Tag Archive for Possessions

Dominance By Setting And Breaking Social Rules

Rules are always created by, and then in turn, broken by dominant individuals! Dominant individuals are the rule makers, not the rule followers. It’s sad but true, that police officers enjoy greater luxuries than regular citizens. Just ask any policemen what they do if the get pulled over for speeding. Do you really think they get a ticket? I won’t get into absolutes here, but I do personally know two officers who have explained to me that a flash of the badge gets them off every time. I would expect this to be the norm, not the exception, but there is no empirical way to be certain.

This sort of logic all starts at home, as parents make and break their own rules routinely. Is it any surprise that whinny children have whinny parents? Even small children can readily pick-out these injustices, but since they are still highly dependent on their parents to feed, house and cloth them, they, put up only a small amount of resistance. As children reach their teenage years, these inconsistencies are tolerated less and less by them as they tend to set their own course. They are separating themselves from their parents and taking on their own dominance characteristics, naturally, controlling inconsistent parents see this as disrespect.

This isn’t unlike what happens when dominant people meet as adults. Dominant people will often interrupt others or speak over them, casually swear in the wrong company and generally act inappropriately without fear of consequence. Dominance can also take the form of belittling and criticizing others, and holding thoughts such as “I’m more important then you”. It can also include ridiculing others and their possessions, such as their cars or occupations.

Touching also has rules which can be broken in order to set others in their place. A pat on the back can be disingenuous when used in certain context, whereas a light punch on the shoulder can be uplifting to a buddy. Punching can be annoying if done repeatedly to exercise control. There is a pretty clear line between being dominant in a good way versus being belligerent.

Displays Of Ownership And Territory To Indicate Dominance

“Fences make great neighbours” seems like a great truism for our day and we see just as many fences going up as we do houses. Humans are very social, but it is also obvious that we are deeply territorial. While in public, a wife might display ownership of her husband by hooking her arm around his, or he might throw an arm around her just the same. We show that an automobile that we are proud of is ours by leaning up against it or placing a foot on its bumper or ownership of a desk by tossing our feet up on top of it. We display ownership of our houses and personal affair by adding personal touches and might even block the entry to our homes by solicitors through clogging the doorway with our bodies.

Territorial lines are drawn everywhere in our lives from the particularities of our offices and automobiles, right down to the rooms in our own homes, and whom has access to them. We even have boundaries around our bodies which we protect rigorously. The more dominant the individual, the more apt they are to have and hold rigid boundaries about their personal space and possessions. For example, walking into your boss’s office and sitting in his chair won’t come with a welcome reception. But amongst friends, this type of chair stealing happens frequently and can even become a game, due largely to the fact that you and your friends are of equal status. It wouldn’t be uncommon for the boss’s children to play this game with their dad, so in some context, stealing territory is perfectly tolerable with all people.

Only sometimes does first come – first serve, apply to territories. Squatter’s rights as it where is also organized by hierarchy. Those with higher rank can often force others to move, even just by their presence. Sitting at the head of a table is fine so long as you are the highest rank to date, but if someone of higher rank appears, it’s customary to relinquish, or at least offer the seat to them. Members of a staff who are close in rank can sometimes power play each other for these seats at the boardroom table in attempt to move up. The body language in these situations can become very potent as the desires of each party becomes more evident. Your office staff knows which seats are most coveted!
Leaders also get permission to move through doorways first and walk in front of groups instead of follow, and it is customary to allow them to do so. The exception, as always, comes when we wish to usurp their position, challenge their authority, or try to build equality where we might trade dominance rights back and forth.

Placing objects such as jackets and brief cases on a seat can hold it and delineate temporary ownership. It is often easier and more polite to force an actual person to move than to move their unattended personal items to usurp their space. Anyone who has spent anytime at a laundry mat knows how piercing the stares and looks can be when you remove clothing from an un-attended dryer. Break-and-enter-victims complain most, not about being robbed of their possessions, but rather about feeling of violation. It is unnerving to have had someone enter their personal space and hence territory without their permission. Territoriality is a big part of the human repertoire. We rarely think about ownership of people, but placing an arm over someone, playfully messing up their hair or guiding them to where we want them to go by placing a hand to their back, as a parent would his child, are just a few ways that we show others that we own and control them.

Bragging is an appropriate word that describes dominant behaviour in the same context with ownership. Dominance is also not the same as confidence. Dominance just means that someone has specific ideas about how they should be treated whereas confidence is a state of mind where a person remains unshaken emotionally despite what happens externally. Therefore, dominant people can still harbour insecurities about themselves which is evident through ownership because they will spend a lot of time talking about, or drawing attention to their stuff. Naturally, this sort of thing happens subconsciously, or even out of habit. Touching or fondling an expensive watch or piece of jewelry, or going out of their way to be seen in an expensive car are just two examples of flaunting. Truly confident people have no need to show-off to others, their achievements are grand enough to speak for themselves and their earned success emanates from them through their nonverbal behaviour. There’s a fine line between being cocky or arrogant and having to flaunt it in a way that others will find offensive, and being confident, which is exuded seemingly naturally of which people find magnetic. Confidence is one of those things that we all know it when we see it. Dominance that is justified by accomplishments is certainly more tolerable, and with the addition of compassion and empathy, can make all the difference in people’s acceptance of other’s dominance and the behaviour that follows.

