I think @gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de has it a bit off, because he sees the individuals as positive or negative agents. I’d say it’s positive or negative social situations.
If you’re playing dodgeball, the point of the game is to hit other people with a ball. That’s the situation you’re in and your social reward is in playing the game.
By contrast, if you start flinging food at a wedding, you do not get the same social rewards. The point of a wedding is not to physically dominate your peers.
In OP’s Greentext, you’ve got a kid who is in aggressive, jockular friend circles where verbal sparing is expected and rewarded. Greentext would not be rewarded if he behaved the same way with his mom.
But it’s certainly possible that if the mom was younger and in a social circle with more jockular members, or she was sparing with other old biddies on Facebook, that she’d drop the nice demeanor and come out swinging.
Different people will approach those social situations differently. Work, play, drinking, hanging out, flirting … everyone has their own ideas of what they enjoy or find inappropriate or don’t know how to engage with in various settings. The same individual is often wildly inconsistent across different settings.
Personal adaptability and the willingness to apologise or double-down according to what the other party expects are the only ways to avoid getting one’s feelings hurt and/or hurting others across a broad-range of experiences and individuals.
Of course, social isolation and intentionally keeping a small circle and/or routines are also valid options.
I think @gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de has it a bit off, because he sees the individuals as positive or negative agents. I’d say it’s positive or negative social situations.
If you’re playing dodgeball, the point of the game is to hit other people with a ball. That’s the situation you’re in and your social reward is in playing the game.
By contrast, if you start flinging food at a wedding, you do not get the same social rewards. The point of a wedding is not to physically dominate your peers.
In OP’s Greentext, you’ve got a kid who is in aggressive, jockular friend circles where verbal sparing is expected and rewarded. Greentext would not be rewarded if he behaved the same way with his mom.
But it’s certainly possible that if the mom was younger and in a social circle with more jockular members, or she was sparing with other old biddies on Facebook, that she’d drop the nice demeanor and come out swinging.
Different people will approach those social situations differently. Work, play, drinking, hanging out, flirting … everyone has their own ideas of what they enjoy or find inappropriate or don’t know how to engage with in various settings. The same individual is often wildly inconsistent across different settings.
Personal adaptability and the willingness to apologise or double-down according to what the other party expects are the only ways to avoid getting one’s feelings hurt and/or hurting others across a broad-range of experiences and individuals.
Of course, social isolation and intentionally keeping a small circle and/or routines are also valid options.