needed I need
to tear everybody down just the appropriate amount so that
we all feel a little closer, but also that it's
so that everybody thinks that I'm superior or that I
of the appropriate place in the social dynamics of the
office you're describing management strategy. Probably probably so, No, no, no,
(30:09):
that's not fair. But yeah, I mean I unfortunately, I
think there are some people who are that deliberate and
that calculating about the kind of stuff they say in
a workplace. They're not just talking to you about whatever
they're thinking about. They're making a comment to you in
front of an audience based on how it will benefit them.
Now we mentioned frat frat brothers earlier, Keltner observed that
(30:30):
among frat brothers, in one study, teasing nicknames seemed to
be quote more morality plays based on misdeeds that they
were encouraged to move beyond, and among teens, teasing as
a vital part of a flirtation, a way of testing
out others and looking for genuine signs of interest. Yeah,
And as I mentioned earlier, I mean, I feel like
(30:50):
this can easily go two ways. There is a very
sweet kind of teasing that takes that takes place in courtship,
and then there's definitely a gross form of it that's
some kind of so shull leverage trick, right, and then
there's also something problematic too, about like, if you established
this rule that like, oh, they're teasing you because they
like you like, then that that and that may be
(31:12):
the case, I mean that these but if you but
then he goes too far. If you established it, then
is this excuse for for problematic teasing? Right, like, oh,
that's just boys being boys or girls being girls? Then
you know, is it Are we using that to cover
up something that should be um policed in some fashion? Well?
Often we are. This is yet another case where it
(31:34):
would be great if we could always clearly see what
the line is and people's discomfort comes in because sometimes
it's not clear where the line is. Now. On the
subject of of teasing among committed partners, uh, he points
out that there is a language to it, you know,
they're all these little in jokes, and he points to
two studies that have shown that married couples with a
(31:55):
rich vocabulary of you know, various teasing nicknames and ends
of remulate insults, they tend to be happier and more satisfied.
And that's the sweet kind. Yeah. And he also adds
that it may help diffuse arguments over really explosive issues
and that the terminology of the teasing as well as
often drawn from the same metaphors we use for for love.
(32:19):
They have to do, for instance, with with food or
small animals, like referring to somebody as like a dumpling
or a muffin or something like that, or a or
a bunny. Yes, though apparently it does depend on the language. Here,
I remember speaking with an individual of Thaie descent and
(32:40):
about how the use of pig or piggy or you know,
it's thie equivalent was a term of endearment, especially for
young children, whereas in English that the term maybe has
a has a bit more like spite to it, if
you're gonna call someone a pick or a piggy. So
a term of endeuarment in one language or culture is
not necessarily going to translate equally into another language. Oh
(33:03):
but I can actually see, like even in English, a
great novel where you establish it character's relationship, what we're
like a wife calls her husband little piggy or something
that seems that that's good, that's good character right there. Yeah. Now,
there's a ton of material out there on teasing, and
we can't possibly touch on all of it here today.
After all, it does seem to be a major aspect
(33:23):
of human social dynamics, and the legacy of childhood teasing
seems to be quite long. A lot of studies look
at childhood teasing and and the ramifications of it for adults. Yeah,
a lot of what I saw was just study after
study looking at whether child whether children perceived teasing as
harmful or not, and generally they did. Now, one of
(33:46):
one of the problems here is that it does come
down to that perception. How is the instance of teasing
perceived and and and here we see this this this
this case where an instance of teasing might well be
perceived by one party as being played well and another
party as being harmful. I mean, going back to our
initial example. You know, in in like group social dynamics,
(34:08):
where someone goes over the line, I mean most of
the most of the cases, and the person is not
thinking I'm going over the line, I'm going for it,
I'm gonna go for the hurt point. Here, well, sometimes
they are, I mean, there there are clearly different categories here.
There's like, very often teasing is going to be perceived
as good natured by the person doing the teasing and
(34:28):
as mean and hurtful by the person receiving the teasing,
but also there there are two different versions of what's
going on in the perpetrator's mind. You've definitely seen cases
where somebody who genuinely meant no harm accidentally hurts somebody's
feelings with teasing. And then you see cases where people
try to cover their butts afterwards, like clearly they let
(34:49):
some you know, hurtful inclinations reveal itself too much. They
were being mean, but then afterwards they can be they
can retreat. It's off record communication, so they can be like, oh,
I was just kidding. I didn't mean any harm, don't
you know, don't get upset. I'm I didn't mean to
hurt your feelings, but they kind of did, right, Yeah,
I was looking at a paper here, two thousand paper
(35:10):
titled I Was Only kidding Victims and Perpetrators Perceptions of
Teasing by Robin M. Kowowski, and he points out that
via seventy two person study, I found that perspectives might
reflect the views of perpetrators and victims. The teaser remembers
it more as fun and focused on behavior, and the
person being teased remembers it more as hurtful and potentially
(35:32):
focusing on their appearance. Yeah, that's another thing. So one
area in which teasing I think is just never acceptable.
