---
# System prepended metadata

title: '"Social Chemistry---Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection" by Marissa King'
tags: [Readings]

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"Social Chemistry---Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection" by Marissa King 
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###### tags:  `Readings` 

In this book, the author proposed that most people fall into 3 categories:
* Expansionists ---> Well known people with large networks. They have trouble maintaining social ties and leveraging ties for value. 
* Brokers ---> People who bring together typically disconnected parties
* Conveners ---> People with dense networks and strong mutual ties. Usually have strong trust and reputation. 

People are more likely to hear about their current jobs from *acquaintances* (not good friends).
Brokers have more work/life balance. 
Premise: To a lot of people, intentionally profitting from relationships are almost a taboo. 

## In terms of socialising at events:
* The author proposed the concept of a fixed mindset vs flexible mindset. What this means is that if a person is shy (introvert) and they have a fixed mindset, they perceive shyness as a fixed trait (i.e., they will always not attempt to socialise). Whereas if a person is shy and yet they have a flexible mindset, over time, this person social behaviour will appear to be the same as those extroverts. 
* 'Liking gap' ---> people constantly underestimate how much their conversation partner liked the conversation they had at social events
* Fundamental block of social relationships is  ***reciprocity***.
* People almost always interact with dyads (pairs of 2). (i.e., if you see a person standing alone, in a group of 3, in a group of 5, you can head over).
 
Suggested texts: "Give and Take" by Adam Grant; "Influence without Authority" by Allan Cohen & David Bradford.

## In terms of maintaining connections:
* Dunbar's number states that 150 is the total number of stable contacts we can maintain. 
    * Closest 3 to 5 people to us are used for severe emotional and financial distress
    * Next 10 is the sympathy group (emotionally close people). [Total 15 people when you add the previous circle]
    * Next 35 people are the comfortable but not vert close people [Total 50 people when you add the previous circles]
    * Next 100 people are casual friends or stable contacts [Total 150 people when you add the previous circles]
    * Beyond 150, **reciprocity and obligation is not required.**

* People take 50 h to become casual friends, another 40 h to become "real friends", 200 h to become close friends. 
* People usually have 3 attachment styles:
    * Secure ---> comfortable with intimacy and interdependence
    * Anxious ---> doubt self worth, require interpersonal closeness, worry about abandonment
    * Avoidant ---> Makes sure that no one gets too close to them
    * People with Anxious and Avoidant styles tend to have fewer strong ties. 

### Conveners
* Conveners favour strong ties. Expansionists prefer large number of weak ties. 
* "Mere exposure effect" ---> Merely exposed to people, objects and ideas can result in general individuals having more favourable evaluations towards them. 
* Being kind helps to reduce social anxiety of the self. 
* People take 3 years to trust someone at work, but most leave in 4.5 years.
* Vulnerability makes us feel a strong need to belong. In turn, we become more trustworthy and cooperative. 
* Common identity created through shared vulnerability catalyses relationships. 
* Network closure ---> provides trust within the group (so that if anything fishy happens within the group, everyone knows).
    * Group identification can form almost instantaneously over complete meaningless distinctions. 
    * Homophily --- people like others who are similar to them. It is a consequence of both choice and circumstance.
    * Psychological need for closure ---> more general preferences for certainty and risk aversion (conveners).
* Self-disclosure leads to interpersonal closeness, but oversharing can backfire. Disclosures need to be reciprocal. 

### Brokers
* Brokering is essentially bringing together concepts, ideas and people from worlds that are normally far apart. 
* A party of triad (3) is the foundation of social structure. 
* Spaces between groups are called structural holes and brokers span across them
* Edge effect ---> the intersections reveal unexpected connections (where the edges meet, there is great biodiversity).
* Brokers are inherently unstable. Some purposefully create their positions, others take atypical career paths. 
* What makes a good broker?
    * Brokers are adaptable translators.
    * High self monitors (easily imitate others, can make impromptu speech, speaks first in conversations).
    * People in power are more likely to think that they can broker, but with power it becomes harder to find brokerage opportunities. 
    * Trying to act as an intermediary between people who do not need it can come across as selfish disruption. 
    > "Without humility, you are dead, because to create, you have to have the willingness and desire to be challenged, to be learning."  
* Brokers make great change agents because their actions and words are interpreted differently by people with different agenda. 
> "never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so" --- Machiavellism (and that brokers tend to follow this quite a bit)
* There are 2 types of brokers:
    1. Cooperative brokers --- that work with everyone and benefit the group
    2. Arbitrate brokers --- come and be the middle man and prevent both sides from meeting (ends up benefiting the broker himself/herself).
* Brokers can appear unlikeable due to their duplicitous character. 

### Expansionists
* Expansionists are characterised by their generosity, but that also means that at the end they are often alone. 
* The text spoke at length about an experiment that basically went like "Telling people that songs were popular made the songs popular" --- people are drawn towards popularity.  
* The more connections you have, the easier it is to grow your network
* People often underestimate the role luck plays in successes (hindsight bias)
* While evolutionarily, we are more likely to pay attention to popularity, expansionists are more sensitive towards those that are popular.
* Expansionists are very good at reading others. 
* **Givers who can successfully prevent burnout and being taken advantage of succeeds.** Those who don't are worse off than those that are worse off than those that are more selfish.  
* Likability is not equivalent to popularity (linked when young, but not so when we grow older). Likability is determined by non-aggressiveness, listening, feeling valued and welcome, non-domineering behaviour. 

