Submission and dominance among friends

There are probably at least three things going on here:

• Re-affirmation of mutual trust through fake aggression. Camaraderie, basically.
• Taking or declining responsibility. Sometimes you are just happy to let someone else take care of things.
• And only finally, sub/dom power games.

Interesting. I guess different people have different preferences, because what I value at my rationalist group is that we avoid similar kinds of status displays. Do that kind of "put your arm around me", and I'll discreetly ask my friends to next time meet somewhere else where you are not invited.

I wonder how other people in the group feel about that, though, so next time I'm with them I will ask them. I assume that our behavior norms resemble our preferences. Anyway, potentially interesting topic for a discussion.

EDIT:

Okay, I asked, and the reactions were like: (1) "My response would be: 'Take it off, or I will break it off.'" (2) It is okay, if it is also possible the other way round in another situation.

Camaraderie is death spiral among anxious social group because a lot of people loudly object to such things. OMG you did not get their consent becomes an issue among people who are bad at exuding and reading non verbal signals about how welcome such things are.

Instead of submission and dominance I think an entirely different frame is helpful. Play fighting helps animals build the procedural knowledge for real fighting. In the same way that you would run or go to the gym with friends you might engage in playful status jostling with your friends so that when someone tries to actually knock your status down a peg it isn't a totally new reference class of experience and you just fire right back like you might with friends.

Virtual hug is virtual...but still, a hug?

I know how you feel. My supervisor often preceded his requests with a hand on the shoulder and a "You know, Motherland's in danger..." And it was a great thing to have.

I think there are a few things going on here worth teasing apart:

Some people are more comfortable with social touch than others, probably related to overall embodiment.

Some people are more comfortable taking responsibility for things that they haven't been explicitly tasked with and given affordances for, including taking responsibility for things affecting others.

Because people cowed by authority are likely to think they're not allowed to do anything by default, and being cowed by authority is a sort of submission, dominance is correlated with taking responsibility for tasks. (There are exceptions, like service submissives, or people who just don't see helpfulness as related to their dominance.)

Because things that cause social ineptness also cause discomfort or unfamiliarity with social touch, comfort with and skill at social touch is correlated with high social status.

It seems a natural thing to allow more casual touch after you have faced common danger together. Like, a drop of third party's saliva melts hearts of ice better than coffee.

I think Bezukhov in 'War and Peace' had ruminations to that extent (that in his friendship with Bolkonski, Bolkonski will always lead), but I don't remember where it is in the book.

If there was a rationality pseudo-military organization called "Existential Corps", would you sign up?