5 ms·

Achieving Fame, Wealth And Beauty Are Psychological Dead Ends, Study Says

34 points by villageidiot 17y ago

Eliezer 17y ago
Reading the article, it sounds like the interpretation of results could have been pretty heavily cooked. With someone this hot for a prior theory it's important to know exactly what experimental methods they used and exactly what they found. Article's pretty short on that.
- Dilpil 17y ago
  The irony of social sciences: they demand the most rigor, and are given the least.
russell 17y ago
"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better." -- Mae West
- diN0bot 17y ago
  i've been rich, avg and poor. believe me, avg is better. --me.
- benkant 17y ago
  I always thought it was Woody Allen that said that. Don't tell me he stole it and took credit for it?
  - russell 17y ago
    I've always attributed it to Mae West, but I googled a bit and found it also attributed to Beatrice Kaufman, Sophie Tucker, an a host of others. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/ive_been_rich_and_ive_been_poor_rich_is_better/ http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/ive_... In any case I think they all beat out Woodie Allen. Ne was no more than a baby at the time.
wallflower 17y ago
> The findings in this study support Self-Determination Theory, a well-established theory of human motivation developed by two of the paper's authors, Deci and fellow University psychologist Richard Ryan. "well-established" makes me think that this article functions more as a PR piece for SDT. However, I've never heard of SDT befor reading this article, and I find SDT interesting as it seems to be a functional lens through which to study basic human needs - like the need for relationships. "SDT suggests that there are three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness that underlie growth and development" "[Self-Determination Theory] begins with the assumption that people are active organisms, with innate tendencies toward psychological growth and development, who strive to master ongoing challenges and to integrate their experiences into a coherent sense of self. This natural human tendency does not operate automatically, however, but instead requires ongoing nutriments and supports from the social environment in order to function effectively." http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/theory.php http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/theory.php
DavidSJ 17y ago
Correlation ≠ Causality
patrickg-zill 17y ago
Book of Ecclesiastes, nuff said.
- patio11 17y ago
  Wow, I think you just went meta-Ecclesiastes! What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, "See, this is new!" has already existed in the ages that preceded us. Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
  - Eliezer 17y ago
    Poetic but blatantly false. Actually, you really wonder how Ecclesiastes managed to get included in the Bible, considering that at this point the Earth was supposed to be four thousand years old or whatever. And yet even 4.5 billion years isn't old enough for everything to have happened, not even close. Aren't exponential possibility spaces wonderful?
    - davidmathers 17y ago
      Poetic but blatantly false. False now, but true at the time. For most people who have ever lived, nothing new happened during their lifetimes.
    - ahoyhere 17y ago
      If you take it to mean human nature and the completely cyclical patterns of human behavior, then it's most certainly correct. That's how I've always interpreted it.
      - davidmathers 17y ago
        Verse 9 is about behavior: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again Verse 10 is about things: Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? I think verse 9 is false. Remember one of the ways Solomon got his pleasure: "I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house." That's the only thing I can think of though.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
anamax 17y ago
Everything other than immortality is a dead end.
- Dilpil 17y ago
  ...and no ones looked at immortality yet.
ellyagg 17y ago
And yet the rich economies of today, the ones that support, e.g., scientific research, were mostly built by people pursuing material goals.
- ellyagg 17y ago
  Let me put it another way: 1. Benjamin Franklin wrote that when colonial era children were taken by Indian tribes and were later found again, they usually didn't want to come back. Their lives were too easy and carefree now. 2. Egyptian society didn't change for thousands of years. The weather was mild and the Nile would flood every year, providing them plenty of easy food. There was no need to strive for anything. If happiness is the most important virtue to optimize in society, then I'm forced to believe that pre-colonial American Indian society and ancient Egyptian society were far better than modern societies. But I don't believe that. Believing in happiness as supreme is a first principle. You can't prove it, you have to accept it as a given and the rest of your philosophy descends from that. Personally, I don't accept this assumption. I think happiness is important, but I think other things like beauty and truth are just as important.
  - apsec112 17y ago
    Egyptians and Native Americans certainly had happy times, but I don't think anyone then or now would trade that life for ours. If you lived more than a few hundred years ago, your life would be, in all probability: - If you are male, your main job is to do hard, backbreaking labor, six or seven days out of the week, all day long, from sunup to sundown. If you're sick and can't work, you might be able to call on a relative or friend to help, otherwise you're screwed; there's no medical care, no life insurance, no disability insurance and no paid vacation. Every so often, someone will come along, hand you a sword, and tell you to go die for the Emperor; if you aren't killed in battle, it's quite likely that you'll die of disease or starvation hundreds of miles from home. - If you are female, you basically have no rights; you are legally the property of your husband, who may have three or ten or twenty wives, and are required to do whatever he says. Your main job is to take care of your children; since there is no birth control, you will probably have ten or more, of whom a good percentage will die before their first birthday due to the sky-high infant mortality rates. - And, of course, in any case, there is no electricity, no telephones, no televisions, no air conditioning, and no computers. Running water and books are, with a few exceptions like imperial Rome, luxuries available only to the rich and privileged. Depending on where/when you are, you might have decent sanitation, or your streets might be literally overflowing with sewage. - If you want to live like this, for whatever reason, you still can. Go out into the middle of nowhere and purchase a plot of land (such land is generally worthless). Build a house on it, farm it for food and make all your tools yourself. Strangely enough, most people who talk about the virtues of the simple life never do this (although a few do, and I admire them for their non-hypocrisy).
ilitirit 17y ago
I think the keyword here is "psychological". If you train yourself to control your mental state you can suffer all sorts of physical afflictions but psychologically you can still be as happy as ever. I used to think that balance was the key, but after some consideration I'm undecided. If spending all your energy on training yourself to be happy actually makes you happy despite your physical well-being, why would you need balance?
- zackattack 17y ago
  My friend had a good quote: "if you're trying to be happy, you've already lost." Happiness comes from satisfaction with the present moment.
radu_floricica 17y ago
There are a few sites I came to avoid on principle. nytimes always has very well written and interesting articles, but with no long-term value. And science daily... well, there is very little science in there. They sound good, but they also lack meat, and honestly they're not that well written.

