5 ms·

Don't be afraid, they're wrong.

TaupeRanger 4y ago
List a single shred of scientific evidence showing that kids who are exposed to stories with similar themes to traumatic events they experience in real life are more likely the have better outcomes. Be afraid to call someone wrong without more than just-so stories and anecdotes.
- ubercore 4y ago
  Do you have a source to claim the opposite?
  - TaupeRanger 4y ago
    Of course not. I'm simply saying that I'm very skeptical of the claim and would bet actual money that the opposite (or null result) was actually true.
    - tragictrash 4y ago
      You got too much time on your hands. Please stop wasting other people's.
- hervature 4y ago
  This is a form of McNamara's fallacy. In reality, the data you are looking for is impossible to obtain. In practice, causing traumatic events is obviously unethical. Then, even if you had a proper study, there would be so many confounding factors that basically any conclusion is worthless. For instance, listening to an e-book on the subway is obviously different than discussing your emotions and response to the book. From first principles, it seems rather intuitive that if you expose anyone to a story of a trauma and discuss possible coping mechanisms, then that person is better prepared to cope with that trauma. Of course, being exposed to the thought might be traumatic itself (a kid might come to the realization that their dog is actually going to die) but if they react so poorly to the thought, how would they have reacted to the actual event? Intuitively, much worse. I'm all for data driven decisions, but our shared human experience can be a tremendous guiding light for things that are difficult to quantify.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    Exactly. If you have an intuitive and common-sense take (exposure to stories with difficult themes can help kids cope with similar things in real life) and an unintuitive contrarian take (they don't, so let the kids get blindsided), the onus is on the contrarian to "list a single shred of scientific evidence." Sure, it would be great if everyone could offer "evidence" for every position, but that's obviously unrealistic and impractical.
    - TaupeRanger 4y ago
      It's not contrarian...there's simply no evidence either way, that's all I'm saying. For every anecdote you can come up with showing a kid doing well after hearing scary stories, I'll come up with another of a kid doing without without hearing them. That's it.
      - slowmovintarget 4y ago
        Except that's not it. We have a whole generation of adults that can't handle rejection, can't handle difficulty, need emotional support peacocks on planes... because they were taught (repeatedly told the story, a.k.a. narrative) that they were special and would always win if they felt good enough about themselves. In other words, we told stories that specifically set them up for disillusionment and disorder. Telling stories has been the way one generation prepares the next since the telling of stories began. Oral tradition, religious texts, myth, legend, fables, fairy tales... all of these had purposes beyond entertainment. Don't go in the woods by yourself, it's dangerous. Don't swim in that river, it's dangerous. Don't be mean to other people, because you don't want to live in that society. Don't lie, because people won't believe you when you need them to. We've always told these kinds of stories... until recently. The kids that did get these kinds of stories built the modern world. The kinds of kids that aren't getting these kinds of stories are the ones going on shooting sprees or rioting because they didn't get that raise or someone was mean to them on social media. We do have evidence, it just isn't organized into a formal longitudinal study for you. Here's the thing. It is possible for people to discuss an idea and even draw conclusions of efficacy without a longitudinal study.
- shiryel 4y ago
  I don't know how much scientific is the references on this article [1], but it's a good read about the topic [1] - http://web.archive.org/web/20190423155359/https://medium.com/the-polymath-project/the-drama-of-rules-what-storytelling-can-teach-us-about-human-nature-514eb3f90279 http://web.archive.org/web/20190423155359/https://medium.com...
- smaddox 4y ago
  I don't know if there are any controlled studies, but there's plenty of informal evidence that naive people cope poorly with traumatic events. Resilience is a product (though admittedly not a guaranteed product) of experience.
  - TaupeRanger 4y ago
    Life experience, yes. Scary stories told to children...that's what I'm very skeptical of.
    - iinnPP 4y ago
      The story in full will contain pieces of information that would help a child avoid said trauma entirely. Don't go into the random abandoned house alone.
- diehunde 4y ago
  I'm actually with you on this. I've been reading articles about the trauma the war and displacement are causing Ukrainian children. I remember one mentioning older kids who knew about war already (because of stories or TV) had practically the same behavioral symptoms as younger kids who didn't understand what was happening. And this came from psychologists assessing hundreds if not thousands of kids.
- tragictrash 4y ago
  Unapologetically, no

