Question about human behavior

[messy1349]

Not sure where to post this, so here we are.

Once while out at lunch, my father mentioned a personal financial matter is a rather loud voice. I said, “Dad, could you lower your voice? We’re in public.” He just stared at me for a few seconds before resuming the conversation at the same volume.

Another time, while using public access computers, there was a man talking loudly on his phone. A woman at a computer said, “Sir, can you lower your voice? You’re talking right in my ear.” The man stared at her for a few seconds before resuming his phone conversation at the same volume.

A third time, a woman was watching a loud video (that had no inappropriate content) on a public access computer at a high volume. A man asked her to turn the volume down. She ignored him.

What’s going on? The hope is that the loud people would apologize for the disturbance and lower the volume. Instead, they stare the accuser down and/or ignore them. Why can’t people be polite and considerate?

[Aedilred]

There are always going to be people who are inconsiderate and/or ignore (even abuse) social conventions. I would hope that your experiences as outlined above and the picture they paint are merely confirmation bias and that this isn't a growing trend.

With older people, they might have the excuse that they are becoming deaf, and therefore a higher volume is required for communication. But that only applies in some situations, of course.

It does vary by culture. Americans are generally perceived as being "louder" than Europeans, and southern Europeans as louder than northern Europeans. This goes for speaking volume, how much speaking they do, and also stuff like use of the car horn (hearing a horn is fairly rare in the UK; in some European cities it's near-constant). As with all cultural perceptions, there may be some truth in it, or not. (Despite the UK being a "quiet country", apparently restaurants in London are the loudest in Europe by decibel level). I have heard that in certain cultures, talking loudly is encouraged, on the apparent basis that speaking quietly suggests you have something to hide, and therefore carries conotations of duplicity and dishonesty. So in some situations there might also be that going on. But I don't want to go too far into that, apart from anything else because I don't know much about it.

Of course, if asking politely doesn't work, there's always an alternative...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prH9RyFX4SM

[Keltest]

Of course, if asking politely doesn't work, there's always an alternative...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prH9RyFX4SM

Deleting their Youtube account!? Fiendish.

[Fiery Diamond]

Video showed up fine for me.

[Khedrac]

For me this is more of a problem certain individuals have than necessarily a cultural one.

Sometimes it is a case of habit - in the days before mobile phones becoming prevalent I noticed that a lot of people who talk too loudly on the phone were holding it so that the microphone is nearer to their neck than their mouth. My supposition is/was that people have asked them to speak up and they have done so rather than adjusting how they hold the phone. I wonder with mobile phones if the psychology of not having the microphone next to the mouth also causes people to be louder.
(I have also observed the interesting , if sensible phenomenon, of people holding a phone so that the base [mic] is near their mouth the but the phone then slopes away from the face, nearly flat, with the speaker [top] as far from the ears as possible! This may make the phone harder to hear, but one can just-about see the display while talking and minimises the noise you make to disrupt others.]

My late father reckoned that the way to deal with people too loud on the phone at work was to replace the carpet with a hard surface (to reflect sound back up) and add baffles (vertical dividers dropping down a few inches) to the ceiling to divide the area up into virtual cubicles - these to stop the sound travelling along the ceiling. Having worked in the off office with some of these features I think he's right and it would "cure" some people.
My first job after Uni offered "phone use training" which included NLP techniques to deal with people speaking too loudly or quietly - but these would be no use when not part of the call.

So, going back to the question "Why can’t people be polite and considerate?" I think the answer is because the loud people are the ones who aren't polite or considerate in the first place.

(I was once unable to hold a conversation with a senior manager* at his desk because his boss** was on the phone about 15 feet away talking too loudly for us to concentrate. Said boss then finished his call, walked over to the printer and pressed a few buttons before kicking it - we just looked at each other in amazement.)
* Previous Finance Manager of a small*** company.
** New finance manager.
*** Growing from approx. 100 people to 2 or 300 people.

Sometimes I think the only answer is to be rude back (i.e. start talking at the same volume, even if to no-one) - this actually links to the aforementioned NLP techniques because if you match their volume then start getting quieter they may match your volume.

In the case of the personal finance info the answer is a bit easier - interrupt with words to the effect of "I don't want my personal financial information broadcast to the entire room - lower your volume!"

[Aedilred]

Video showed up fine for me.

I edited it. My internet has been playing up so when the first video I tried to link wouldn't work it was then a pain in the neck to change it.

[2D8HP]

I edited it. My internet has been playing up so when the first video I tried to link wouldn't work it was then a pain in the neck to change it.


Thanks for that, good choice of a clip

[TaiLiu]

Since you're asking questions related to psychology and anthropology, the Mad Science sub-forum might also be a good place.

You ask two separate questions. "What’s going on?" and "Why can’t people be polite and considerate?" I'm gonna take them at face value.

The latter is easily dismissed. Presumably you consider yourself capable of being polite and considerate. You likely consider some subset of people to be capable of politeness and consideration, too. That question has a false premise at its core.

The former is much harder. People exhibit similar kinds of behavior for wildly different reasons. Take the example of the woman and the loud video. It's possible that she was ignoring the man cuz she didn't want anyone to tell her what to do. It's also possible that she is hard of hearing, which is why she was listening at such a loud volume in the first place. Perhaps she just didn't hear him.

It's also the case that human behavior is shaped by an enormous number of influences, most of which are uninteresting and fail to explain the situation independently. In the social sciences, you practically never find "the cause," because social events are shaped by multiple causes.

"What's going on?" You sure can make up a good story to explain why. It looks like you already did: people are rude and inconsiderate. "What's really going on?" We'll likely never know.

[Rynjin]

When dealing with someone on the phone, you could potentially jar them into being quieter by simply being loud and belligerent back. If they're on a business call and need to keep up professional appearances, having someone loudly bark "SHUT THE **** UP" or simply shouting embarrassing phrases directly into their microphone might shock them into being quieter as they need to apologize/clarify to the person on the other end. Similar to how your friends might have screwed with you while you're on the phone in school.

YMMV on reactions, however.

[Aedilred]

When dealing with someone on the phone, you could potentially jar them into being quieter by simply being loud and belligerent back. If they're on a business call and need to keep up professional appearances, having someone loudly bark "SHUT THE **** UP" or simply shouting embarrassing phrases directly into their microphone might shock them into being quieter as they need to apologize/clarify to the person on the other end. Similar to how your friends might have screwed with you while you're on the phone in school.

YMMV on reactions, however.
As tempting as this is, I feel like responding to antisocial behaviour with antisocial behaviour is likely to cause more problems than it solves in the long run.

[Rynjin]

As tempting as this is, I feel like responding to antisocial behaviour with antisocial behaviour is likely to cause more problems than it solves in the long run.

Maybe, but the general point is that antisocial people by definition do not care about social mores and, more generally, the feelings of others.

Polite attempts to dissuade them from an action they are inclined to naturally perform are doomed to fail. Your only options are to endure (the reasonable option) or to speak in a language they understand.