Thoughts on Agreeableness #1 (why we agree)

Wow! I have taken way too much of a break with my blog. To be honest I am a little bit disappointed in myself :( Commitment is guilt tripping son of a bitch.

After giving my initial thoughts on compassion and politeness, it seems logical to give my initial thoughts on agreeableness as a personality trait. Agreeableness can be thought of the dimension of personality that develops interpersonal relationships, while compassion and politeness can be thought of the two aspects or 'tendencies' that determine one's level of agreeableness. Let's review my definitions:

Compassion: The tendency to prevent and/or reduce the negative emotions of others

Politeness: The tendency to defer to authority or social norms (I am skeptical of my own definition and may try to come up with a more precise one, hopefully by the end of this blog post)

To best explain how these two aspects round out our interpersonal abilities, let's boil 'agreeable' down to 'doing/saying what somebody wants or needs' and 'disagreeable' to 'NOT doing/saying what somebody wants or needs'. I believe that we will not act agreeably or disagreeably unless we see the VALUE in acting as such.

Compassionate people are very interested in how people are feeling, understanding their problems and finding ways to help them achieve or maintain a positive emotional state. They also get this icky feeling when they witness, either explicitly or implicitly, somebody else experiencing any negative emotion. Negative emotions can range from more primitive like sadness or fear to more complex emotions like guilt or shame, I believe the latter emotions depend on some degree of socially constructed morality to manifest themselves. A compassionate person will act agreeable towards someone as doing so often prevents that someone from entering a negative emotional state that would have otherwise been brought on by disagreement, rejection, non-compliance etc. The compassionate person sees the value in agreeing because it relieves that icky feeling they get.

Polite people are a little bit different. I think that while compassion may be a more innate feature of human nature arising from the necessity for a mother to feel compelled to care for their offspring (I am not saying that you cannot build compassion through experience), politeness tends to develop more out of experience. While compassionate people are focused on preventing the negative emotions of others, polite people seem to be focused on preventing conflict. Contentious situations make some people very uncomfortable and they can also get that icky feeling when they sense conflict arising in a social situation. I have theorized that this icky feeling may be due to early experiences with conflict that did not go too well and had negative consequences, although this may be an innate feature as well as avoiding conflict could also be necessary for survival. Albeit, when I say 'conflict', I am referring to conflicts that arise in situations where survival or safety are not a concern such as having arguments with family, friends, coworkers etc. I think it may be wise for me to change my definition of politeness to the tendency to avoid conflict :). Nevertheless, a polite person sees the value in agreeing because it relieves the icky feeling they get when they feel conflict is a brewin'.

I realize that it may be overly simplistic to boil the value of acting agreeable down to dodging an 'icky' feeling. So I think I best explain where I believe that icky feeling comes from. I believe that this feeling ultimately comes from a drive to be socially accepted and loved. There would be no motivation to develop interpersonal relationships at all unless we felt as if something was missing from our lives if we didn't. We all have a fear of being lonely do some degree, and I believe that while human beings have a plethora of fears, agreeable human beings may be especially fearful of loneliness. As I mentioned in my previous post on compassion, while it may seem altruistic to tend to the feelings of others, I do believe that there is a very selfish component at play that compels one to act compassionately. The compassionate person wants to be loved, accepted and included in order to build their interpersonal connections, therefore they see the value in tending to the negative emotions of others. By doing so, others will see the value in the compassionate person and develop their relationship with them. Politeness works similarly as it is a lot easier for people to develop pleasant relationships, at least at a surface level, if they are not in a state of contention with one another. The polite person wants to be included and accepted, which is why they will avoid conflict and defer to one's authority or to the authority of the group. Both the compassionate route and the polite route of are great strategies for getting people to like you and more importantly, to trust you. Trust is the strongest adhesive in any relationship and I believe that it always will be.

Personally, I am the type of agreeable person who is always mindful of others' feelings, but quite frankly I like conflict. I believe that we are all fairly dishonest in our everyday lives, not because we get a thrill out of deception, but because we often sacrifice honesty for short term unity. We can justify dishonesty as an ethical practice if the consequences of our dishonesty are 'good' such as sparing someone's hurt feelings or dodging an argument. While acting overly agreeable is a great way to cultivate a relationship, eventually it is only naturally that two people will disagree. If the conflicts and discomfort needed to address these disagreements are repeatedly avoided, the relationship may grow, but in a dishonest way. These types of relationships are like a house of cards, pretty to look at, but have a very weak foundation. These types of relationships give me that 'icky' feeling, thus I do my best to avoid them from developing by being as up front as I can and nipping things in the bud. I welcome the discomfort because I value long term unity over short term unity.

In summary, we agree with people either because we don't want them to feel bad or to avoid conflict (or both!). We instinctively realize that these are the best ways to build relationships with people, especially during first impressions. Obviously, the best types of relationships are ones that don't deteriorate in the presence of comfort and negativity. A marriage is a great example of this as a marriage can only truly be honest if conflicts and cognitive dissonance are welcome in the relationship as well. I will most definitely write about the benefits of disagreement in a later post.

Sorry for the wait, I'm really happy to be back on the horse. Please feel free to rip my opinions to shreds, I welcome that stuff too :)