How Are You?
“Hi Michaela, how are you?”
Cue the internal eye roll.
Shut up, I want to say back, Don’t pretend you care.
Why do people bother in exchanging pleasantries, such as “Hi, how are you?” while greeting each other, when the goal is not to actually gain information on their well-being, but to feign a caring interest? I remember the first time I felt annoyed at this question, harkening back to my high school days. It was a beautiful, sunny day during my senior year.
“Hi Michaela, how are you?” a cheery voice asks me in passing while I walk down the hallway. The cheery voice belongs to one of my history teachers from the previous year. My face lights up in excitement, realizing I haven’t seen this man in over a year. I yearn to tell him some brief anecdotes about how my senior year has been progressing, and how excited I am for college in the Fall. We had grown to have a profound respect for each other during our class time together, me admiring his vast knowledge about history, his ability to teach without reading from a PowerPoint, and to answer complex questions on the fly. Him, admiring my ability to think critically about the content I was learning, as well as standing up against the status quo of the classroom. (It was an interesting year).
His stride never wavers, never slows down.
My face begins to fall, as I realize what’s occurring. And my blood simmers a little bit, growing agitated.
We were both walking in the opposite direction. If his stride didn’t slow down, he wasn’t interested. I mechanically said a variation of what everyone says, “I’m good. How are you?”
Why even bother to ask? To keep up a reputation? To seem like he cared? I wanted to scream these questions at him. Unfortunately, this behavior isn’t just a him issue, it’s a people issue. Anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, psychologists, speech theorists, and your every day American (yours truly) have written about this phenomenon. In 1975, Harvey Sacks, an American sociologist, did a study on how the question “How are you?” serves as a greeting in English. He analyzed how one’s response provides a sociological reasoning to lie, when people answer “good” or “fine” instead of saying the truth. Linguistic anthropologist Alessandro Duranti references Sacks’ study and findings in his scholarly works, published decades after Sacks’ contribution to the discipline of conversation analysis, showing that there is a continuing conversation about conversing. Duranti proposes that these rituals pose to seek information and control behavior, continuing the academic conversation about Sacks’ study, while disagreeing with Sacks’ claim that the question allows people to lie. These are just two examples of scholars in their field who have studied communicative rituals. Philosophers John R. Searle and J.L. Austin proposed the Speech Act Theory, which states that there are three basic ways people communicate performatively: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. As we can see, greeting rituals have fascinated scholars for decades, from being analyzed as rituals, tools to seek information or control behavior, ways to lie, and performative acts.
Many people all over the world engage in linguistic rituals — pleasantries that don’t really serve a purpose. Ritual in this context refers to the performative acts of engaging in communication, such as “hello,” “how are you,” “nice to see you,” “goodbye,” etc. These words or phrases are uttered out of politeness, but are inconsequential. Many times I have passed a familiar face in the hallway, and they smile at me and say, “Hi, how are you?” Sometimes this question can be annoying, as two people walking in opposite directions could not possibly genuinely respond to the question. Sometimes, people need to think about how they are. Sometimes how you are warrants more words than could ever be shoved into a 15 or 30 second interaction window. There’s an acknowledgement of each other’s existence within a simple exchange of hellos that a follow-up question does not enhance. So why do people ask these questions that are not rhetorical in nature but have become rhetorical through social normalization? Do people really only want to hear “good” or “bad” in response to how someone is doing, or hear nothing at all?
This experience of exchanging greetings like “how are you?” encompasses every individual within our society. I am certain any American that stumbles upon this has either asked someone how they are out of ritual, or has been asked how they are by someone else out of ritual. Sometimes people genuinely want to express how they are doing to those they care about or want to engage in human interaction. Our society encourages many linguistic rituals that may not seem to actually serve a person. How are you? Who cares. But what does this reflect about our culture, our society? About human interaction?
I suspect that popular greetings reflect societal values in the interactions we have with others, which peaks my interest in “Hi, how are you?” because one might look at modern American culture and label it as materialistic and obsessive with appearances. This question may be another one of those reputations to uphold to. But it could also simulate the same thing a hand shake does between two friends — an acknowledgement and connection between two people.