34 points by villageidiot 17y ago

Reading the article, it sounds like the interpretation of results could have been pretty heavily cooked. With someone this hot for a prior theory it's important to know exactly what experimental methods they used and exactly what they found. Article's pretty short on that.

Dilpil 17y ago
The irony of social sciences: they demand the most rigor, and are given the least.

russell 17y ago

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better." -- Mae West

diN0bot 17y ago
i've been rich, avg and poor. believe me, avg is better. --me.
benkant 17y ago
I always thought it was Woody Allen that said that. Don't tell me he stole it and took credit for it?
- russell 17y ago
  I've always attributed it to Mae West, but I googled a bit and found it also attributed to Beatrice Kaufman, Sophie Tucker, an a host of others. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/ive_been_rich_and_ive_been_poor_rich_is_better/ http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/ive_... In any case I think they all beat out Woodie Allen. Ne was no more than a baby at the time.

wallflower 17y ago

> The findings in this study support Self-Determination Theory, a well-established theory of human motivation developed by two of the paper's authors, Deci and fellow University psychologist Richard Ryan. "well-established" makes me think that this article functions more as a PR piece for SDT. However, I've never heard of SDT befor reading this article, and I find SDT interesting as it seems to be a functional lens through which to study basic human needs - like the need for relationships. "SDT suggests that there are three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness that underlie growth and development" "[Self-Determination Theory] begins with the assumption that people are active organisms, with innate tendencies toward psychological growth and development, who strive to master ongoing challenges and to integrate their experiences into a coherent sense of self. This natural human tendency does not operate automatically, however, but instead requires ongoing nutriments and supports from the social environment in order to function effectively." http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/theory.php http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/theory.php

DavidSJ 17y ago

Correlation ≠ Causality

patrickg-zill 17y ago

Book of Ecclesiastes, nuff said.

