4 ms·

Jesus, this sounds so complicated. Mental models of self-behavior are effective ways to change those behaviors, but it sounds like these guys are piling way too

by nefitty 11y ago

Jesus, this sounds so complicated. Mental models of self-behavior are effective ways to change those behaviors, but it sounds like these guys are piling way too much on at once. My most effective behavior change models have always been simple and almost singular. The one I'm exploring now is "Dopamine in your brain correlates with motivation." Others have been "Plan ahead all at once so you aren't tempted to procrastinate", "Measure it and visualize it to drive yourself forward", etc. I've effectively changed my behavior in massive ways by playing with simple models of myself. Constantly thinking of all those cognitive biases and mental errors seems like it would exhaust me to the point of paralysis.

rl3 11y ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. Isn't it irrational to expend so much mental energy and time on trying to be "rational" in the first place? Seems counterproductive to me.
- Smaug123 11y ago
  As someone once said to me when I proposed running a diet-related experiment on myself, "You can't live your life in a research lab!" To which the answer is, of course, "Maybe not, but I can certainly spend two weeks."
chipsy 11y ago
I agree with the sentiment. I don't think there's a solution in focusing your rumination inwards - in my case it's a good way to feel more anxious. But I do have a bit of learned rationality in me, in the form of "I know I will commit error x in the future, therefore..." So rather than try to become a master of self-control, I make moves to arrange the world around me so that there are safeguards, the error is insubstantial, and I end up on the happy path automatically 90% of the time. Similarly, I focus personal development on going "from strength to strength" rather than on shoring up weak areas. If I start from the models I know and keep extending them out more and more, I will get to the things I was overlooking, eventually. One thing I am doing now is using Streak Club [0] to develop a single habit over a long period of time, that I would ordinarily excuse myself from. [0] https://streak.club/ https://streak.club/
- nefitty 11y ago
  Awesome. I've managed to get a consistent meditation habit built using streaks. My longest chain was a little over 100 days straight!
natural219 11y ago
I suspect at a certain level of (intelligence + arrogance), the more sophisticated models one requires to even be able to buy in to a system or philosophy that engages one in growthful introspection. For most people, traditional self-help methods, time with friends & family, or religious prescriptions work wonders. For a certain type of mind, though, I suspect it helps to have a more intricate (more scientific?) springboard from which to explore the intricacies of yourself and how to arrange the pieces together in a positive, productive way.
calibraxis 11y ago
I think "value neutral" is an important phrase. Getting many people to spend time in bureaucracies, creating uninspiring things, requires a lot of psychological infrastructure to tolerate the psychological damage over long periods of time.
falcolas 11y ago
To continue the metaphor from the article, once you have steered the elephant in the right direction, it won't take a lot of input to keep it on course, just the occasional nudge. You don't have to analyze every choice, but rather do a periodic (say, daily) check-in on the sum of your choices and make any necessary course corrections.
kaj_sotala 11y ago
As someone who's been into a CFAR workshop, I think their problem is the opposite, actually. The article's description makes it sound complicated, but the fact is that a lot of the techniques are pretty simple when it comes down to it. And that's the problem: they're so simple that it's hard to get people to realize how useful they are. Most people will hear a description, shrug, go "makes sense I guess", and then forget all about it. Take TAPs (Trigger-Action Plans) that are mentioned in the article. They're basically pretty much what it sounds like: plans of the form "when [trigger], then [action]". "When I see stairs, I'll take them (rather than using the elevator)". Not something that'd sound very revolutionary. But if you dig into the psychological literature, when people are instructed to set goals and use TAPs (the psych literature calls them "implementation intentions") to plan out how exactly they'll achieve those goals, people get better success rates than people who don't. (if you want a reference, google e.g. [1]) There's a bunch stuff about what makes for a good TAP and how you should use them to get the best results, but even if you include all of that, it's still not very complicated. The guidelines are stuff like "make your trigger a concrete specific thing such as 'when I see the stairs', not vague ones such as 'before dinner'". Not rocket surgery. So here we have a simple, straightforward technique that has research support behind it - and getting people to use it is hard. It just doesn't sound exciting enough, or obviously useful enough. Heck, I too often just forget that I could use TAPs for something. Most of their techniques are kinda like this. Simple, useful, and not terribly exciting by themselves. So - I don't know if this is their explicit motivation for having a three-day workshop, but I think that this is a big part of the reason why the format works - instead of trying to make the individual techniques exciting, they instead throw everything and the kitchen sink at you within a short time period. Rather than relying on any single one of them making you go "wow", they rely on the sheer amount of them to make you go "wow" - and then, hopefully, actually adopt at least some of them. As well as to internalize the mode of thought that lets you come up with your own. It seems to work okay. [1] Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta‐analysis of effects and processes. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, 69-119.

by nefitty 11y ago

rl3 11y ago

I think you hit the nail on the head. Isn't it irrational to expend so much mental energy and time on trying to be "rational" in the first place? Seems counterproductive to me.