First, we should look at greetings in general. Upon seeking anthropological answers to my questions about ritual communication through journals published by the American Anthropological Association, Duranti’s “Universal and Culture‐Specific Properties of Greetings” article piqued my interest, as the title suggests certain linguistic rituals are present in every society, but may differ from culture to culture. Since anthropology is the study of humans, human behaviors, human cultures, and human societies from the dawn of human civilization to current day, I decided their expertise would be most helpful in navigating through my line of inquiry.
Duranti begins by proposing that greetings are one of the first verbal communication topics that children learn, as well as novices attempting to learn a foreign language (63). When we first learn any language, usually at a very young age, we learn that greetings are the norm. They establish how we begin socialization with others and how we are supposed to socialize with others — politely. This can be useful in terms of teaching people, who are animals at the end of the day, not to be aggressive with each other. Duranti believes that greetings suppress our aggressive, animalistic behaviors through appeasement during “face-to-face” encounters (64). This isn’t completely reassuring to me, as this only makes me think that as children, we’re taught appearances and repression, opposed to being taught empathy and patience. I’m imagining how different social interactions today might be for everyone if, as children, we were all taught patience and empathy — obviously not for every encounter or run-in one experiences with another, but for moments when information-seeking questions are posed in the greeting process. This may be unorthodox, but since Duranti proposed this topic as a way to suppress animalistic behavior, we can look at the patience dogs or cats take when greeting each other for the very first time. When I first brought my puppy Poe home to Ada, another dog of mine, Ada stared at Poe for a long time while he stared back at her, probably asking himself: what the hell is that? She approached him slowly, sniffing the air around her for his scent. Then, she bowed her head down to his once tiny body, and sniffed him from head to butt, and repeated that for a while. She did that for at least 20 minutes. This process took time and patience, as Ada tried to seek information, such as his scent and pheromones, to understand who he was. They sometimes argue, as siblings do, but after that greeting, Ada and Poe have grown closer. While I’m not suggesting we all sniff each other, people might empathize and create more meaningful relationships if we treated our greeting process with the same level of patience.
This line of inquiry also makes me think that we are taught to lie everyday. Think about it. How many times have you said “fine,” “good” or “okay,” when you were dying inside? (On the other hand, I’ve known a few attention-seeking individuals who might reply “bad” just to garner more attention if the asker so cares to pursue or express empathy). Linguistic Anthropologist Elizabeth Keating addresses some of the issues with communication in “Current Issues In Linguistic Anthropology,” as she proposes this social interaction tells us to not be honest with others, as people seem to get uncomfortable when you elaborate on how you’re doing through an honest anecdote or experience (20). The social rules seem to be as follows: When asked how one is doing, you are expected to give a positive assessment, which provides for a social justification of lying (Duranti 64–65). And all of this seems to be because of “social appropriation:” the idea that our society deems certain questions, phrases, and responses as appropriate to say in social encounters. Socially, for instance, American society has an unspoken agreement that one or two word responses to “how are you” are the norm, which means answering honestly or “appropriately” is not subscribing to societal ideals about communicative rituals.
Maybe my problem really is with appropriation, and navigating through it. Of course asking someone “How are you?” during a greeting ritual is not the same as asking someone how they are after getting hit by a car, which social, linguistic, and psychological anthropologist Michelle Z. Rosaldo points out in her linguistic analysis of speech acts (154), but that should not mean that you cannot be honest either way.
Unsatisfied with the idea that answering this ritualistic question with a lie or one or two word response has been deemed socially “appropriate,” I looked to scholars who talked about social rules and appropriate behavior in relation to the question that started this whole essay, and stumbled upon a title that instantly caught my interest, as it opened a new door I had not thought about before. Ben Belek, a medical and social anthropologist, writes “Autism and the Proficiency of Social Ineptitude: Probing the Rules of ‘Appropriate’ Behavior,” which follows a study on socially appropriate behavior and the ineptitudes autistic people have, especially through the social interactions and difficulties Marie and Alan face as individuals with autism. I had two thoughts going into this study: a) maybe this greeting ritual I find pointless is actually useful to those who may find a formulaic process of social exchange to be helpful, and b) maybe this greeting ritual makes it harder for people with social ineptitudes. Marie and Alan both found it confusing to navigate through this social arena of greetings, as they did not know when to answer seriously or when to engage in small talk.
