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Need More Self-Control? Try a Simple Ritual
- windows_tips 8y agoWhy is this scientific publication using such magical language?
- bdcravens 8y agoWhat magical language are you opposed to? The term "ritual" is pretty well defined: "Rituals are series of steps we take while attaching some kind of symbolic meaning." In the article, they link to multiple papers they've written on the topic of rituals, as well as quantify their results in the experiment they performed: "About 58% of the participants in our ritual condition chose the carrot over the chocolate, as compared to only about 35% of those in the control condition and 46% of those in the random-gestures condition." As the article is in the magazine's "Behavior & Society" section the science in the article seems cogent.
- windows_tips 8y agoI never said I was opposed. Both "ritual" and "vexing" are magical language.
- ksenzee 8y agoSorry, in what way are "ritual" and "vexing" magical language? They are both English words in relatively wide use.
- windows_tips 8y agoIn what way are they not? Magical language can be in very wide use. I think one of the top grossing authors has written an entire series about magic.
- bdcravens 8y agoFrom the article: "Many of our most vexing problems, from overeating to not saving enough for retirement to not working out enough have something in common: lack of self-control." The definition of the word: "make (someone) feel annoyed, frustrated, or worried, especially with trivial matters" Still not seeing the magical connotation; seems pretty well grounded in human behavior, which is topical for Scientific American.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago"I think one of the top grossing authors has written an entire series about magic." Wait.... what? Are you talking about Harry Potter? It's hard to tell if you started as serious but are now becoming a parody troll account.
- gms7777 8y ago'Ritual' can be used in religious or magical contexts, but is not inherently magical and is routinely used in other contexts. I don't actually know of any magical connotations for 'vexing', except that it sounds somewhat like 'hexing'.
- windows_tips 8y agoIt's routinely used in some magical contexts. Vexing things are mysterious, which is often an object of magical displays.
- svat 8y ago"vexing" is defined as "annoying, worrying, or causing problems" [1]. I have encountered the word hundreds of times, but until your comment I wasn't aware that it was used in a magical context too. If you look up a linguistics corpus like the Corpus of Contemporary American English [2] or the British National Corpus [3] -- visit those sites, search for "vexing", and click on "VEXING" again -- you'll see a representative set of usages of the word "in the wild", and none of them appear to have anything to do with magic. There's also something in C++ called the "most vexing parse" [4], which too doesn't seem to have anything to do with magic. (By the way, you may like to try this exercise with "ritual" too, to see how the word is used in practice.) [1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/vexing https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/vexin... [2]: https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ [3]: https://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/ https://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/ [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_vexing_parse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_vexing_parse
- windows_tips 8y agoIf you search the Authorized King James Version of the Bible you will find this[0] passage: >And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. [0] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+15%3A22&version=AKJV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+15%3A22... It is deep in the literature that vexation is a domain of devils.
- phyzome 8y agoIs "grevious" in the domain of devils, too? Begone, you.
- windows_tips 8y agoI'm not sure, but from this context, it would seem that possibly, if "vexing" is also in the domain of others as well (seems so). >Begone, you. Not very welcoming around here?
- JTxt 8y agoRituals can come before scientific knowledge, like cleaning.
- windows_tips 8y agoAnything can come before scientific knowledge.
- phyzome 8y ago"Ritual" is a word with a variety of connotations. Note that a marriage ceremony is a ritual. That's an everyday use of the word that I don't think you would have objected to or called magical. Then there's the academic definition, covered elsewhere in this thread.
- windows_tips 8y agoMany people think marriage ceremonies are magical, I think.
- danharaj 8y agoBrushing your teeth in the morning is a ritual. Shaking hands with everyone before starting a meeting is a ritual. Tucking your kid into bed is a ritual.
- windows_tips 8y ago>Brushing your teeth in the morning is a ritual. Repeated event, but presumably done for your benefit. >Shaking hands with everyone before starting a meeting is a ritual. Not usually done in most corporate meetings I've been to. >Tucking your kid into bed is a ritual. I suppose it could be, but I guess I'm not sure what you mean by 'ritual' anymore.
- dang 8y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- windows_tips 8y agoI don't get why you think comments that generate conversation are "unsubstantive".
- dang 8y agoOn HN the idea is to value quality above quantity.
- windows_tips 8y agoOn the whole, this account seems to have provided that to HN, according to its own karma metric.
- 0wl3x 8y agoI've found that behavior that isn't quite a ritual, but unique to that activity can be highly motivating and beneficial to focus as well. Whenever I want to get deeply focused on code writing, I'll start speaking to myself under my breath. A bit like the intention behind vocalizing your thoughts during a coding interview, it's been very helpful for keeping my mind on track.
