Reciprocation

Someone once said "Be kind to others, you never know what they are going through"; this is something that I think is admirable, but not always practical.  I think the more practical approach to this is to stop and think about your own behaviour, specifically when you have your own struggles.  When you have insecurities, one of the hardest things to overcome is the thought, "If they don't say it, then they don't think it", the kick of that comes in the fact it's toxicity coming from your own thoughts and if you have any fear of confrontation, that can stop you saying it to others.  The end result here is someone doing something that bothers you, namely that they don't do what you hope they will, yet they are likely oblivious to the fact it bothers you, which leaves you suffering in silence because you can't tell them.  What would make it all better is for them to do what you expect, but they can't know that because they're oblivious.

This all comes down to a simple concept that most people develop at a very young age, that is the concept of private thought.  There is a psychological test to determine when a child becomes aware of this.  The test involves a simple story and a question:

A child is told: "There are two children, Adriana, and Bernadette, and two boxes a red box, and a blue box.  Adriana is given a cookie, she places it in the blue box.  Bernadette is then told to leave the room.  Adriana then moves the cookie to the red box, and leaves the room too.  Bernadette comes back into the room and is told to get the cookie."

The child is asked: "Which box will Bernadette look in first?"

If the child answers the blue box, then they understand the concept of private thought, they understand that Adriana knows the cookie moved, but Bernadette doesn't, because she wasn't there to witness it being moved.

If the child answers the red box, then it is likely they have not yet developed the concept of private thought, they think Bernadette knows the cookie moved because Adriana knows it moved.  They can't comprehend that they both have separate experiences.

Now this isn't a foolproof experiment and it's not meant to provide a definitive answer to whether a child has developed this concept, it is only intended to give an indication. 

The concept of private thought is something we develop naturally, but for many of us there can be a latent tendency to insist that others must know what we know, even if there's no indication at all that they should.  This can cause many conflicts when we expect people to behave in certain ways and they do not; the fact they do not can be infuriating, or frustrating.  Basic social interactions like reciprocating pleasantries, "Hi how are you", "I am good, how are you?", "I am good thanks" can become such basic behaviours to us that the failure of others to show any reciprocation can leave us feeling like they are rude.  The thought that they may not be used to asking back never crosses our mind, even when it is presented to us we retort with anger "That's stupid, it's common courtesy" - to you, maybe, to others that's not a guarantee, moreover the expectation that failure to do it would cause upset or alter the mood will never cross their mind if they don't expect to have to reciprocate in the first place.

You can develop many theories as to why some people find this natural and others do not, the nature versus nurture debate can come into play, indeed I have seen the argument that anyone who was an only child will be less likely to reciprocate because they weren't conditioned to when growing up, or the class vs privilege debate which argues those of a higher class are more likely to reciprocate out of etiquette, and those of a lower yet still privileged class will tend not to reciprocate, with those in the lowest class with little or no privilege will be likely to reciprocate out of preconditioned perceived equality and traditional concepts of manners.  Personally I don't think any of these actually explain why some people do and don't, if I was to even try I would use introversion versus extroversion but even at that I could argue a case why both would and both wouldn't so I don't think you can really predict this behaviour until you know more about someone.

The bottom line here is that these conflicts whilst they are perceived as being the fault of the other person, are ultimately dependent on our own perceptions of behaviour and our own expectations - not those of the other person.  I think this divides people into those who are self centred, and those who are other-centred and those who are considerate of others.  The questions that still intrigues me is whether this is learned behaviour or not, and whether you can make someone go from one to the other.