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Fascinating that Behrens reward game showed that humans were able to mentally model volatility at the level of an "ideal learner". But in the variation of the g

Fascinating that Behrens reward game showed that humans were able to mentally model volatility at the level of an "ideal learner". But in the variation of the game where there was punishment instead of reward, non-anxious people still performed as "ideal learners" whereas anxious people's predictions became totally out of whack. In other words, the overly anxious mind temporarily lost its capacity to correctly formulate heuristics, which can lead to all kinds of mental chaos. Personally, I remember that I was once in a job interview where I had to code on a whiteboard. I was so overwhelmed with anxiety that I was temporary incapable of completing simple coding tasks. In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid.

emerged 8y ago
I can remember interviewing at Google on a whiteboard, with an employee who was: disinterested, overly specific, and antagonistic. Left that building wondering which was less healthy: my anxiety or their culture.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Was that the culture or part of the test?
  - yayana 8y ago
    It wasn't entirely clear to me if it was part of their culture to be overly dismissive of the applicants perspective and expectations in working somewhere or to intentionally test your reaction to contrived behavior.. But assuming behavior was contrived tests, why would you want to work for an employer that is tuning on who to hire by making sure they can abuse them in certain ways? There's probably no sense in trying to fathom anything about why a company seems ugly when you can just move on.
  - pdpi 8y ago
    If that’s part of the test, then it’s definitely the culture.
bitshepherd 8y ago
This happened to me at Amazon the first time I visited HQ. The interviewer was standing about six feet away intently watching for every mark I made, which made me freeze up and start rambling about stars shining, or something equally nonsensical.
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  Could that have been the dreaded 'stress interview'?
BerislavLopac 8y ago
Yes -- I basically outright refuse to do any coding when someone is watching.
hnarn 8y ago
>In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid. You don't need to experience "extreme anxiety", or even have a diagnosis, to experience this effect. Most people that are just learning how to drive a car will at some point experience how acute stress causes you to fail even the most basic tasks, things you would never predict that you would fail doing before you actually do. When I was learning how to drive, I repeatedly forgot checking the rear view mirror before switching lanes (even though I knew this was extremely important), because I was so focused on manual gear shifting. I would switch to the wrong gear or forget turning the turn indicator off, because my stressed mind would filter out the noise of the indicator blinking. Some even believe that the "experience of driving" in itself is detrimental, and that "each exposure elicits an acute stress response, and that repeated exposures may act as a chronic stressor".[1] [1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185517 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- iliketosleep 8y ago
  I failed my first driving test for similar reasons! In fact, driving is the elephant in the room when it comes to common stressful activities. Even if you follow the rules, not everyone else will and you always need to be ready. In addition, the stakes are high... Lifetime odds of dying in a car crash are 1/102 (source: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...)
- slfnflctd 8y ago
  > each exposure elicits an acute stress response I experienced this quite viscerally in my last job, where I had roughly a 40 minute commute in heavy traffic each way. On the surface, it sounds like nothing, but I feared for my safety every time and it worsened with each passing month. There were several reasons I left the job, but this was at least 30% of it and I can tell you it significantly improved my mental health. For a while I had anxiety every time I had to drive, and it started well before I ever got in the car. A couple years later, I was able to handle several very long road trips and even did a stint as a rideshare driver with almost no issues-- the anxiety is pretty much gone now, it was nearly all due to that commute.
icantdrive55 8y ago
I think this is very common. In kindergarten, twice a month we needed to put the correct wooden date placard on the front wall. They would hand me the card, and I would walk up to that board, and just freeze. They kids would be yelling, "over there, up one." I would go to all 31 spots until I heard, "You did it!" The kids would clap. (Kids were nice. Muss Palmer not so nice.) I once worked at Rainbow Records. At the end of my first night, I had to call headquarters, and leave a total of the day's sales on an answering machine. Since it was my first night, my co-worker was watching me. I really liked the guy too. He was freshly from a failed signed band. Well when I noticed him watching me, I just couldn't talk. He seemed to know what was wrong, and completed the task. He didn't say anything other then, "Let's go drinking?" I got over freezing when people were watching me, but I did bust a mental gasket in graduate school. I've never been quite the same since. I had a panic attack, and then turned into generalized anxiety. I used busted mental gasket, because the Psychiatrist community didn't have a clue what happened to me, or offered real treatment. I've been on two very addictive drugs for years, and dreading when my doctor retires. I've tried, at least ten different drugs, and the non-addictive ones did nothing, but riddle my body with side effects. I did try to go back to school, but my anxiety prevented it. It's too bad, even after thirty years, Psychiatry is an absolute joke, other than a great money maker for the doctor. (To those whom can't afford a Psychiatrist, or Therapy sessions; you just might be better off in the long run? I guess you need to go through it yourself though? They do have some old studies that claim that doing nothing works the same as the Psychology/Psychiatry expensive train ride. Of course, the studies were not done correctly, comming from the $350 doctor.)
kuerbel 8y ago
It's the reason for procrastination as well. Well, it's one reason, there are some more but anxiety is a common one. It's definitely my reason. I'm so afraid of failing I can't start working on a task until I'm more afraid of disappointing people completely instead of just partly. In my case it's also amplified by ADD and rejection sensitive dysphoria. It doesn't matter how much I achieve (e.g. I have, converted from German to US grades, a 3.7 GPA), or what I do, it won't go away. So I just live with it.
PakG1 8y ago
Hah. First experienced this as a kid when helping out at my mom's jewellery shop for the first time. Someone bought something and I had to calculate how much cash to give them. I don't know why I wasn't using a cash register, can't recall. Anyway, I'm really good at math, yeah? One of the best in my grade, yeah? Then why couldn't I calculate how much money I needed to give the guy? I did this kind of subtraction problem in my head all the time. But I froze. I felt so stupid at the time. :) STOP STARING AT ME, I'LL GIVE YOUR MONEY, JUST WAIT A SECOND!!!! :) Funny thing is that he probably wasn't judging me at all, it was all just in my head.
nxc18 8y ago
Had similar experiences when trying to code in front of a boy I liked... I was a bumbling idiot. Similar thing driving with a guy I liked in the car - regular near crashes including spending some time in the wrong lane (admittedly in an ambiguous situation Tesla might have fucked up, too). He must have been surprised by my sudden jump in intelligence when he got a girlfriend...
gaius 8y ago
In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid. In a stressful situation your brain disengages the frontal cortex and falls back to an instinctual mode of operation. This mode is generally unaware of the modern world. In my own field of expertise sometimes divers with plenty of gas in their cylinder will tear their regulator out of their mouth. What’s happening? They are having difficulty breathing normally, panicked and the hind brain has said “there’s something in my mouth, take it out!”. Similarly pilots who fly aircraft into the ground, they have panicked and the hind brain has said “get to low ground ASAP”. And after the fact everyone wonders “what we’re they thinking?” But the answer is, they weren’t thinking at all, they couldn’t.
pasquinelli 8y ago
Oh man, i had two similar interview experiences where i struggled even to type.