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- everdev 8y agoTLDR; They encouraged people to make random gestures or perform meaningless tasks before eating and they found a ~10% reduction in calories (self-reported) and ~20% difference in people choosing vegetables over cake. I wonder if breathing and presencing would have the same effect or stronger. I think our initial urge for sugar / instant gratification comes from our monkey brain and is overpowering but brief. Slowing down allows our rational brain to catch up and make a better long term decision. This probably applies to more in life than just eating.
- rbinv 8y agoHere it is: "First, cut your food into pieces before you eat it. Second, rearrange the pieces so that they are perfectly symmetric on your plate. Finally, press your eating utensil against the top of your food three times."
- tbirrell 8y agoNo... That's not really the point of the article. The secret sauce is that /that/ ritual, its /any/ ritual. The premise is that by doing the ritual, you are more liking to do the "correct" thing. Probably (and this is my speculation here) because thus far the "correct" thing was tied to the ritual, and as humans, we like the sense of completion, so once we start the "random" part of the ritual, we want to finish the process, which involves doing the thing.
- rbinv 8y agoYou're right.
- kaycebasques 8y agoIn a Philosophize This! podcast on Kant I learned that he was extremely consistent in his routines. Every day he would walk at the same time, eat at the same time, etc. Not exactly the same as rituals, but it finally got me to consider that perhaps consistent routines every day would help me essentially slip into other creative, productive habits via auto-pilot.
- agumonkey 8y agoIf you approach life as a physical system, regular rhythm is the most efficient way to save energy and avoid wearing. Predictable flow is probably very nice on your mind, body and ultimately everything else. And it seems biology tuned us to a lot of external rhythms too. Sun, seasons. I think using every period the best : day to move and work, night to sleep. It seems stupid but I think you end up leveraging a lot of builtins subsystems in you.
- kaycebasques 8y agoSeems like a reasonable hypothesis to me. Thanks for the perspective.
- citrablue 8y agoAs a counterpoint, biological systems grow stronger when stressed then allowed to recover. Routines are great when interspersed with periods of non-breaking stress. Growth is dependent on stress. I refer to a more general term of stress, not necessarily psychological. Although the latter can make you a stronger/more empathetic person; the danger is in not being able to let go of them for the restoration/growth period.
- agumonkey 8y agototally, and I recently learned biology has a name for it: hormesis. I use to borrow Taleb's coined antifragile term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis We all know that we need stress/efforts to stay in shape (the weak bones of astronauts being a nice example). And it's indeed baked in us. And by rhythm I didn't mean stress free. I meant having clear periods of a certain kind of stress (or the opposite). Basically, stress your system with all the subsystems ready for it, then allow them to rest in an appropriate context. As a young adult (remains of teen spirit I guess) I prefered to attack everything at once in parallel. But when things get too complex I realized the value of going depth rather than breadth first. It's related, you do one thing fully, then stop entirely, instead of constantly feeding small amount of stress and never large enough amount of rest.
- robotkdick 8y agoWhy aren't more scientific studies written like this one--with straightforward, simple, and clear language? It's a joy to read.
- jampekka 8y agoThis is not a scientific report of a study, but a popular piece based on multiple studies. In an academic article every material claim has to be supported by data or previous literature. The claims have to be well specified and the study must be (or at least should be) explained in enough detail that reader can understand more or less exactly what was actually done. This tends to make very annoying reading, but also makes it clear that the results very rarely are as straightforward, generalizable and strong as presented in a popular article. The main study report linked in the article seems to be so well paywalled that it is not available via my university's library nor sci-hub.
- addicted 8y agoAlso scientific studies tend to be heavy on jargon, and if they weren’t they would be significantly longer reads, and become extremely tedious for someone who is steeped in the discipline and therefore has the most reason to read the study.
- wccrawford 8y agoAre you reading the actual study? Because what's linked here isn't a study, it's an article about a study. In other words, it's written by a journalist, not a scientist that worked on the study.
- robotresearcher 8y agoNo, it’s a popular article by one of the study authors. Researchers can and do write in both modes sometimes.
- kerbalspacepro 8y ago
- Hnrobert42 8y agoI am skeptical of the conclusion because of the imprecise language. For example, concluding ritual may be more effective than stringent dieting. 1. What is the documented efficacy of dieting over the same limited time period? 2. Are dieting and ritual mutually exclusive? Is eating a carrot instead of chocolate necessarily a demonstration of will power? At least with the other studies, the subjects had a stated goal of weight loss. How many subjects participated? Were the trials run more than once? The scholarly articles are paywalled, so all we are left with is this article. And this article seems more fitting for a grocery store checkout line rag than for Scientific American.
- robotresearcher 8y agoIt’s a popular article, not a formal report. It contains links as references to the papers. SciAm never publishes formal scientific articles as far as I know. It is a popular magazine about science, not a primary source journal.
- Hnrobert42 8y agoAs noted, the papers are paywalled. My criticism is actually less about the language that the quality of the study. However, without reading the actually papers, I cannot be sure it is the study that is flawed.
