Sri's Theory of Sentiment-first Communication

Important corollaries:

• Applies to conversation between peers or stranger of unknown status.
• Community arises from small-yet-frequent positive acknowledgement of everyone we meet!
• The semblance of agreeabilty masks true intent and agenda for the sake of social convenience and comfort.
• In either case, familiarity then trust develops with each agreeable interaction, which creates opportunities for further bonding!

The Hypothesis

In practical terms, a majority of people seem to be naturally sensitive to sentiment and agreeability as the foundation of social harmony. Social harmony creates psycological safety, which is important for people to function at their best. When social harmony is disrupted too many times, this is perceived as a threat to that psychological safety, and good will is lost.

Neurodivergent people like myself have a different notion of social harmony. For many of us, sharing what we think and sharing our data is the basis of social harmony; there is an automatic assumption of good will, and directness is appreciated because “it’s just data” and we are comfortable with questions and uncertainty.

The conclusion I have drawn is that each group has a different priority and purpose for communication:

• For the “majority”, the norm is the expression of positive sentiment and obvious agreeability to maintain social harmony in the group, as one’s social safety is determined by this.
• For “people like me”, the norm is sharing personal experience and data and negotiating understanding, which creates social harmony in individual pairings or small groups.

When these norms are violated in either group, negative reactions start to build. When violation is repeatedly experiencesd, the fight-flight-freeze-fawnSee this WebMD article for a primer on the four stress responses. stress response is triggered!

Developing 90S

I think a reasonable baseline for communication is to (1) enhance shared positive sentiment and (2) avoid triggering fight-flight-freeze-fawn response. This leans in favor with the so-called “majority norms” I hypothesized above, but it is a strategem that is good for EVERYONE including neurodivergent people! But how does that work in practice?

In my journaling I’m using the tag 90S—short for 90% Sentiment, 10% Data—to describe the mindful practice of conscientiousness, politeness, and affirmation in casual conversion between peersI can not emphasize enough that 90S is for casual peers and corworkers of the same status. The rules change in other relationships, or break when the perception of “peer” is not shared., such as coworkers, acquaintances, and people who meet on the street who are not obviously an authority figure. 0S is a conversation mode that emphasizes social harmony as commonly expected by the majority.

For starters, the easiest way for me to remember all the above is:

In practical terms, this means that in the majority of casual conversations, what you are saying is secondary to expressing positive sentiment. Your words are just the vehicle to deliver the sentiment.

This helps me remember two important conversational reminders:

• Most people aren’t interested in what I am actually thinking about. They just want to express positivity at seeing you. The words themselves don’t have meaning beyond conveying positive feeling, and I should just reply in kind as part of the ritual.
• When people ask questions in a casual context, they are NOT expecting a high-intensity or challenging conversation. It is perfectly acceptible to just give a light overview, letting the other person ask more questions if they like but keeping the responses small.

My natural communication style is to lead with data and my lived experience, because I used to think other people would happily take what I offered and exchange their own data/experience back. This is not the way it works in casual conversation between acquaintances.

Getting deeper into it, I think of 90S as emphasizing the communication of sentiment as part of active listening. However, active listening is different from people who are primarily 90S communicators. In this context, active listening is affirming that you hear what was said and show support.

In the context of people with my flavor of neurodivergence, active listening is sharing relevant data and similar experiences to show that you understand what the other person is feeling as a show of affirmation. The subtext is, “what you are saying is something I also have known, and we are in solidarity”. However, this can be perceived as being self-centered or attention-stealing; the expectation from 90S converation again is sentiment, not data. It is important to affirm what is being said on a personal level.

In 90S practice, it’s acceptible to agree to an invitation with no intention to follow-through on it. This serves the sentiment-first expectation by

1. conveying positive sentiment to the invitation because it’s genuine in that moment.
2. assuming that outside of the conversation, the invitation is not a promise but is instead a suggestion

The overriding concern in 90S is that everyone can show their agreeableness in-person and not be held accountable. It’s assumed that the initial invitation might be being made for politeness. Only after trust and familiarity grows does an invitation turn into a commitment. This is a surprising realzation for neurodivergent folks who believe every statement is true and containing specific meaning.

90S is the foundation for small talk, casual conversations, and social events. It allows everyone to present a face of being a positive, socially virile individual among their peer group. Over time, trust grows and the small bits of information comfortably share with each other grows into a significant shared context. At this point, it’s possible to present more challenging ideas to each other because consistent safety has been established. This is a whole other topic in itself.

• For non-peer conversations, 90S native practitioners then follow the authority/power structure and optimize for survival then safety. This changes the way 90S is applied for political positioning and power, not necessarily to find friendship. The additional stress can make it even more difficult to cope as a neurodivergent individual.
• In business or work contexts, collective problem solving shifts the emphasis more toward data but still demands all the 90S agreeableness and affirmations according to the culture. Business-speak, engineering-speak, and executive-speak still use 90S conventions between peers. The problem arises between non-peers due to cross-domain differences in how they see the world.

The majority of people process the world by recognizing a problem context, then applying the method they’ve learned to deal with it. They especially value proven solutions that they have used in the past, or are recommended by someone who has a high sentiment value for them. Finding new solutions require effort, which is not always welcome when the solution is being forced on them. Conversations that are easy to answer without incurring a demand are easiest to have (e.g. small talk), as they convey the all-important positive sentiment that is the primary purpose of communication in 90S. It doesn’t matter if there is no actual data or insight conveyed; that is a tertiary concern after showing face-to-face agreeableness and affirmation.

