The human puppet

In the standardized human behavior series, I discuss human behavior, compare it to a protocol and see what we can alter or learn from it. Previously I considered whether people want to be standardized at all and concluded that they do not. Nobody wants to think of himself as a puppet manipulated by external forces or to act just as is expected of him. It’s possible to take the “Soup Nazi” episode from the Seinfeld sitcom as an example. The insistence for protocol in the episode is so outrageous it’s hilarious, that’s why we enjoy Elaine’s backlash so much. We don’t want to follow the “ordering procedure” and we don’t want move immediately to our right as we walk into a room.

Case Study: Soup Nazi

What the soup-selling-person-who-is-extremely-procedure-oriented had there is a protocol. It was a lenient protocol to some extent, but it had a penalty for stepping out of boundaries: a denial of service for a period. Since following the protocol had such a reward for it - a soup so good to make your knees buckle - most people agreed to follow the protocol. The rate of following the protocol is in direct proportion to the rewards and penalties associated with the protocol.

Lesson Learnt?

Humans refuse to follow such protocols without a set of rewards and penalties associated with them. Maybe what protocol programmers need are just better incentives (in the form of soup?) but perhaps I’m just over-analyzing it.