- rossdavidh 8y agoMy first thought on reading this, was to revisit the idea of praying before eating. It would be hard to get an experiment on this past the review board, perhaps, but one wonders if praying before eating would work differently for atheist vs. religious dieters. Also, I note that even though the (intentionally senseless) ritual helped reduce calories eaten, the people who used it did not think it helped and said they were unlikely to continue it. If it was part of your religious belief, one assumes you would be more likely to think it was important to continue.
- athenot 8y agoFor me the praying before a meal instills not only a sense of gratitude (disclaimer: Catholic here) but also appreciation and respect of the food itself. Even if it's something bland or otherwise uninteresting, I try to appreciate it for what it is, and savor it as much as possible instead of gobbling it up as fast as possible. I think this would still be applicable outside of a religious context. You don't necessarily need to pray if that's not how your belief works, but you can still have this savoring appreciation of food, and codify that as a conscious moment where you briefly reflect on it before diving into it.
- Ntrails 8y ago> respect of the food itself why? It's fuel. I don't take a moment to respect the water I drink, or the bed that lets me sleep. Irrespective of belief it's not obvious why I'd want to try and be appreciative of food regardless of whether it's actually tasty
- athenot 8y ago> So, we reasoned, when we see ourselves engaging in a ritual, we code that behavior as a sign that we are people with self-control. And thanks to that self-control, we choose the apple (or carrot) over the chocolate and thus reduce our caloric intake. This is interesting. If I'm understanding the article, the path to applying self-control is to first start viewing ourselves as someone who has self-control. The ritual is merely a trigger to remind ourselves of the identity we've chosen, and then subconsciously we tend to line up our actions with how we view ourselves.
- StavrosK 8y agoOr maybe it just makes you more aware that you're about to eat something, and instead of mindlessly swallowing that snack you engage the decision-making part of the brain, which leads to actually making the eating a decision, rather than an impulse.
- addicted 8y agoThat seems to be part of it since the random gestures group also exhibited better self control than the control “no requirements” group. But the group with an established ritual exhibited even more self control indicating that having a fixed ritual adds something beyond what can be achieved through actions that are random.
- Erwin 8y agoSo in the words of Vonnegut, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
- shrimp_emoji 8y agoSomeone once said, "You can't think yourself into right action; you have to act your way into right thinking." Because that sounds good and makes some sense to me, I choose to consider it acquired wisdom that I can draw psychological sustenance from with loose regard to its veracity.
- Skunkleton 8y ago> In order to be in the study, you must do the three steps of this ritual each time you eat. So the study is selecting for people that have good self control already?
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- jamii 8y agoLet's look at the first experiment. http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Enacting%20Rituals%20to%20Improve%20Self-Control_a1680de9-d84b-44c6-8db0-01d05f77c2c3.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Enacting%20Ri... Voluntary enrollment, knowing in advance that they have to do this stupid ritual. ~10% dropped out, and another ~20% didn't fill out their food diaries properly. That's selecting for discipline. Relied on self-reported food diaries ie opening room for placebo effect and/or guilt-motivated lying. Only lasted 5 days. Pretty much every dietary intervention works for short periods of time. Relies on calorie-counting, which is wildly inaccurate. Finally: > Despite the effectiveness of rituals, participants tended to think the ritual was not very helpful and reported being unlikely to continue it. I think it's pretty plausible that rituals can have useful effects on behavior, but I don't think experiments like this tell us anything about it, especially once you add in the effects of publication bias etc. Comes back to http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.392.6447&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.392... > Null hypothesis testing of correlational predictions from weak substantive theories in soft psychology is subject to the influence of ten obfuscating factors whose effects are usually (1) sizeable, (2) opposed, (3) variable, and (4) unknown. The net epistemic effect of these ten obfuscating influences is that the usual research literature review is well-nigh uninterpretable.
- SpikeDad 8y agoAnd an unknown number of participants most likely self-reported incorrect information. People don't like admitting they didn't do something that was asked of them. Self-reported data is shaky data at best and basing scientific results on it makes the science shaky at best.
- bmer 8y ago> Relies on calorie-counting, which is wildly inaccurate. Some sources on this? (not that I doubt you, it's just that you probably have better references than a quick search might bring up) Also, if it's inaccurate, what's the alternative?
- jamii 8y ago
- esmi 8y agoMy ritual is checking hacker news. I practice it often.
- im3w1l 8y agoThose sound like rituals someone with OCD might perform. I wonder if the common thread is that they reduce anxiety in both healthy and unhealthy, and that this reduction leads to increased agency. Also it would be good to seem other groups replicate this.
- groth 8y agotldr; adding bureaucracy makes people give up on everything.........even eating
- thrifter 8y agoI believe mundane daily routines, when ritualized, can be a great way to get focused and in cognitive flow: https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/the-secret-ceremony-460009407c43 https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/the-secret-ceremony-46000940...