90S does not suit the needs of neurodivergent people with strong special interests or other high-intensity/high-bandwidth conversational styles. Likewise, 90S is a poor fit for communicators who feel the need to prioritize efficient data communication, the socratic method, or collaborative critical thinking. These conversations require synthesizing new thoughts rather than responses. That said, 90S is still useful to use as a communication strategy for introducing ideas to a general audience. It’s helpful to think of it as a adaptation of one’s natural way of thinking/conversing in non-90S context. As mentioned above, it’s good for everyone! Even if the general audience does have peers that have non-90S cognitive architectures, they all understand it and appreciation the affirmation/positivity so long as the additionally expected rigor in thinking is available.

Being positive, agreeable, and actively affirming of the others is nice, and being nice usually doesn’t hurt. You can still establish your boundaries and express your opinions; you just need to do it in a way that doesn’t make the other feel diminished. The best way to do that is to show you’re listening and hearing what they’re saying. You can offer suggestions, opportunities to work on something, volunteer help, and so forth to show that you’re willing to engage beyond the surface agreeability of 90S, but this should never be demanded. Likewise, with high-intensity communication, 90S is the framework through which you can test whether the other party is amenable to it. There are multiple strategies for doing this without making them feel pressured or challenged.

Extension to Power Hierarchy

raw unprocessed text excerpted from The History of the Cat thread June 12 2026

I had a semi-bad dream where I was at a workplace with a boss that had brought me in for a special project blowing up at me after inviting me into his family business. I realized that the patterns in this were something that took me until today to really process, explaining the majority of not all sour work experiences.

quick brain dump

prioritization on competence and mission over social status, not being sensitive to social hierarchy or expectations, and the expectation that the good will comes from doing good work and speaking one’s mind to come to consensus is how I see it.

A model is that many people in an organization with an authority structure are expected to perform deference to people higher in the chain above all, and work exactly to their specifications unless directly asked to do something original.

I think this is “rule zero” when entering any new workplace situation

I think there is an acting aspect to be able to perform submission to acts of dominance from titled hierarchical authority, as it is not a sign of expertise and experience, but seen as acknowledgment of their status first. The assumption others are expected to make is to assume expertise and experience. the model to present to asperger’s profile who are capable of recognizing and generating the pattern behavior already, but did not understand how social conditioning in human pack behavior is the primary signal in a workplace above doing the work

Augment it with the nature of the human pack animal:

• dominant humans expect to be treated with deference according to their title as they worked to get there. They have influence within the organization to affect anyone under their hierarchy, according to their individual ethics, morality, and sense of entitlement. As a group, they set the cultural standard that everyone operates under
• lower dominant humans want security and to avoid conflict. They defer to higher title humans and their culture.
• Humans with the same title level or expectation of equal social status, regardless of title or dominance, have a culture of peer expectations for their group with its own rules. They are the result of the mix of humans, with its own social pecking order. Even low dominance humans want to not be the last chicken in the order and will act according to their ethics, morality, and individual sense of entitlement based on even

Deference before purpose or competence is an extension of my 90s understanding, which is peer level.

Sense of entitlement, ethics, morals of each individual create the dynamics of a given pod of humans.

Leadership can be defined as influence over the culture of competence, ethics, and morals as a group with stated purpose, appropriate to the title and social microclimates it affects down-hierarchy. It supplants individual senses of entitlement by presenting a stronger model with wider buy-in at all levels, out numbering the worst entitled people.

I lacked this essential understanding of social hierarchies and assumptions in the workplace.

The easy conclusion: avoid working for organizations that emphasize social deference and performed respect over competent work, seeking culture that pulls together instead as the social glue and individual respect, earned instead of entitled.

This is the corpo version of all the animals are friends.

The insight: If I want to lead something that others will join, I need to acknowledge the innate sensory dominance to social hierarchy signaling. Neurotypically-dominated spaces expect it and are looking for / sending dominance displays as critical signals for structuring hierarchical effort. People who choose to be in such places use these signals for initial orientation and see them as handholds for successful belonging.

This also suggests that for me to be accepted, I need to have credentials and titles to be taken seriously in the spaces that have aligned interests.

I an inherently offputting without having this awareness in majority neurotypical environments. I don’t adhere to other people’s annotated social playbooks and therefore don’t meet their expectations and that is somehow my fault

Anyway, the big takeaway is to engineer neurotypical handholds into my organization building. They have to be big and friendly, easy to grasp, signaling acceptance and belonging when you follow the rules.

The positive rules, culture, ethics, morals are the macroclimate that is the role of my leadership here.

The hope is that in time, the macroenvironment deprograms deference over purpose / competence. Corpo animals becoming peers with a healthy separation of responsibilities that pull together. Loyalty transfers to the good they are able to do together, not entitled individuals in an upper hierarchy.

I likely will be unable to find people who think like this. If I do, it will be a rare discovery. So,I have to act within the neurotypical human pack animal behaviors as a default measure. It’s like wearing practical outer layers when going out into volatile weather.

recap: my big workplace fail was not recognizing that deference to the hierarchy is the primary organizing principle, not the work itself. That is also important but it is carried by deference. Acts of domination are the corrective actions when deference is not performed to the titled authority’s liking by a lower titled entity.

Another takeaway: If I do work for someone, I need to present as equal and credentialed from the get-go and be clear about my priority on the work constantly without disrupting social hierarchy.

I did this to some extent, but the mismatched priority on the quality of work over social hierarchy blinded me to many aspects of the organization.

I don’t like it though. Will have to sit with it.

This might also be why people don’t want to join my projects, other than the missing friendly handholds. The way I communicate insight into competency without performing deference to authority feels dangerous and the instinct is to get away to a safe distance. I perform authority without the overt signal of title granting it to me.

References

• The 06/06/2025 GHDR Report Learning to Talk like a Human describe the genesis of the term “90S”.
• The 07/07/2025 GHDR Report Affirming Communication describes how 90S