Alan found a way to get around the confusion.
“‘How are you?’ his acquaintance asked.
‘Serious or small talk?’ Alan inquired. ‘Small talk,’ the person casually responded.
‘Oh. So, fine, thanks’ uttered Alan, and they went their separate ways. Alan acknowledged how pointless this interaction was but nevertheless how satisfying it felt” (174).
Many people with autism don’t understand social rules, so when asked “How are you?” people like Marie and Alan might tell someone something very personal that’s not appropriate to the relationship the askee has to the asker, nor the time and place. Perhaps answering this question sincerely is not always the way to go after all. Maybe the social justification to lie and give a one word answer is helpful in certain situations in which you want to champion your right to privacy, but still integrate with others. This is particularly important for those who have social ineptitudes, as social integration is more difficult for those people. These ritualistic greetings can prove to be useful, as once Alan found a way to circumvent his confusion, he now knows how to ask a polite question to people, and how to answer appropriately when asked, acclimating to societal standards of socially appropriate behavior.
Though I may be socially inept in some ways as the awkward human being that I am, unlike Marie and Alan, I don’t have autism so I’m not confused about how I’m supposed to behave during these encounters, just that I don’t want to. This is a slippery-slope for me, because as James W Carey proposed in his ritual theory of communication, communication brings people together in commonality and through integration. Ritual communication brings people together, which is why it’s so important, something I should acknowledge as one who wants to do away with an integral greeting to our culture. The things we say in passing, in greeting and goodbye, in some way reflect an attempt to connect with others — to participate in social integration. Social integration is important in acclimating to societal structures, cultures, and traditions.
To participate in the greeting ritual of asking how someone is, is to participate in the culture of my country. But Carey’s ritual theory also proposes the idea that not everybody shares the same beliefs about communicative rituals, so some people may be offended while others are not. Also, when one has already established a rapport with someone, like I did with my teacher back in high school, social interaction should be more important than integration, as a rapport suggests integration has already occurred.
Reflecting on that interaction with my high school history teacher, I think my annoyance was born out of being a little offended at the lack of his sincerity in asking me that question. I was disappointed. I wanted “serious talk,” but I got every day small talk instead. We ask people how they are every day in passing, but when I ask my best friend, a family member, or someone I’ve already established a connection with how they’re doing, I actually care about the response. Sure, if I’m sitting in a doctor’s office and I’m waiting and waiting and waiting for this person I’ve never met or only interacted once or twice with before to walk through the door, and then the doctor finally walks in and says, “Hi, how are you?” I’m not going to be offended. I’ll certainly be bored with the overused greeting, as neither of us actually cares about the other’s response by the very nature of integration being more about social structure than it is about bonding. (Well, maybe if I say I’m doing terrible because my spleen aches, then the doc has to care because it relates to a medical issue, but you get the point). The doctor establishes the social structure within the patient room we’re interacting in — politeness and professionalism. It’s more important for that greeting to be about integration than interaction because people typically do not have the same sort of relationships with their doctors that they do with their friends, family, or teachers. It’s a way for strangers to find commonality over a shared cultural ritual.
Thinking about this linguistic ritual, and others, as a form of integration changes my perspective on its importance, but not entirely. In the case of meeting new people, I can now see the importance of linguistic rituals helping with social integration, as it’s important to feel like one is a part of the social structure and understands the collective consciousness of a society or culture. It’s apparent that social integration is important in American culture and serves as a central American value.
