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Optimism

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Re: Optimism

#121

Post by tedmiston »

donw wrote: post #115
holman wrote: post #36

I think this might be one of those times where the title might lead to confusion in the comment section and leads people a bit astray. I saw this talk in person at Nordic Ruby, and it was one of the best talks I've seen (and I've seen a bunch). Strangely enough, I don't really think back and think much about "optimism" when I think of the talk, though, even though the talk is about optimists. My takeaway was the type…

The best advice I received on this topic was that feedback should be actionable, specific, and kind. Actionable and specific mean that the person on the receiving end has a set of concrete actions to take to implement. For example, "get better at programming" isn't specific, and "get a PhD in Computer Science" probably isn't actionable, but "work on improving your ability to write readable code by working through the…

> When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest

As someone who prefers giving and receiving terse feedback... I would suggest that there's nothing wrong with brutal honesty for type of people who appreciate receiving it.

If I write code and forget to test some specific cases, I would much rather get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null" than a longwinded and "nice" version. I don't need to hear compliments on what's right... just what can be improved. Some people really value bluntness and see directness as more friendly because it's honest.

Re: Optimism

#122

Post by lemming »

braythwayt wrote: post #107
lemming wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually one of the strongest criticisms of Seligman's work. There's a clear example of this - after his work was published, the US Army adopted this as part of their training. After all, the results are fantastic - people become more psychologically robust in all sorts of ways if they're more optimistic, and soldiers are frequently in very stressful situations. However the flip side of this is that it essent…

I don't know if this is what you're thinking of, but Dr. Seligman's other big research work was into "Learned Helplessness." Seligman did some work with optimism and the forces, but the Learned Helplessness stuff was taken by two people unconnected with Seligman (James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen) who turned it into a manual for torturing people. Seligman's name was dragged through the mud for this, but he didn't do th…

Yes, I remember that as well - it was very unfortunate. It's not what I mean though, I would swear that I had also seen criticism of the optimism training in the armed forces with respect to its tendency to disclaim responsibility for, or otherwise minimise, negative outcomes from one's actions. I can't find a reference now though, although I haven't had time to Google it properly yet.

Re: Optimism

#123

Post by tedmiston »

PSeitz wrote: post #62

TLDR; To be more optimistic assess good stuff as personal, general, and permanent and negative as impersonal, specific and temporal. Make notes everyday about your assessments and correct them. There is research backing this thesis.

One thing I constantly remind myself — all events in nature are neutral.

It is not on your side or against you. It's just something that has happened. How you react is what can be positive or negative.

Re: Optimism

#124

Post by ItsMattyG »

gridspy wrote: post #119
PSeitz wrote: post #62

TLDR; To be more optimistic assess good stuff as personal, general, and permanent and negative as impersonal, specific and temporal. Make notes everyday about your assessments and correct them. There is research backing this thesis.

Also, assess others in an optimistic way also. I.e. praise: personal, general, and permanent criticism: impersonal, specific and temporal

This seems to fly in direct opposition to research on growth vs. fixed mindset, which claims that praise should be impersonal, specific, and temporal in order to help people realize that they can do better based on the choices they make.

Re: Optimism

#126

Post by 77pt77 »

PSeitz wrote: post #61
drewrv wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where should one draw the line? Engage in self reflection and be honest with yourself, something I doubt Trump does.

According to the research he must be pretty happy.

Knowledge isn't conducive to happiness.

Re: Optimism

#127

Post by braythwayt »

DHMO wrote: post #120
braythwayt wrote: post #9

Author here. Ask Me Anything.

Are you a strong believer in putting a caret in front of every point? I understand the association with up and optimism, but in this document, I think that it could be distracting the reader from the content you are presenting. Thank you for writing this, though!

The carets are part of DeckSet's markdown extensions. This is the source for a presentation, and lines prefaced with a caret are turned into speaker's notes.

I imagine the inspiration for them choosing a caret is that carets are used to signal footnotes in some markdown flavours.

Re: Optimism

#128

Post by donw »

tedmiston wrote: post #121
donw wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best advice I received on this topic was that feedback should be actionable, specific, and kind. Actionable and specific mean that the person on the receiving end has a set of concrete actions to take to implement. For example, "get better at programming" isn't specific, and "get a PhD in Computer Science" probably isn't actionable, but "work on improving your ability to write readable code by working through the…

> When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest As someone who prefers giving and receiving terse feedback... I would suggest that there's nothing wrong with brutal honesty for type of people who appreciate receiving it . If I write code and forget to test some specific cases, I would much rather get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null" than a longwinded and…

Terse feedback can be fine, once you know that, for a specific person, terse feedback is effective.

I have met more than a few people that said they preferred "brutal honesty", but would still react very defensively to straightforward, terse feedback.

Being terse without seeming to be on the attack is very difficult, and it is human nature to defend ourselves -- and stop listening! -- if we perceive that we are being attacked.

Re: Optimism

#129

Post by snaky »

> In a study published October 9 in Nature Neuroscience, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) show that people who are very optimistic about the outcome of events tend to learn only from information that reinforces their rose-tinted view of the world. This is related to 'faulty' function of their frontal lobes

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111009140201.h...

Re: Optimism

#130

Post by betenoire »

ItsMattyG wrote: post #124
gridspy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, assess others in an optimistic way also. I.e. praise: personal, general, and permanent criticism: impersonal, specific and temporal

This seems to fly in direct opposition to research on growth vs. fixed mindset, which claims that praise should be impersonal, specific, and temporal in order to help people realize that they can do better based on the choices they make.

It's not direct opposition because they aren't measuring the same ends.

> in order to help people realize that they can do better

vs

> in order to help people feel happy (via optimism)

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