emerged 8y ago

I can remember interviewing at Google on a whiteboard, with an employee who was: disinterested, overly specific, and antagonistic. Left that building wondering which was less healthy: my anxiety or their culture.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Was that the culture or part of the test?
- yayana 8y ago
  It wasn't entirely clear to me if it was part of their culture to be overly dismissive of the applicants perspective and expectations in working somewhere or to intentionally test your reaction to contrived behavior.. But assuming behavior was contrived tests, why would you want to work for an employer that is tuning on who to hire by making sure they can abuse them in certain ways? There's probably no sense in trying to fathom anything about why a company seems ugly when you can just move on.
- pdpi 8y ago
  If that’s part of the test, then it’s definitely the culture.

bitshepherd 8y ago

This happened to me at Amazon the first time I visited HQ. The interviewer was standing about six feet away intently watching for every mark I made, which made me freeze up and start rambling about stars shining, or something equally nonsensical.

MaxBarraclough 8y ago
Could that have been the dreaded 'stress interview'?

BerislavLopac 8y ago

Yes -- I basically outright refuse to do any coding when someone is watching.

hnarn 8y ago

>In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid. You don't need to experience "extreme anxiety", or even have a diagnosis, to experience this effect. Most people that are just learning how to drive a car will at some point experience how acute stress causes you to fail even the most basic tasks, things you would never predict that you would fail doing before you actually do. When I was learning how to drive, I repeatedly forgot checking the rear view mirror before switching lanes (even though I knew this was extremely important), because I was so focused on manual gear shifting. I would switch to the wrong gear or forget turning the turn indicator off, because my stressed mind would filter out the noise of the indicator blinking. Some even believe that the "experience of driving" in itself is detrimental, and that "each exposure elicits an acute stress response, and that repeated exposures may act as a chronic stressor".[1] [1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185517 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