Dominance is also expressed through claiming stake to valuable items, or the prevention of touching certain things, or even occupying certain space. Preventing others from doing things, even at random is a luxury afforded to, and by, powerful people. Even when seating is unassigned we often see the same people day-after-day sitting in the same seats. This may have to do with maintain peace when it happens on a first come first served basis, but when there is a shortage of quality positions, as there most often is, we expect to see more dominant players jockey for more highly desirable areas. This is exactly what does happen and because we live in a capitalist society, it happens everywhere and often. Those higher in the ranks will have the best parking spots and the biggest offices, with the best view.

Thwarting dominance by ownership is fairly simple but also a possibly caustic affair. It can be done by stealing a seat which will be seen as an invasion of territory, it could include getting into their personal space, leaning on their cars, putting feet on their furniture or desk or being overly-friendly with them. Being intimate with someone they are close to, such as a current or past romantic partner, or as in a father-daughter relationship, his daughter, are all ways to fight dominance head on! Obviously, you must be careful what you choose, as head-to-head dominance struggles are the beginnings of war! When there is an imbalance of power between dominant people, one party will quickly succeed to the other, but when two parties are evenly match, or believe that they are, the struggle can draw out indefinitely producing emotional of even physical injury. So instead of antagonizing your dominant counterparts, instead work on building your own dominance independently of their through confident body language, examples of which are peppered throughout this book!

Introduction – Chapter 4

The "luncheon test" is a fun territorial game.  To play it, simply advance restaurant artifacts from your side to the other piece-by-piece over the course of a meal.  Start with the condiments (salt, pepper, ketchup, etc.) then move onto your own personal items such as your drink, an empty salad bowl, use napkins and so forth.  Watch how your guest response.  Do they push the items back to reclaim land, or do they ease back in their chair and let you have the extra space you seem to require?

The “luncheon test” is a fun territorial game. To play it, simply advance restaurant artifacts from your side to the other piece-by-piece over the course of a meal. Start with the condiments (salt, pepper, ketchup, etc.) then move onto your own personal items such as your drink, an empty salad bowl, use napkins and so forth. Watch how your guest response. Do they push the items back to reclaim land, or do they ease back in their chair and let you have the extra space you seem to require?

As a species, we have clear definitions and rules protecting ownership of our possessions for the purpose of maintaining order and reducing conflict. Territoriality describes the set of rules that govern the space around our bodies with emphasis on how we communicate ownership. A territory is defined as the space or area around a person that is claimed as their own, to the exclusion, or inclusion, of all others as they see fit. Territoriality is a key part of the human condition even though it is rarely thought about. The land our houses sit upon is owned by us and we prove this to others by way of a deed and unfortunately by the taxes we pay for the right to keep it. Most of the things inside our houses are also ours and we prove this through shear possession, unless we save our purchase receipts. There are also things we own but that occupy space that is shared by our communities, or that neighbouring communities. Our cars are owned by us, yet move about the territories of others.

Fences around our homes have become commonplace showing a greater need for us to protect what little space we own, in a rapidly expanding population, that finds itself in a shrinking community. Apartment style housing and condominiums however, prove that as land availability shrinks, our tolerance for density is increasing. As we shall see, habitation density controls personal space tolerances, that is, it controls how much empty space we require around our bodies when near other people. However we look at property and personal space, one thing is true, everyone fights to defend it.

We see this battle amongst children who fight for the front passenger seat in an automobile or among college students for the best seat on the sofa. We can also see it with office employees who fight for the best seats at the conference table, or even the best offices (usually the biggest or with the brightest window or best view). Once a territory is claimed, ownership is marked. We can mark our territory by leaving personal artifacts such as a jacket across the back of a chair or a book on a seat to reserve it. We sometimes even go so far as hiring friends as guards to hold and protect our territories when space is limited, or hold our cue in line. Status in a hierarchy alone can serve to protect territories. For example, no one would contest the boss’s or Dad’s seat at the head of the table. Curiously even habit can reserve a territory. Seating in large auditoriums (several hundred seats) in university settings is rarely assigned, yet habit says that students sit in the same general areas class after class, while most sit in the very same seat each lecture. Being usurped of a seat that has been reserved through this repeated claim can be upsetting even though no written rules exist.

As spaces become more crowded our natural response is to guard our territories with even more fervor. Cues and lines are a prime example. The longer the line and greater the wait, the more aggression people will hold against those that jump cue. Disney world has a strict no cue jumping policy for this reason. Cues are an interesting way of defining territory if you really think about it. Cues are eternally moving, and changing, yet we guard our relation to others and our nearness to our goal, whatever it might be. It has been shown that particularly violence-prone individuals such as criminals tend to have much wider personal space requirements than regular people. What seems like miles to us, might seem like inches to them. This is why respecting nonverbal body language that indicates aggression related to space invasion is vitally important so we don’t cause what is called “intrusion panic.” Incidentally, babies also suffer from panic when strangers get to close so respecting personal space goes across all people (animals too), and even while driving – hence the term “road rage.” Setting someone off who has tendencies to react physically can be disastrous and we never really know what type of person we are interacting with at a given occasion since we deal with so many strangers on a daily basis.

By examining a crowded beach area we can see rules that create territories. Our friends and family will ban together with towels and other beach artifacts to ward off others. The efficiency of the group due to its common interest allows it to expand by creating space amongst and between its members producing even more space for itself, a luxury not experienced by a single person or even a couple. Banding with others creates strength and when interests align we tend to clump and form pairs, clans, gangs, groups and so forth. If a new or better stake of land becomes available we quickly motion our troops to action, we pull up stake, and move quickly. In high stakes environments we might even send a brave individual from our clan to put up the first claim. Usually we follow first come takes claim because it is found to be a fair enough rule to abide by. Because we live in a civilized society and we jostle over generally trivial stakes our rules prohibit physical altercations.

Above: How close is too close.