Tact Filters - different ways to handle things?

[sensedatum]

I'm a big fan of 43folders.com. Merlin Mann always has interesting content and you don't have to drink from a firehose like with Digg.

Today they had a post covering Jeff Bigler's 'tact filter' theory. He posits, "'Nerds,' on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction." They filter incoming data

Comments

[plant_and_root]

I'd contribute, but I'm no nerd. ;-)

[vanessa_mac]

The "tact filter" reminded me of a conversation I had with some of my colleages (engineers every one). We all agreed on how frustrating it is when we state something that clearly must be true, and non-engineers argue with it, not because they think it is untrue, but because it makes them sad, or they are angry about something else. And we wondered what the conversation looks like from their end. I can give examples if that makes no sense.

[chiaroscuro25]

There's definitely something to this. Many famous (and many not so famous) physicists would, during a discussion, regularly call ideas and sometimes even people stupid, idiotic, etc. without meaning to give any offense whatsoever. Their thoughts are on the ideas, not the people.

Maybe it's not an inbound tact filter, but an ideas filter. The nerd hears only the parts of the comments relevant to the intellectual discussion; the rest (whether complimentary or insulting) is irrelevant fluff.

[cattnip]

Perhaps nerds filter incoming social data.

I actually think all of us filter incoming data. The people who filter it the least are psychics. That's my understanding of how psychic ability works, it's just the ability pick up/understand/make sense of/respond to more incoming data than normal people.

What I see with socially inept people (which doesn't necessarily correlate to nerds) is that they miss the social cues, and some of those cues are what make normal people have tact...... I once told my mom I hated her haircut (when I was little). Boy did she look sad. I understood the social cues coming back from her and I have never told another person that I hated their haircut. Had I not been able to read and understand her body language, I might have made that sort of tactless comment many more times.

[chiaroscuro25]

I think the latter part sort of fits with my "ideas filter" notion. The person might catch the body language but not alter their behavior because of it, because they were simply being honest. In their view, conveying the idea accurately is more important than sparing someone's feelings. (In a way, it's a self consistent moral code, albeit not one that will make them popular.)

[sensedatum]

I have heard that about Psychic's too. They've turned all filters off.

Interesting.

[fearless777]

I would say some people filter in both directions and some in neither, too. There are also people with holes in their filters.