Saving face

Walking home today, I saw a lady walking two dogs on a patch of grass near my building, and another lady started yelling out the window at her to pick up her dogs' poo.

I have no horse in this race - I neither own a dog nor use the grass - but the way the lady was yelling out the window inspired in me a feeling of "I don't want her to win!" and my mind, unbidden, promptly started brainstorming ways to make window-yelling lady feel bad or to give dog-walking lady a perfectly good reason to walk away without picking up her dogs' poo. I pondered whether there was a way to make one of the dogs run away, and then Dog-Walking Lady would have to chase him.  I calculated whether I could lob a dog poo high enough that it would land in Window-Yelling Lady's stupid yelly face.  I contemplated yelling back at Window-Yelling Lady "The dogs aren't even finished pooing yet!" (Which was true.)  But I couldn't think of anything that would be effective, not escalate the situation, and not make me look crazier than Window-Yelling Lady.  So I just kept walking and didn't see how the situation ultimately played out

But this provided a perfect example of something I learned back in my professional writing classes: you have to give your interlocutor an opportunity to save face.  The way Window-Yelling Lady was making a big scene, trying to embarrass Dog-Walking Lady, and just kept yelling and yelling in a way that suggested her intention was to keep yelling until Dog-Walking Lady picked up the poo, created a situation where picking up the poo would be appearing to let Window-Yelling Lady win.  If Dog-Walking Lady had waited until her dogs both finished their business and picked up their poo - even if this were here intention all along - it would look like she did it in response to Window-Yelling Lady's yelling.  There was no way for Dog-Walking Lady to give Window-Yelling Lady or any other random onlooker the impression that she was intending the whole time to pick up after her dogs as soon as they actually finished pooing.  As a result, because she has no way of not looking bad, the temptation increases to exact vengeance on the person who's making her look bad by leaving the poo behind.

However, if, instead of yelling through the window and publicly embarrassing Dog-Walking Lady, Window-Yelling Lady had instead chosen an approach that appeared to give Dog-Walking Lady the benefit of the doubt - for example, offer her a baggie and say "It's the worst when they just have to go and you don't have a baggie, isn't it?"  This not only saves face for Dog-Walking Lady by treating her like a perfectly reasonable dog owner, it creates a scenario where Dog-Walking Lady would have to introduce assholicness into the situation by walking away and leaving the poo behind even though the nice neighbour lady had just helped her out by giving her a baggie.

It also reminded me of something that comes up in advice column forums.  Sometimes, for letters dealing with fraught social situations where one party is not exhibiting the desired behaviour, the advice columnist or various commenters might suggest an approach that presents the desired behaviour as a pro tip (e.g. "We've found it helpful to respond actionable emails acknowledging that we've received them - just a quick "Thanks!" will do - so then the other person doesn't have to worry about whether we got it.") or by requesting it as a bit of a favour in response to a personal quirk or a one-off situation (e.g. "Could you do me a favour and let me know you got this email? The mail server has been erratic lately.") However, there are always people who always argue against these more subtle approaches, saying you should simply tell the person to engage in the desired behaviour ("Stop not answering your email!"), regardless of whether you have any authority over them, often even saying that you should tell them to engage in the desired behaviour pre-emptively (the email example doesn't work for this one, but it does apply to my mother's habit of telling me to hang up my coat before I've even taken off my coat, or telling me to say thank-you before I've even opened the present.)

I've been trying for some time to articulate why I don't think this approach would be productive, and Window-Yelling Lady showed me why.  It creates a win-lose situation, and labels the person you want to engage in the desired behaviour as Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour.  If they do it, it looks like they only did it just because you told them to, and therefore your nagging is necessary.  If they don't do it, it makes them look like Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour, and therefore your nagging is necessary.  It doesn't leave them any room to be seen as Being Good or give them any credit for their positive actions, so their only remaining incentive for the desired behaviour (other than the fact that it's right, which the nagger obviously doesn't believe is sufficient incentive) is to stop the nagger from nagging, which probably isn't going to work anyway because the nagger is going to think their nagging caused the desired behaviour.

But if you allow them to save face, it creates a win-win situation: you've extracted the desired behaviour from them, and they get to look like they're doing it on their own initiative.