4 ms·

What findings! Now go study why proving the obvious gives meaning to one's life.

Jtsummers 11y ago
"Positive thinking", in various forms, is standard practice for therapy with depression and anxiety (both generally highly correlated with negative thoughts and fantasies; very pessimistic, worst case sort of thinking). The near-term benefits of it are incredibly useful, it can get people out of their current, negative, mental situations. But identifying long-term problems with it is important. It may seem obvious to some, but if there's not a strong link between the two measured over a population, you can't know how bad it may or may not be. It could be that a large percentage ends up slipping back into depression after the original therapy efforts in which case, yeah, the method has problems or needs better follow-up. Or it could be that some (small) percentage gets trapped in the fantasies and fails to actualize them. It's still important to find methods to help them, but the scale of the problem has to be measured to understand what's happening and why.
- sebringj 11y ago
  I wonder if there is a similarity in this case: Being in a state of hunger makes one feel hungry and long for food, perhaps even dream of it while sleeping. A temporary therapy would be to have the person imagine they are full, pressing in their stomach. Would that work temporarily? Maybe. But the underlying problem is still there. I don't know.
klodolph 11y ago
A hundred years ago it was "obvious" that blacks were inherently less intelligent and more closely related to monkeys. Armchair scientists, who make claims but don't study them, are bad influences on the rest of the world.
- sebringj 11y ago
  There are analogies but that one clearly went off course. Sarcasm sure invites responses. Here's an analogy about the actual content: Athletic tape while initially effective has been shown among a large population to eventually lead to arthritic states. That would make sense except that persons using athletic tape on their knees for example, already need it because they are tending to have soreness and stiffness (leading toward an arthritic condition already). Doesn't that sound familiar?
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Because a lot of obvious stuff ends up being wrong, so you have to test all of it to find the true obvious from the fake obvious.
- sebringj 11y ago
  I was being sarcastic. The study is very flawed at its core very much like saying blowing your nose may be temporarily effective but has been shown to eventually lead to sinus infections as our statistical models show in our mind-numbing study. The participants in said activity are already susceptible to a negative outcome.
dang 11y ago
Please don't post snarky dismissals to HN, especially of new work. Substantive criticism is fine, of course, but snarky dismissals lower the quality of the discussion.
- sebringj 11y ago
  but what purpose I have bestowed upon thee. so funny i was in a bad mood today, usually get up voted for any comment so that's usually the indicator for me if i'm actually in a bad mood. hey that might be something to study. at least on stack i can remove it. oh well.
- sebringj 11y ago
  Here's a hypothesis: People that use positive reenforcement tend to need positive reenforcement to right themselves and are obviously more susceptible toward tipping over toward depression than individuals who are simply too balanced and happy to even consider it as part of their daily routine. The study is not obvious but rather obviously incorrect with a tainted initial state of subjects leaning toward long term depression. Therapy is a symptom of discontent. This is a case of intellectuals being outsmarted by their own process. I can't even joke on this forum. Marvin Minsky and Ray Kurzweil thought of humor as a higher form of intelligence so what gives?
coldtea 11y ago
There was nothing "obvious" about it. If anything the "common obvious wisdom" was the exact opposite: that you should "think positive". Besides, proving the obvious is part of science. It's not enough to see that something holds, you also need to prove it. You'd be surprised how hard proofs for "the obvious" in math can be, and even more surprise at how useful they can turn out to be.
- sebringj 11y ago
  This is a typical meta response defending the scientific framework rather than looking at the actual content. Sarcasm sometimes jars attention which was my intent. The study is doing more harm than good by reversing an effective therapy simply because it is assuming a negative correlation when the symptom (therapy) itself is indicative of the initial state of the individual tending to the more negative outcome which taints the study entirely.

"Positive thinking", in various forms, is standard practice for therapy with depression and anxiety (both generally highly correlated with negative thoughts and fantasies; very pessimistic, worst case sort of thinking). The near-term benefits of it are incredibly useful, it can get people out of their current, negative, mental situations. But identifying long-term problems with it is important. It may seem obvious to some, but if there's not a strong link between the two measured over a population, you can't know how bad it may or may not be. It could be that a large percentage ends up slipping back into depression after the original therapy efforts in which case, yeah, the method has problems or needs better follow-up. Or it could be that some (small) percentage gets trapped in the fantasies and fails to actualize them. It's still important to find methods to help them, but the scale of the problem has to be measured to understand what's happening and why.

sebringj 11y ago
I wonder if there is a similarity in this case: Being in a state of hunger makes one feel hungry and long for food, perhaps even dream of it while sleeping. A temporary therapy would be to have the person imagine they are full, pressing in their stomach. Would that work temporarily? Maybe. But the underlying problem is still there. I don't know.

klodolph 11y ago

A hundred years ago it was "obvious" that blacks were inherently less intelligent and more closely related to monkeys. Armchair scientists, who make claims but don't study them, are bad influences on the rest of the world.

sebringj 11y ago
There are analogies but that one clearly went off course. Sarcasm sure invites responses. Here's an analogy about the actual content: Athletic tape while initially effective has been shown among a large population to eventually lead to arthritic states. That would make sense except that persons using athletic tape on their knees for example, already need it because they are tending to have soreness and stiffness (leading toward an arthritic condition already). Doesn't that sound familiar?

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

Because a lot of obvious stuff ends up being wrong, so you have to test all of it to find the true obvious from the fake obvious.

sebringj 11y ago
I was being sarcastic. The study is very flawed at its core very much like saying blowing your nose may be temporarily effective but has been shown to eventually lead to sinus infections as our statistical models show in our mind-numbing study. The participants in said activity are already susceptible to a negative outcome.

dang 11y ago

Please don't post snarky dismissals to HN, especially of new work. Substantive criticism is fine, of course, but snarky dismissals lower the quality of the discussion.

sebringj 11y ago
but what purpose I have bestowed upon thee. so funny i was in a bad mood today, usually get up voted for any comment so that's usually the indicator for me if i'm actually in a bad mood. hey that might be something to study. at least on stack i can remove it. oh well.
sebringj 11y ago
Here's a hypothesis: People that use positive reenforcement tend to need positive reenforcement to right themselves and are obviously more susceptible toward tipping over toward depression than individuals who are simply too balanced and happy to even consider it as part of their daily routine. The study is not obvious but rather obviously incorrect with a tainted initial state of subjects leaning toward long term depression. Therapy is a symptom of discontent. This is a case of intellectuals being outsmarted by their own process. I can't even joke on this forum. Marvin Minsky and Ray Kurzweil thought of humor as a higher form of intelligence so what gives?

coldtea 11y ago

There was nothing "obvious" about it. If anything the "common obvious wisdom" was the exact opposite: that you should "think positive". Besides, proving the obvious is part of science. It's not enough to see that something holds, you also need to prove it. You'd be surprised how hard proofs for "the obvious" in math can be, and even more surprise at how useful they can turn out to be.

sebringj 11y ago
This is a typical meta response defending the scientific framework rather than looking at the actual content. Sarcasm sometimes jars attention which was my intent. The study is doing more harm than good by reversing an effective therapy simply because it is assuming a negative correlation when the symptom (therapy) itself is indicative of the initial state of the individual tending to the more negative outcome which taints the study entirely.