I mean, you just never want to go there is
teasing about innate characteristics, not not like about what somebody
just did, but about what they look like about their body,
about fundamental personality issues. It comes back to like the
educative aspect of teasing, like you can you if it's
(35:55):
if it's if there's something educative about it, it's like
you should be doing this differently, where you should have
done this differently. But I mean, you know, people for
the for the vast most part, cannot do anything about
their their physical appearance, you know. But but I've I'm
sure you've seen this where people tease somebody and it
edges into teasing about innate characteristics, and when they get
(36:19):
called out, they try to retreat to to like pretending
they were just reacting to behavior or something. No, no, no, no,
I didn't mean that. I meant this other thing. Yeah,
Or they're kind of like, oh, I'm sorry, I thought
we were just being mean, and so I was going
to be mean too. I didn't realize that we were
being playful or that we were critiquing things they had
choices about. Now, this this leads me to a question
(36:42):
that I've I've had in my mind for a little
while here, and that is, do certain people invite more
playful and potentially hurtful teasing than others? And if so,
what are the factors? So I've observed this in social
situations in the past, I'm sure a number of our
listeners have as well. In social dynamics, some individuals seem
to attract more teasing attention than others. And why is that?
(37:05):
I think based on some of what we've discussed here
so far, we could we could really point to various
causes apparent social status, attractiveness and desirability, but also difference
outside or status, really any area that would seem to invite,
invite off the record linguistic attention right. Well, because teasing
has so many different uses and meanings, there are a
(37:27):
lot of different ways that it can be attracted. I mean,
one thing that you can see is that obviously in
hurtful teasing, you know, the kind of cruel the thing
I wouldn't usually call teasing cruel, mean spirited bullying. I
think the people who attract that are people who look
like easy targets, people who are lower status in the
(37:49):
community where they're being teased, people who have less power
to respond. I mean, bullies pick on people they perceived
to have a weakness. Now, when it comes to the
jester type of teasing, I think obviously they're the people
who are going to be attracting it, are going to
be prominent, high status people. And high status people also
tend to invite the different kind of teasing that's not
(38:11):
even really teasing. But Keltner talked about it in this
article when he talked about how frat brothers give each
other nicknames. There's a kind of teasing as praise that
frat pledges show towards the senior brothers of the fraternity.
Uh So it's structured like teasing, but it's really more
of a veiled compliment. Do you know what I'm talking about.
(38:32):
I'm sure you've seen this before, where it like people
will be obsequious by pretending to rib somebody above them,
but in a way that's not actually for anything bad
they did, but really is more for something good about them. Yeah. Yeah,
you do see examples of this, uh from time to time,
almost kind of getting into the idea of like hot
shaming somebody, right, like making fun of them for being attractive,
(38:57):
or making fun of them for being successful or something
of that in that regard. I mean, obviously, in the
fraternity context, a lot of this is going to be
like pretending to rib an older frat brother for his
you know, drinking ability, or his sexual prowess or something. Uh,
it's not really in that context perceived as an insult,
but they structure it like one. It's a strange phenomenon.
(39:20):
But but to come back to other people who seem
to invite I think one thing that is common to
most forms of more barbed teasing is that it's invited
by people who do not appear to have a very
well developed sense of humor, or people who appear to
take themselves very seriously. I'm sure you've observed this, right, Robert. Yes,
(39:42):
I've definitely seen this implay, you know, in various work
environments over over the years, where the person who takes
themselves very seriously just it almost requires you to to
take them down to pay, not if they can't laugh
at themselves. I mean, and this is something that's not
necessarily going to take place like face to face obviously,
(40:04):
Like like if you have a say, you have a
boss that is just really self involved, you you cannot
help but make fun of them with a coworker. You know,
regardless of if you if you ever do anything or
say anything that you know that that that individual is
ever gonna hear, you still have to at least joke
about them, uh with your other coworkers. Right, And as
(40:25):
Keltner points out, the dynamics of teasing tend to change
dramatically around eleven or twelve, around that that kind of age,
which is about the age that he says kids most
often learn to hold contradictory ideas about the world in
their head at the same time these you know, that's
the the idea of negative capability, the thing that allows
(40:45):
the ironic stance, and this allows them to see subtleties
of teasing and participate in it, especially on the receiving end,
in a more graceful way, without interpreting all of it
as bullying and bad. You know. That's one big difference
is that when you're an adult, it becomes you learn
how to take a joke usually, you know, like you
(41:07):
learn how to be the butt of a of a
good natured piece of criticism. I mean, as long as
it's not like really cruel, uh, to be the butt
of a good natured piece of criticism or or teasing
and to not get too upset about it. But kids
don't have this ability. They are not good at this
at all. Kids take themselves very seriously. All right. Well,
(41:28):
on that note, we're going to take one more break,
and when we come back, we will discuss teasing U
in bonding. Thank thank you, thank you. Alright, we're back.