What I’m suggesting, which relates to social interaction, is that we as a society look at this question through a new lens. Not just as a non-rhetorical question, but maybe as a way to be funny and make someone else laugh. I’m sure if I responded “I’m an alien, thanks for asking” to my high school history teacher, that would have given him pause and made him chuckle. With people we know, it may be important every so often to socially integrate, to check-in with someone that you are both culturally and socially on the same page. But most of the time, social interaction is more important (in my eyes) with established connections to develop those relationships further, as any psychologist will tell you that human interaction is a psychological need we have that prolongs our survival and helps keep us mentally and psychically healthy. Robert Neville in I am Legend goes crazy and starts talking to the mannequins like they’re people for a reason — we all need human interaction. It’s important. Asking someone how they’re doing is a wonderful opportunity to have that social interaction, which is so important that psychologists have categorized these interactions into five different categories: exchange, competition, conflict, cooperation, and accommodation.
I’d like to think of meaningful social interactions, like having a genuine desire to hear someone’s response to “How are you?” or actually responding to the ritual greeting, as cooperation — the idea that “when two or more persons or groups work together to achieve a goal” that goal “will benefit many people” (81). This goal may benefit the two people engaging in the exchange of social interaction, in that they learn more about each other and affirm that connection as they continue to interact and express an interest in the other person’s life. This interaction will certainly improve the mental health of the askee and the answerer.
If our society and culture prioritizes brevity, which we know it does from our short attention spans on social media, maybe we should shift the question to a statement for those that have an established rapport with someone, but are not in the mood to hear about someone else’s life at length. “How are you?” implies an act of caring for someone to a certain degree, as well as politeness. People want to appear nice to others and that’s perfectly fine. But it also opens the door to conversation, because that’s what non-rhetorical questions do. Perhaps instead of feigning an air of care, we should say something along the lines of “Hi, nice to see you,” or “Hi, I hope you’re doing well.” These greetings already exist, but are not in usage as much as “Hi, how are you?” Shifting a question that intends to show politeness and care, to a statement that also expresses those notions, eliminates the annoyance of living in a world that pretends to care beyond the surface level, into living in a world that kind of cares, but doesn’t want to deal with your problems. It’s a more honest way, in my opinion. Or maybe just taking some advice from Alan’s interaction, we can move in a different direction.
How are you?
Serious or small talk?
“Alan concluded this story by pointedly adding to everyone’s enjoyment: “I do think I’m slowly making the world a better place’” (Belek 174).
Works Cited
Belek, B. (2018), Autism and the Proficiency of Social Ineptitude: Probing the Rules of “Appropriate” Behavior. Ethos, 46: 161–179. doi:10.1111/etho.12202
Brody, Jane E. “Social Interaction Is Critical for Mental and Physical Health.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 June 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/well/live/having-friends-is-good-for-you.html?smid=em-share.
Communication, in Technical. “SPEECH ACT THEORY.” Communication Theory, 10 July 2014, www.communicationtheory.org/speech-act-theory/.
Duranti, A. (1997), Universal and Culture‐Specific Properties of Greetings. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7: 63–97. doi:10.1525/jlin.1997.7.1.63
Keating, E. (2000), Current Issues In Linguistic Anthropology. Teaching Anthropology: Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges Notes, 7: 20–23. doi:10.1525/tea.2000.7.1.20
“Ritual Communication And The Transmission Communication Model Cultural Studies Essay.” UKEssays.com, www.ukessays.com/essays/cultural-studies/ritual-communication-and-the-transmission-communication-model-cultural-studies-essay.php.
ROSALDO, M.Z. (1974), Linguistics: Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. JOHN R. SEARLE. American Anthropologist, 76: 153–155. doi:10.1525/aa.1974.76.1.02a00790
https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/EDU501/Downloads/Types%20of%20Social%20Interaction%20Article.pdf
Works Consulted
Greeting Body Language, changingminds.org/techniques/body/greeting.htm.
Hall, K. (1999), Performativity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9: 184–187. doi:10.1525/jlin.1999.9.1–2.184
MALLERY, G. (1890), CUSTOMS OF COURTESY. American Anthropologist, A3: 201–216. doi:10.1525/aa.1890.3.3.02a00010
Manalansan, M.F., IV (2005), Relocating Cultural Expressions. Anthropology and Humanism, 30: 179–186. doi:10.1525/anhu.2005.30.2.179
