Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

Playful aggression fails to capture the edge of the antics of the jester and fool. In terms more felicitous to scientific inquiry, my colleagues Ann Kring and Lisa Capps and I defined a tease as an intentional provocation accompanied by playful off-record markers. We referred to provocation instead of aggression because a tease involves an act that is intended to provoke emotion, to discern another’s commitments. The provocation is evident in the content of the verbal utterance or some physical act, like a poke in the ribs, the proverbial pinch of the cheek, or a tongue protrusion. The tease, in a funny way (and I’m not teasing), is like a social vaccine. Vaccines are weak forms of pathogens (for example, smallpox) that, when injected, stimulate the recipient’s immune system—the inflammation response, killer T cells that recognize the dangerous pathogen, bind to it and kill it. The tease seeks to stimulate the recipient’s emotional system, to reveal the individual’s social commitments.

The more mysterious element is what is unsaid in the tease. This family of linguistic acts we called off-record markers. These are the nonverbal actions that swirl around the hostile provocation and signal that it is not to be taken literally but instead in the spirit of play. Here we turned to philosophical accounts of literal and nonliteral communication to find principles that account for the art of the tease, philosophical principles that organize the antics of the fool and that help differentiate the bully from the sage.

THIS AND NOT THIS

 

In the mid-1960s, philosopher Paul Grice outlined four principles of communication that would profoundly shape the study of pragmatics—that is, how people speak. Sincere communication, according to Grice, involves utterances that are to be taken literally. These statements should adhere as closely as possible to four maxims (see table below). Statements should follow the rule of quality—they should be truthful, honest, and based in evidence. Statements should be appropriately informative—the rule of quantity—and avoid the Strunk and White catastrophes of being too wordy or opaquely succinct. Statements should be relevant and on topic and avoid meandering into digressions, irrelevances, or stream-of-consciousness flights of fancy. Finally, in honoring the rule of manner, statements should be direct, clear, and to the point (sorry if I’ve violated this one).

Utterances that follow these four simple rules are on-record, and are to be taken literally. When an MD provides a prognosis about a life-threatening condition, she should follow these four rules of on-record communication. So too should the financial advisor announcing the unexpected loss of a family fortune—these are not the best moments for exaggeration, intentional falsehoods, fantastical description, obvious repetition, digression, meandering, or catchy metaphors or poetic obliqueness. Much of our social life, in fact—romantic declarations, sealing business deals, critiques at work, teaching young toddlers reaching to touch red-hot burners or rabid dogs—transpires in this realm of literal, on-record communication.

GRICE’S MAXIMS OF COMMUNICATION

       

LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLE        

CRITERION        

VIOLATIONS        

QUALITY        

TRUTH        

EXAGGERATION, FANTASTICAL DESCRIPTION        

QUANTITY        

INFORMATIVENESS        

REDUNDANCY, REPETITION, EXCESSIVE BREVITY        

RELATION        

RELEVANCE        

DIGRESSION        

MANNER        

CLARITY        

VAGUENESS, OBLIQUENESS, METAPHOR

When we intentionally violate Grice’s maxims, we signal that alternative interpretations of the utterance are possible. We say “this” with our words, and “not this” with violations of Grice’s maxims, pointing to other possible meanings of our utterance. We signal “not this” by resorting to obvious falsehoods or exaggerations of the truth (which violate the rule of quantity). We can provide too much information, for example in systematic repetition, or too little information, thus violating the rule of quantity. We can dwell in the irrelevant to violate the rule of relation. And we can resort to various linguistic acts—idiomatic expressions, metaphors, oblique references—that violate the rule of manner and its requirements of clarity and directness.

As important as sincere speech is to our social life, so too is this realm of nonliteral communication. Our brief utterances can take on the opposite meaning of what the words denote (irony, satire). We can connect disparate concepts in communicative acts that leap beyond narrow literal denotation (metaphor). We can endow our utterances with multiple layers of unbounded, aesthetically pleasing meaning (poetry).