patio11 17y ago
Wow, I think you just went meta-Ecclesiastes! What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, "See, this is new!" has already existed in the ages that preceded us. Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
- Eliezer 17y ago
  Poetic but blatantly false. Actually, you really wonder how Ecclesiastes managed to get included in the Bible, considering that at this point the Earth was supposed to be four thousand years old or whatever. And yet even 4.5 billion years isn't old enough for everything to have happened, not even close. Aren't exponential possibility spaces wonderful?
  - davidmathers 17y ago
    Poetic but blatantly false. False now, but true at the time. For most people who have ever lived, nothing new happened during their lifetimes.
  - ahoyhere 17y ago
    If you take it to mean human nature and the completely cyclical patterns of human behavior, then it's most certainly correct. That's how I've always interpreted it.
    - davidmathers 17y ago
      Verse 9 is about behavior: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again Verse 10 is about things: Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? I think verse 9 is false. Remember one of the ways Solomon got his pleasure: "I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house." That's the only thing I can think of though.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

anamax 17y ago

Everything other than immortality is a dead end.

Dilpil 17y ago
...and no ones looked at immortality yet.

ellyagg 17y ago

And yet the rich economies of today, the ones that support, e.g., scientific research, were mostly built by people pursuing material goals.

ellyagg 17y ago
Let me put it another way: 1. Benjamin Franklin wrote that when colonial era children were taken by Indian tribes and were later found again, they usually didn't want to come back. Their lives were too easy and carefree now. 2. Egyptian society didn't change for thousands of years. The weather was mild and the Nile would flood every year, providing them plenty of easy food. There was no need to strive for anything. If happiness is the most important virtue to optimize in society, then I'm forced to believe that pre-colonial American Indian society and ancient Egyptian society were far better than modern societies. But I don't believe that. Believing in happiness as supreme is a first principle. You can't prove it, you have to accept it as a given and the rest of your philosophy descends from that. Personally, I don't accept this assumption. I think happiness is important, but I think other things like beauty and truth are just as important.
- apsec112 17y ago
  Egyptians and Native Americans certainly had happy times, but I don't think anyone then or now would trade that life for ours. If you lived more than a few hundred years ago, your life would be, in all probability: - If you are male, your main job is to do hard, backbreaking labor, six or seven days out of the week, all day long, from sunup to sundown. If you're sick and can't work, you might be able to call on a relative or friend to help, otherwise you're screwed; there's no medical care, no life insurance, no disability insurance and no paid vacation. Every so often, someone will come along, hand you a sword, and tell you to go die for the Emperor; if you aren't killed in battle, it's quite likely that you'll die of disease or starvation hundreds of miles from home. - If you are female, you basically have no rights; you are legally the property of your husband, who may have three or ten or twenty wives, and are required to do whatever he says. Your main job is to take care of your children; since there is no birth control, you will probably have ten or more, of whom a good percentage will die before their first birthday due to the sky-high infant mortality rates. - And, of course, in any case, there is no electricity, no telephones, no televisions, no air conditioning, and no computers. Running water and books are, with a few exceptions like imperial Rome, luxuries available only to the rich and privileged. Depending on where/when you are, you might have decent sanitation, or your streets might be literally overflowing with sewage. - If you want to live like this, for whatever reason, you still can. Go out into the middle of nowhere and purchase a plot of land (such land is generally worthless). Build a house on it, farm it for food and make all your tools yourself. Strangely enough, most people who talk about the virtues of the simple life never do this (although a few do, and I admire them for their non-hypocrisy).

ilitirit 17y ago

I think the keyword here is "psychological". If you train yourself to control your mental state you can suffer all sorts of physical afflictions but psychologically you can still be as happy as ever. I used to think that balance was the key, but after some consideration I'm undecided. If spending all your energy on training yourself to be happy actually makes you happy despite your physical well-being, why would you need balance?

zackattack 17y ago
My friend had a good quote: "if you're trying to be happy, you've already lost." Happiness comes from satisfaction with the present moment.

radu_floricica 17y ago

There are a few sites I came to avoid on principle. nytimes always has very well written and interesting articles, but with no long-term value. And science daily... well, there is very little science in there. They sound good, but they also lack meat, and honestly they're not that well written.