Smaug123 11y ago
As someone once said to me when I proposed running a diet-related experiment on myself, "You can't live your life in a research lab!" To which the answer is, of course, "Maybe not, but I can certainly spend two weeks."

chipsy 11y ago

I agree with the sentiment. I don't think there's a solution in focusing your rumination inwards - in my case it's a good way to feel more anxious. But I do have a bit of learned rationality in me, in the form of "I know I will commit error x in the future, therefore..." So rather than try to become a master of self-control, I make moves to arrange the world around me so that there are safeguards, the error is insubstantial, and I end up on the happy path automatically 90% of the time. Similarly, I focus personal development on going "from strength to strength" rather than on shoring up weak areas. If I start from the models I know and keep extending them out more and more, I will get to the things I was overlooking, eventually. One thing I am doing now is using Streak Club [0] to develop a single habit over a long period of time, that I would ordinarily excuse myself from. [0] https://streak.club/ https://streak.club/

nefitty 11y ago
Awesome. I've managed to get a consistent meditation habit built using streaks. My longest chain was a little over 100 days straight!

natural219 11y ago

I suspect at a certain level of (intelligence + arrogance), the more sophisticated models one requires to even be able to buy in to a system or philosophy that engages one in growthful introspection. For most people, traditional self-help methods, time with friends & family, or religious prescriptions work wonders. For a certain type of mind, though, I suspect it helps to have a more intricate (more scientific?) springboard from which to explore the intricacies of yourself and how to arrange the pieces together in a positive, productive way.

calibraxis 11y ago

I think "value neutral" is an important phrase. Getting many people to spend time in bureaucracies, creating uninspiring things, requires a lot of psychological infrastructure to tolerate the psychological damage over long periods of time.

falcolas 11y ago

To continue the metaphor from the article, once you have steered the elephant in the right direction, it won't take a lot of input to keep it on course, just the occasional nudge. You don't have to analyze every choice, but rather do a periodic (say, daily) check-in on the sum of your choices and make any necessary course corrections.

kaj_sotala 11y ago

As someone who's been into a CFAR workshop, I think their problem is the opposite, actually. The article's description makes it sound complicated, but the fact is that a lot of the techniques are pretty simple when it comes down to it. And that's the problem: they're so simple that it's hard to get people to realize how useful they are. Most people will hear a description, shrug, go "makes sense I guess", and then forget all about it. Take TAPs (Trigger-Action Plans) that are mentioned in the article. They're basically pretty much what it sounds like: plans of the form "when [trigger], then [action]". "When I see stairs, I'll take them (rather than using the elevator)". Not something that'd sound very revolutionary. But if you dig into the psychological literature, when people are instructed to set goals and use TAPs (the psych literature calls them "implementation intentions") to plan out how exactly they'll achieve those goals, people get better success rates than people who don't. (if you want a reference, google e.g. [1]) There's a bunch stuff about what makes for a good TAP and how you should use them to get the best results, but even if you include all of that, it's still not very complicated. The guidelines are stuff like "make your trigger a concrete specific thing such as 'when I see the stairs', not vague ones such as 'before dinner'". Not rocket surgery. So here we have a simple, straightforward technique that has research support behind it - and getting people to use it is hard. It just doesn't sound exciting enough, or obviously useful enough. Heck, I too often just forget that I could use TAPs for something. Most of their techniques are kinda like this. Simple, useful, and not terribly exciting by themselves. So - I don't know if this is their explicit motivation for having a three-day workshop, but I think that this is a big part of the reason why the format works - instead of trying to make the individual techniques exciting, they instead throw everything and the kitchen sink at you within a short time period. Rather than relying on any single one of them making you go "wow", they rely on the sheer amount of them to make you go "wow" - and then, hopefully, actually adopt at least some of them. As well as to internalize the mode of thought that lets you come up with your own. It seems to work okay. [1] Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta‐analysis of effects and processes. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, 69-119.