So one of the funny things I discovered in this
episode is there's this entire academic journal called Discourse Studies,
all all kinds of research about the ways people communicate.
And they have this amazing way of like mapping out
(41:52):
conversations in a way that includes all this information about
tone and about gestures and laughter and and how different
kinds of laughter sounded. It looks like computer code. It's
like conversations translated into cobal. You should look this up
if you get a chance. It's it's pretty interesting. Um.
(42:12):
But I was just looking at one study from Discourse
Studies in that was published this year in ten called
getting to Know You Teasing as an Invitation to intimacy
in initial interactions by Michael Hall and Danielle pill at
Shore and so that they write about how before the study,
teasing was often assumed to take place mostly or exclusively
(42:34):
between people who have previously who have previous relationships, who
have some degree of intimacy. But this article examined conversations
between unfamiliar people who were becoming acquainted, and I thought
this was interesting. They found that teasing does play a role, uh,
and the role it seems to play in this kind
of conversation and the getting to know you conversation is
(42:56):
a sort of experiment, is testing the new acquaint sense,
is willingness to become more intimate, because I definitely know
this feeling like you're at a party or whatever, you know,
any place you've got to meet new people, and you're
talking to somebody new for the first time, and for
a while in that first conversation, you don't know if
this conversation will sort of escalate into a relationship and
(43:20):
a point of familiarity where you might start to think
of this person as a friend, or if you're just
exchanging pleasantries until you can move on, right, Yeah, So
you never know. Some sometimes you think it's gonna go
one way, and it goes to the other. And this
study found that teasing plays an important role in this
and getting to know people as a bid for increased intimacy.
So the researchers taped and studied thirty initial interactions twenty
(43:44):
four of which twenty four out of the thirty featured
one or more sequence of teasing. And the teases were
produced by and directed at both male and female speakers
of varying ages. And this is fascinating. The researchers discovered
that there was a clear pattern to the teasing exchange
in the initial conversations. So first, something teasable would happen.
(44:06):
There's a triggering action by the tease target that affords
the tease, and then second there's the tease at a quote,
a teasing action directed at the tease target. And then
third there's affiliation, a mutual ratification of the non seriousness
of the tease and the author's right quote. Given, teasing
(44:27):
is one way of criticizing another, it constitutes a potential
breach of tact or interactional propriety in initial interactions. However,
participants can construe this potential impropriety as an invitation to intimacy,
as it involves the proposal of a shared ironic stance
that may be either accepted or declined by the target
(44:49):
of the tease. So teasing in initial interactions, teasing while
first getting to know somebody can essentially be an off
record invitation to escalate the interaction and open up possibilities
of friendship. It's a sort of ambiguous, off record way
of saying, will you play with me? And of course,
reading through these, you know these like cobal conversations, you
(45:11):
see that a lot of the signaling both ways here
is relegated to nonverbal signals. There's intonation, uh, facial expressions, laughter,
And you know, one thing I was thinking about it
is how sometimes a teasing interaction doesn't even necessarily involve
words like think about this situation. Somebody says something teasable,
and all you really need to do for a subtle
(45:32):
tease is to respond with a certain facial expression or
type of laughter, And the teased person has the option
of either joining you and and laughing along with you,
or rejecting the bid to join you in the river
of irony and staying on dry land, At which point
you realize like, oh, Okay, this conversation or this relationship
is not going to a friendly place, or that this
(45:55):
is not the this is not the safe point for teasing,
you know, I mean it, it's very possible. I think
we can all think two situations like this where you're
kind of doing this playful teasing and then you realize, oh,
maybe this individual is very serious about this particular aspect
of their personality or the world. Like they do not
They're they're not game for say, uh, you know, political
(46:17):
based humor or teasing, but they may be open in
other areas. And that is also ultimately part of the
social dynamic, right, figuring out like what is the shape
of my relationship with this person and what is this
shape of this relationship going to be? What are the
avenues for bonding and teasing that can take place. Yeah,
I was reading another article about teasing as bonding and
(46:39):
it talked about how one of the main features of
teasing is the creation of distinct alliances between participants in
a conversation. Of course, you know, we we see this
happen all the time. Teasing is going on, and it
forms factions in a conversation. People can either join in
with the teasing and now they're on a team together,
(47:00):
or they can like resist, or they can you know,
it's often a form of like joining people together against
an isolated recipient. And this can take very cruel forms.
