You Can Change Your Personality
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You Can Change Your Personality
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Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#2This isn't news to me, but I like having a handy little article that I can send to people to point to and say "See? It's not just me. Science."
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#3This isn't news to me, but I like having a handy little article that I can send to people to point to and say "See? It's not just me. Science."
There's a book you might want to recommend: "The emotional life of your brain" by Richard Davidson.
Written by a neuroscientist, it gives a thorough, scientifically tested framework for classifying traits of personality and changing them.
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#4This isn't news to me, but I like having a handy little article that I can send to people to point to and say "See? It's not just me. Science."
I feel compelled to link to this[1] bit of writing by Yudkowsky.
Science! It's not a real explanation, so much as a curiosity-stopper. You don't actually know anything more than you knew before I said the magic word. But you turn away, satisfied that nothing unusual is going on.
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#5People often use "its just my personality" as an excuse for bad behavior. Intuitively I think most people know that you have control over your behavior at the very least as well as aspects of your personality. Just like any other activity, you can practice being a more considerate, or more respectful, or less neurotic personality.
There is a weird meme that tech people aren't capable of being "team players" or working with other people. Maybe research will help address that perception; awkward is ok, but we shouldn't accept that techies will be dicks to people all the time.
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#6pretty typical salesmanship: if you convince people a) there's something wrong with them and b) that thing can be changed, you can sell them a cure.
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#7People often use "its just my personality" as an excuse for bad behavior. Intuitively I think most people know that you have control over your behavior at the very least as well as aspects of your personality. Just like any other activity, you can practice being a more considerate, or more respectful, or less neurotic personality. There is a weird meme that tech people aren't capable of being "team players" or workin…
Over time, it seemed to me there was a strong correlation between the technical expertise of my co-workers and their ability to neuter anti-social behavior.
To be fair, I went from poorly funded startups and contracting work to BigCo.
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#8People often use "its just my personality" as an excuse for bad behavior. Intuitively I think most people know that you have control over your behavior at the very least as well as aspects of your personality. Just like any other activity, you can practice being a more considerate, or more respectful, or less neurotic personality. There is a weird meme that tech people aren't capable of being "team players" or workin…
I've always wondered, given this "stereotype" if there isn't more to it. Is it possible that because, in general, people who were "nerds" were likely more of a social outcast growing up, that they have essentially become "hardened", if you will, to social graces. They spent so much of their developmental years being teased/ridiculed/whatever that what is "normal" treatment of others has essentially become foreign to them? Sure, you can form a relationship with your family, but that really doesn't extend to how you interact with people outside of your inner circle.
There seems to be such a strong correlation, curious if anyone has ever studied it. It seems we've gotten to the point that so very much of our adult behavior can be traced to childhood events/upbringing that this can't be an outlier.
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#9This isn't news to me, but I like having a handy little article that I can send to people to point to and say "See? It's not just me. Science."
There's a book you might want to recommend: "The emotional life of your brain" by Richard Davidson. Written by a neuroscientist, it gives a thorough, scientifically tested framework for classifying traits of personality and changing them.
Nice reco. Which contemplative exercise do you find most useful?
Re: You Can Change Your Personality
#10People often use "its just my personality" as an excuse for bad behavior. Intuitively I think most people know that you have control over your behavior at the very least as well as aspects of your personality. Just like any other activity, you can practice being a more considerate, or more respectful, or less neurotic personality. There is a weird meme that tech people aren't capable of being "team players" or workin…
I've always wondered, given this "stereotype" if there isn't more to it. Is it possible that because, in general, people who were "nerds" were likely more of a social outcast growing up, that they have essentially become "hardened", if you will, to social graces. They spent so much of their developmental years being teased/ridiculed/whatever that what is "normal" treatment of others has essentially become foreign to…
+1. Most asocial persons I know have been raised that way by society. Now you want them to undo what took years of training. This is hard. And unfair.