Who Complains How About Whom

We humans like to complain. And while we might pretend that the main purpose of our complaints is to help others adjust their behavior, more likely we like to collect successful complaints as a resource. Collect enough complaints, and maybe you can trade them for some compensation, or at least sympathy. 

One way to collect complaints is to find others who are violating social norms. But complaints are much more socially valuable to us when we can frame them as something done to us personally. Which is why we prefer to complain about people who are associated with us in some concrete way. 

Our associates vary both in how strong is our interaction with them, and also in how much responsibility we have for them, and they for us. Consider the difference between a consultant and an employee, or between a lover and a spouse. The former types of associates can have just as strong an influence on us, but we are seen socially as more responsible for what happens to the latter types, who I will call “allies”.  

Since our associates do things that influence us, we can in principle complain whenever their impact could be framed as negative to observers. But we have to be careful complaining about allies. We often have norms that complaints between allies should be kept private. Also, as we are in part responsible for what our allies do, and thus in part responsible for what they do to hurt us. So we feel more free to complain when less-ally associates do things that impact us negatively.

While we are less able to complain publicly about specific effects of our allies, we are more able to complain about their loyalty as allies. If they are responsible for us, we can complain that they have not done enough to help us, especially when we are in unusual need. We can also complain that by their actions they are taking unjustified risks. Their actions can risk their running into problems that would lead to needing help from us, and can also lead to complaints by others, which would then reflect badly on us because of our ally relation.

Notice that this analysis predicts some general patterns in our relations to allies and to non-ally associates (this is of course really a spectrum). We do more to help allies, but we more limit their behavior. We feel less free to break off our relation with an ally, or even to visibly shop around for substitutes. Non-ally associates, in contrast, can take more risks, and thereby gain both more upsides and downsides. We demand that allies more conform to social norms, and more avoid what we consider risky behavior. It is more okay to have non-ally associates who are greedy, arrogant, or braggarts, even assholes. 

Another important way in which our associates vary is in their dominance “size”.  We humans still feel the pull of egalitarian forager norms, norms which disapprove of some agents having, and seeming willing to use, more “power”, whether physical or monetary. We often have associations where one party is seen as larger in this sense. These include relations between parents and children, firms and individual customers or employees, bosses and subordinates, rich and poor friends or family, and between men and women.  

In an association between a “big” and a “small” agent, observers tend to hold the larger agent to a higher “ally” standard. The larger agent is supposed to do more to help the smaller agent when they are in need, and to do less that might risk the safety of that smaller agent. The larger agent is also seen as more entitled to regulate the behavior of the smaller agent. In contrast, the smaller agent is less obligated to help the larger agent in need, and if they are less allied they are less entitled to regulate the behavior of the larger agent.  

Of course it is possible for a large and a small agent to have a strong ally relation, in which case the small agent will then be expected do a lot to help the large one when that agent is in need. It is just less acceptable for the larger agent to not treat the smaller one more like an ally. When the small agent is not held to an ally standard, the large agent is seen as more free to take risks, as the smaller agent will less be held responsible for them.  

Note that a smaller agent who is to be treated by a larger associate as an ally, but who need not treat that associate as an ally, has maximal opportunities to complain. They are less restrained from complaining about particular negative effects, and they can also complain if their associate isn’t sufficiently loyal or fair in ally terms.

This whole analysis seems to be particularly useful for understanding relations between men and women, and between firms and their customers and employees. Women tend to complain more about men, compared to vice versa, women tend more to initiate breakups, and they tend more to be protected from downside risks (e.g. via welfare). More conformity is demanded of women, while men are allowed to take more risks, from which they can gain larger upsides but suffer larger downsides. It is more okay for men to act harshly, even as assholes, such as in management.

Similarly, individuals tend to complain more about big business, and it is more okay for an individual to quit a firm than for a firm to quit an individual. We protect individuals much more from downsides, and also regulate their behaviors more. We mainly regulate firms to limit the harm they might cause to individuals, and to ensure they treat individuals “fairly” as an ally should, e.g., avoiding unfair discrimination.

Note that I’m not claiming that these patterns are genetic, or that they can’t be changed. (I’m not claiming the opposite either.) These patterns have a logic, but there may be other important logics at play. These may also be only patterns in social perceptions in our society, which need not exist in all societies and which need not correspond to reality in our society.