Of course, this is where it can very easily turn
into bullying, where in group members strengthened bonds by teasing
somebody from the outgroup or somebody new. But I've also
noticed that this form of teasing as alliance formation, can
(47:23):
be really positive. It can have really really sweet forms.
Here's one very specific benign way I've seen happen a
lot in my life. It's when there's someone who's uncomfortable
or unfamiliar in a social group. Say a person's over
at your house for the first time and they've never
been there before that you know that they're not one
(47:43):
of this this social in group yet, and a member
of that social in group tries to make the new
person feel comfortable and welcome by inviting them to participate
in teasing of another member of the in group. Like.
A very common version of this is I see, um
a wife trying to make somebody feel welcome in her
(48:05):
home by inviting that guest to join in with her
in teasing her husband. Okay, yeah, I mean I can
think of examples where my wife has done this, where
essentially what she's saying is like, this is my husband, Uh,
here's this nerdy thing he likes. It's okay to tease
him about it because it is part of our dynamic
and you can share to a certain extent in this
dynamic as well. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's
(48:27):
an inviting thing, and it it also tells that person
it's safe here. It says you're not going to get
your head cut off for mocking the king, right right, Yeah,
beheading always a sign that that that that a dinner
party is going terribly wrong. It's it's a demonstration that
there is no Jeoffrey in this house, right. But it's
also a form of social bonding and alliance formation. It
(48:49):
allows the person to feel like they are you know,
the that the crucial that the bull's eye of the
in group right now. Though then again, because because teasing
has all this inbuilt uh ambiguity and risk there, there's
always the risk of seeing something like that edge into
actual mean spiritedness in a couple. I hadn't really thought
(49:09):
about this before, but I was thinking of my my
own house. A lot of teasing, linguistic teasing, mind you,
is aimed at our cat, and our son engaged in
this as well. You know, we we treat the cat
obviously like a like a queen. You know, she has
even as a pedestal that she lays upon, and you
(49:30):
know she hasn't made in the shade and OK, yeah,
we we love the cat, but at the same time
we have all sorts of ridiculous names for the cat.
We're always going, oh, what is the cat doing? Now?
We're essentially teasing the cat and it is a very
safe zone for linguistic teasing, you know, because the cat
doesn't care. The cat doesn't know what we're saying. Well,
you know why cats are great to tease, it's because
(49:51):
they take themselves very seriously. They do that, They are
very to take themselves very seriously, whereas there is there's
certainly more of a an air of the jesture to
the dog. Though. We make fun of our dog too,
and he deserves it because he's very funny. But it
does make me wonder to what extent pets then, you know,
they they are enabling this avenue of bonding, uh that
(50:14):
that that that involves teasing. I think in this world
where we're trying to be sensitive and socially conscious and
not and not hurt people and necessarily but at the
same time, but where we also recognize the absolutely necessary
value of positive teasing, if we need like a theory,
we need like a theory of teasing to guide our
teasing so so that we we always understand where it's
(50:38):
going and we don't accidentally pilot it into the rocks
of of of bullying. I agree. I wonder if we
need like posters, you know, sort of like a military
propaganda posters that are instructing us about teasing, Like what
is good teasing, what is bad teasing, what is teasing accomplished?
What should we tolerate, what should we not tolerate? Yeah,
I don't know exactly what the best rules of the
(50:59):
road are. I mean, I know some things you should
not do, but it would be good to have positive
rules as well. How do you know you're on the
right track when you're teasing somebody? Yeah, for the most part,
we're all just winging it, aren't we. Well, I mean
you're trying to you're trying to read read their reaction,
like if it's good natured teasing, if it's between people
who are friends or in a relationship, they're teasing each
(51:19):
other that you know, you're reading their their facial expressions
and all that, and you can generally tell if things
are going well, but it's harder to tell for some
people than others. And it's harder to tell in some
situations than others. Alright, we're gonna go and close it
out there. But obviously this is a topic that everyone
is going to have some contribution for. I mean, everyone
has experience with teasing or being teased, both you know,
(51:42):
as children, as adolescents, as adults and uh, and we
would love to hear how you take some of the
ideas that we've discussed here to uh to dissect teasing
that has occurred in your life, you see occurring around you.
We'll tell you how to reach out to us here
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