List a single shred of scientific evidence showing that kids who are exposed to stories with similar themes to traumatic events they experience in real life are more likely the have better outcomes. Be afraid to call someone wrong without more than just-so stories and anecdotes.

ubercore 4y ago
Do you have a source to claim the opposite?
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  Of course not. I'm simply saying that I'm very skeptical of the claim and would bet actual money that the opposite (or null result) was actually true.
  - tragictrash 4y ago
    You got too much time on your hands. Please stop wasting other people's.
hervature 4y ago
This is a form of McNamara's fallacy. In reality, the data you are looking for is impossible to obtain. In practice, causing traumatic events is obviously unethical. Then, even if you had a proper study, there would be so many confounding factors that basically any conclusion is worthless. For instance, listening to an e-book on the subway is obviously different than discussing your emotions and response to the book. From first principles, it seems rather intuitive that if you expose anyone to a story of a trauma and discuss possible coping mechanisms, then that person is better prepared to cope with that trauma. Of course, being exposed to the thought might be traumatic itself (a kid might come to the realization that their dog is actually going to die) but if they react so poorly to the thought, how would they have reacted to the actual event? Intuitively, much worse. I'm all for data driven decisions, but our shared human experience can be a tremendous guiding light for things that are difficult to quantify.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  Exactly. If you have an intuitive and common-sense take (exposure to stories with difficult themes can help kids cope with similar things in real life) and an unintuitive contrarian take (they don't, so let the kids get blindsided), the onus is on the contrarian to "list a single shred of scientific evidence." Sure, it would be great if everyone could offer "evidence" for every position, but that's obviously unrealistic and impractical.
  - TaupeRanger 4y ago
    It's not contrarian...there's simply no evidence either way, that's all I'm saying. For every anecdote you can come up with showing a kid doing well after hearing scary stories, I'll come up with another of a kid doing without without hearing them. That's it.
    - slowmovintarget 4y ago
      Except that's not it. We have a whole generation of adults that can't handle rejection, can't handle difficulty, need emotional support peacocks on planes... because they were taught (repeatedly told the story, a.k.a. narrative) that they were special and would always win if they felt good enough about themselves. In other words, we told stories that specifically set them up for disillusionment and disorder. Telling stories has been the way one generation prepares the next since the telling of stories began. Oral tradition, religious texts, myth, legend, fables, fairy tales... all of these had purposes beyond entertainment. Don't go in the woods by yourself, it's dangerous. Don't swim in that river, it's dangerous. Don't be mean to other people, because you don't want to live in that society. Don't lie, because people won't believe you when you need them to. We've always told these kinds of stories... until recently. The kids that did get these kinds of stories built the modern world. The kinds of kids that aren't getting these kinds of stories are the ones going on shooting sprees or rioting because they didn't get that raise or someone was mean to them on social media. We do have evidence, it just isn't organized into a formal longitudinal study for you. Here's the thing. It is possible for people to discuss an idea and even draw conclusions of efficacy without a longitudinal study.
shiryel 4y ago
I don't know how much scientific is the references on this article [1], but it's a good read about the topic [1] - http://web.archive.org/web/20190423155359/https://medium.com/the-polymath-project/the-drama-of-rules-what-storytelling-can-teach-us-about-human-nature-514eb3f90279 http://web.archive.org/web/20190423155359/https://medium.com...
smaddox 4y ago
I don't know if there are any controlled studies, but there's plenty of informal evidence that naive people cope poorly with traumatic events. Resilience is a product (though admittedly not a guaranteed product) of experience.
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  Life experience, yes. Scary stories told to children...that's what I'm very skeptical of.
  - iinnPP 4y ago
    The story in full will contain pieces of information that would help a child avoid said trauma entirely. Don't go into the random abandoned house alone.
diehunde 4y ago
I'm actually with you on this. I've been reading articles about the trauma the war and displacement are causing Ukrainian children. I remember one mentioning older kids who knew about war already (because of stories or TV) had practically the same behavioral symptoms as younger kids who didn't understand what was happening. And this came from psychologists assessing hundreds if not thousands of kids.
tragictrash 4y ago
Unapologetically, no