40d Talk:Relationship

Experimentation

Ran a small experiment on whether or not relationships are affected by social skills. I assigned the original dwarves various social skills at various levels, and let them sit in a meeting area until the traders came in the fall, no labor assigned. The skills assigned were:

Dwarf 1: Proficient Comedian/Proficient Conversationalist Dwarf 2: Proficient Liar/Proficient Intimidator Dwarf 3: Proficient Judge of Intent Dwarf 4: Conversationalist/Comedian Dwarf 5: Novice Comedian/Novice Flatterer/Novice Consoler/Novice Pacifier Dwarf 6: Control (nothing) Dwarf 7: Control

Results:

Dwarf 1: 1 lover (Dwarf 5), 2 friends (4, 3). Personality types: Likes art, dislikes intellectual conversation, guarded in relationships. Dwarf 2: 1 lover (3), 0 friends. Personality types: Calm demeanor, Quick to anger, Comfortable in social situations, Relaxed, Not given to flights of fancy, no more work than necessary, given to procrastination. Dwarf 3: 1 lover (2), 2 friends (1, 5). Personality types: Overindulges, Can handle stress, Prefers familiar routines, Does not go out of way to help others, Not easily moved to pity, very disorganized, strong sense of duty. Dwarf 4: 2 friends (6, 1). Personality types: Slow to anger, often feels discouraged, thrillseeker, not easily moved to pity, lacks confidence, disorganized, thinks through every alternative and consequence before acting, Dwarf 5: 1 lover (1), 1 friend (3). Personality types: Calm demeanor, can handle stress, not a risk-taker, candid and sincere in dealings with others, disorganized. Dwarf 6: 1 friend (4). Personality types: Thrillseeker, Art-lover, Tends not to openly express emotion, slow to trust others, very willing to compare herself favorably with others, not easily moved to pity, does the first thing that comes to mind. Dwarf 7: 0 friends. Personality types: Slow to anger, cracks easily under pressure, tends to avoid crowds, unassertive, relaxed, art-lover, prefers familiar routines, trusting, guarded in relationships with others, very rarely does more work than necessary, takes time when making decisions.

In order to do this, I classified the personality types into three rough categories - beneficial, harmful, and neutral. Beneficial included comedian, conversationalist, flatterer and pacifier. Harmful included liar and intimidator, and neutral included judge of intent and negotiator.

Some things I noticed from this experiment: There is a definite increase in the number of friends that dwarves with social skills have over the controls, with the exception of the one dwarf with harmful skills. However, even this dwarf had a lover - the one who had high judge of intent. Perhaps judge of intent is necessary to establish a positive relationship with a liar or intimidator? Furthermore, the two dwarves that ended up with the most relationships were those who had the most negative personality traits in regard to social situations among those who had social skills.

Furthermore, there seemed to be very little influence in personality types on friend-making. The friendships between 3/5 and 6/4 were the only two that shared any personality types, and those do not seem to be particularly applicable to the situation at hand. It's also worth noting that the only dwarf comfortable in social situations, #2, also only had the one lover - likely due to problems brought about by his social skills.

I will run some more tests to try to flesh out these findings more. Anybody else willing to join in?