Tact Filters

[dawnd]

According to Jeff Bigler:

All people have a "tact filter", which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. ... "Nerds," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction.

Comments

[jcgbigler]

Waaaaay oversimplified

Agreed, though the oversimplifications were largely deliberate. I doubt people would have gotten nearly as much out of the concept and discussions that followed if I had buried it in the appropriate qualifications and disclaimers.

1. Overgeneralization. The author says "all people" are equipped with this 'tact filter,' and that it works only in one direction. If we accept the notion of a "tact filter," which I think is a useful abstraction, then there are actually four possibilities: a person who never applies it at all, a person who applies it only to incoming communication, a person who only applies it to outgoing communication, and a person who applies it to communication in both directions. I know I've met people who can reasonably be said to work in all four modes.

I hadn't thought about the both/neither combinations, but you're right.

2. Persistency. There seems to be an unspoken assumption that this "tact filter" is fixed. I would say from my own experience that it's highly contextual, and may work with greater or lesser efficiency in both directions at different times, depending on the person and the situation. Certainly, people often apply a whole lot more tact to what they say, and to what they hear, when dealing with friends and lovers than when dealing with strangers--which is, I think, largely a monkeysphere issue. People inside our monkeysphere get more compassion, empathy, and tact than people outside it; people generally get more compassion, empathy, and tact when we are in a good mood than when we are in a bad mood; and people generally get more compassion, empathy, and tact when we're talking about emotionally neutral topics than when we're talking about emotionally loaded topics.

Agreed. Maybe it's more useful to think of tact filters as having a default setting, and that the problems occur when people aren't aware of their tact filters and haven't learned how to adjust them.

When the author talks about "nerds" and "normal people," I think it might be safe to say he's talking on "poorly socialized people" and "normally socialized people."

Which matches with most people's perception of nerds vs. non-nerds. Most people as kids are largely socialized by other kids. "Nerds" are largely socialized by adults, which can explain the disconnect.

After all, he claims that the tact filter gets applied inbound when people are picked on or abused--which often goes hand in hand with poor socialization. This presupposes that poor socialization is the reason the tact filter gets applied on inbound communication--when in fact the reverse may be true.

I think this is a chicken/egg feedback loop. People being picked on also results in isolation, which contributes to the poor socialization. It doesn't matter where you enter the loop.

I think that he may have the wrong axis. One could argue that Myers-Briggs "T" personality types, especially NT personality types, are more apt to have an "inbound" tact filter and "F" personality types, especially SF personality types, are more likely to have an "outbound" tact filter. In fact, NT personality types are often described as being fact-based rationalist personalities with abrupt and sometimes confrontational communication styles, love of debate, a strong sense of intellectual rigor, and a quickness to challenge ideas they find weak or unsupported; whereas NF and SF personality types are often described as emotional communicators with high empathy and a dislike of confrontation or disagreement. One could, I think, easily construct an argument that NT personality types have an "inbound tact filter," when in fact NT personality types are simply predisposed to find debate enjoyable and less likely to get emotionally invested in disagreements; and F personality types, especially SF personality types, are more likely to see disagreement as a personal attack, and hence less likely to use communication styles that are critical of others (and more likely to be emotionally hurt by what they perceive to be confrontational or critical communication from others).

Makes sense. I hadn't run across Myers-Briggs personality typing when I came up with the tact filter metaphor.