iliketosleep 8y ago
I failed my first driving test for similar reasons! In fact, driving is the elephant in the room when it comes to common stressful activities. Even if you follow the rules, not everyone else will and you always need to be ready. In addition, the stakes are high... Lifetime odds of dying in a car crash are 1/102 (source: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...)
slfnflctd 8y ago
> each exposure elicits an acute stress response I experienced this quite viscerally in my last job, where I had roughly a 40 minute commute in heavy traffic each way. On the surface, it sounds like nothing, but I feared for my safety every time and it worsened with each passing month. There were several reasons I left the job, but this was at least 30% of it and I can tell you it significantly improved my mental health. For a while I had anxiety every time I had to drive, and it started well before I ever got in the car. A couple years later, I was able to handle several very long road trips and even did a stint as a rideshare driver with almost no issues-- the anxiety is pretty much gone now, it was nearly all due to that commute.

icantdrive55 8y ago

I think this is very common. In kindergarten, twice a month we needed to put the correct wooden date placard on the front wall. They would hand me the card, and I would walk up to that board, and just freeze. They kids would be yelling, "over there, up one." I would go to all 31 spots until I heard, "You did it!" The kids would clap. (Kids were nice. Muss Palmer not so nice.) I once worked at Rainbow Records. At the end of my first night, I had to call headquarters, and leave a total of the day's sales on an answering machine. Since it was my first night, my co-worker was watching me. I really liked the guy too. He was freshly from a failed signed band. Well when I noticed him watching me, I just couldn't talk. He seemed to know what was wrong, and completed the task. He didn't say anything other then, "Let's go drinking?" I got over freezing when people were watching me, but I did bust a mental gasket in graduate school. I've never been quite the same since. I had a panic attack, and then turned into generalized anxiety. I used busted mental gasket, because the Psychiatrist community didn't have a clue what happened to me, or offered real treatment. I've been on two very addictive drugs for years, and dreading when my doctor retires. I've tried, at least ten different drugs, and the non-addictive ones did nothing, but riddle my body with side effects. I did try to go back to school, but my anxiety prevented it. It's too bad, even after thirty years, Psychiatry is an absolute joke, other than a great money maker for the doctor. (To those whom can't afford a Psychiatrist, or Therapy sessions; you just might be better off in the long run? I guess you need to go through it yourself though? They do have some old studies that claim that doing nothing works the same as the Psychology/Psychiatry expensive train ride. Of course, the studies were not done correctly, comming from the $350 doctor.)

kuerbel 8y ago

It's the reason for procrastination as well. Well, it's one reason, there are some more but anxiety is a common one. It's definitely my reason. I'm so afraid of failing I can't start working on a task until I'm more afraid of disappointing people completely instead of just partly. In my case it's also amplified by ADD and rejection sensitive dysphoria. It doesn't matter how much I achieve (e.g. I have, converted from German to US grades, a 3.7 GPA), or what I do, it won't go away. So I just live with it.

PakG1 8y ago

Hah. First experienced this as a kid when helping out at my mom's jewellery shop for the first time. Someone bought something and I had to calculate how much cash to give them. I don't know why I wasn't using a cash register, can't recall. Anyway, I'm really good at math, yeah? One of the best in my grade, yeah? Then why couldn't I calculate how much money I needed to give the guy? I did this kind of subtraction problem in my head all the time. But I froze. I felt so stupid at the time. :) STOP STARING AT ME, I'LL GIVE YOUR MONEY, JUST WAIT A SECOND!!!! :) Funny thing is that he probably wasn't judging me at all, it was all just in my head.

nxc18 8y ago

Had similar experiences when trying to code in front of a boy I liked... I was a bumbling idiot. Similar thing driving with a guy I liked in the car - regular near crashes including spending some time in the wrong lane (admittedly in an ambiguous situation Tesla might have fucked up, too). He must have been surprised by my sudden jump in intelligence when he got a girlfriend...

gaius 8y ago

In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid. In a stressful situation your brain disengages the frontal cortex and falls back to an instinctual mode of operation. This mode is generally unaware of the modern world. In my own field of expertise sometimes divers with plenty of gas in their cylinder will tear their regulator out of their mouth. What’s happening? They are having difficulty breathing normally, panicked and the hind brain has said “there’s something in my mouth, take it out!”. Similarly pilots who fly aircraft into the ground, they have panicked and the hind brain has said “get to low ground ASAP”. And after the fact everyone wonders “what we’re they thinking?” But the answer is, they weren’t thinking at all, they couldn’t.

pasquinelli 8y ago

Oh man, i had two similar interview experiences where i struggled even to type.