---
People in power are more likely to be optimistic and confident in face of risk. People who lack resources are less likely to ask for help because it heightens feelings of ***powerlessness*** (more convening tendencies).
People should aim to oscillate between brokerage and convening by switching every few months. 

### Dormant ties
* Defined as people whom you haven't spoken to in 3 years. They are more likely to provide valuable insights and less likely to be in your echo chamber. 
* The most useful dormant ties are those with highest status and those that are perceived to be more trustworthy and willing to help (previous impression matters, 狗改不了吃屎)。
* The most obvious way to gain your coworker's trust is by gathering your team's formal leaders to trust you. Having the trust of the team leader is important especially if the team isn't doing well. However, if the team is doing well, your team mates are more likely to trust the judgement of their fellow coworkers. 

6 essential partners in the inner circle (they all can't be yourself): 
1. Access to information
2. Formal power
3. Developmental feedback
4. Personal support
5. Sense of purpose 
6. Help with work/life balance 

### How to connect with people
* The first duty is to listen (compassionate listening) ---> helps to relieve suffering of others.
* People are able to identify emotions through touch >50% of the time. Touchers are seen as more friendly, sincere, agreeable and kind. 

### Environment 
* Fear of being seen negatively can result in people not speaking up. 
* Project Aristotle by Google identified 5 keys to a great team
    * **Psychological safety**
    * Dependability 
    * Structure and clarity around goals and roles
    * Discovery of personal meaning in work
    * Belief that the work the team is doing matter

* Psychological safety is the most important. It is a climate in which people feel safe to speak up and take interpersonal risks. It is about *candor*.
    * High performing teams have the highest error rates ---> becaue they are more likely to recognise and admit to errors. 
* Fear impedes learning. It is a good short term motivator but doesn't help in the long term.
    * Replace blame with curiosity when asking for problems/errors
* By clearly delineating what failures are blameworthy and praiseworthy, boundaries are created. 
* Psychological safety is a self-fulfilling prophecy, can be accelerated by seeding teams with conveners. 
* **Teams are psychologically safe at the 6th-month mark or the 6th-year mark.**
    * 1 snide comment can destroy psychological safety. 
    * Almost everyone who experiences incivility reacts negatively some way. It will eventually spiral out and become aggression or resignation (will not care as much).
    * Suggested text "The Price of Incivility" by Porath and Christine Pearson. Shows that incivility changes behaviour a lot
    * Negativity is also contagious. 
    * If there happens to be an asshole, slacker, or a pessimist in the team, it becomes more important to get each other to listen to the rest. 
* Reasons for incivility/rudeness: 1. Overwhelmed. 2. No time to be kind. 3. Power. 
    * People tend to believe that if they are kind, they are seen less as a leader (which has been shown to be true to a certain extent).
    * When you feel powerful, you stop attending carefully to what others think. 
    * Bad stuff have a disproportionate impact on our mood, well-being and productivity. 

> "For a marriage to survive, you need 5 times as many positive interactions as negative ones"
* Reciprocity of positive ties is 3 to 6 times higher than negative ones. 
* **Actual company values are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted or let go**. 
* One of the best way to identify an asshole is to observice how they treat people with less power 
    * Somehow, 1 week is enough to tell 
    * Suggested reading: "The no asshole rule" by Robert Stutton
* **It is a lot easier to build a happy, healthy, well-functioning team than to fix one that has gone toxic.**

### Work/life Balance
The book mentioned the concept of segmenters (e.g., exotic dancer hiding his work from home) vs integrators (e.g., convent nun). Segmenters have higher levels of well-being than integrators. The increasingly transactional nature of work results in the decline in work friendships. 

* Any time someone shows up to an event with a sense of obligation, their chances of making a new connection are gone. 
* Brokers are partcularly adept at having friends at work while minimising the downsides. They do not allow their worlds to overlap. 
* People generally fear differences (that can be found out through company events), and this can be mitigated by adopting a learning mindset (using open-ended questions).
* Similarities lead to greater feelings of closeness if they are rare. If want to build trust and connection, look for *uncommon* commonalities. 

### It is all connected (Chapter 10 is quite important)
* Mentorships are important. Defined as mutually beneficial, empowering and enabling. 
    * Mentor/protege usually form along lines of surface similarities. 
    * However best mentoring occurs when there is some similarity and some differences. (e.g., opposite gender mentor/protege pairs tend to do better)
    * Mentoring relationships based on deeper similarities (beliefs, values and experiences) have better outcomes. 
* Sponsorship is rarer than mentorship
    * Sponsorship as in they advocate for the sponsee, make social conections, and use their social capital on behalf of the sponsee. 
* Mentors are like friends, sponsors are like investors.
* What does it take to build relationships with great sponsors? By ***delivering***. 
    * Also need to differentiate yourself from peers too. 

* 6 degrees of separation (Stanley Milgram, 1967)
    * Physical proximity connects people to the target closer. Ordinary people are as likely to span critical dividees between social and professional circles. 
    * Small world characteristic ---> dense cliques of conveners + brokers and expansionists to bridge. 