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Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

effectiviology.com

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Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#61

Post by logicchains »

lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

Also applies to relationships: self-distancing/meditation can allow you to tolerate a lot of things that maybe you'd be better off not having to tolerate in the first place, and keep you from leaving a bad situation.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#62

Post by dancek »

lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

I know it's just an example, but someone who understands programming work would probably not be against learning another language or two and trying to get more interesting work. They may question whether the language will make you happy. Similarly they'd ask someone switching to art whether that would really be the path to happiness, are jobs available, what kind of salary to expect etc.

I wouldn't tell a friend not to pursue their dreams. But I would look for good arguments that they actually understand what they want.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#63

Post by perfmode »

lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

It’s neither/nor.

It’s not about acting rationally versus emotionally.

Reason isn’t necessarily good. And emotion isn’t necessarily bad.

It’s a matter of acting unintentionally versus intentionally.

(For some definition of intentionally).

A crude counterexample {

Some people might act rationally out of habit.

And for them, self-distancing might result in listening more closely to emotions which, for them, tend to be crowded out by deeply-ingrained intellectual ideologies.

} And in fact, it’s not about ideology versus non-ideology.

There are people throughout history who have articulated this much clearer than I have.

I hope someone will follow up with links to passages in this vein.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#64

Post by isacikgoz »

lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

I think the main motivation of asking yourself those questions with self-distancing is to expose your feelings to yourself. It helps you to state them. You are trying to understand yourself. I guess this is the main reason of this technique. Unfortunately it is not emphasized in the article.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#65

Post by swombat »

lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

I think you speak here to an important potential misunderstanding about self-distancing. It shouldn’t be about eliminating emotions, it should be about seeing them clearly.

Even the first example quote about LeBron makes the point... he says he doesn’t want to make an emotional decision... he wants to make a decision that will make him happy.

Happy is an emotion too, and a totally valid goal. “Emotional” is really being used as a shortcut to “unconscious”.

Even (perhaps especially) as inputs to the decision, emotions are valuable. If you feel joy at the thought of learning Scala and Clojure, that’s an important piece of information! If you feel depressed and apathetic when writing Java code, that too is very important.

Make conscious emotional decisions, should be the take away here. And self-distancing, to see your own emotions clearly, will help with that.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#66

Post by rzzzt »

hhjjkkll wrote: post #16
torstenvl wrote: post #15

Robert Sapolsky touches on this when discussing the effects of glucocorticoids on the prefrontal cortex. A stressed PFC is not an executive functioning PFC. When we're too close to an issue, we process with our periaqueductal gray (key in pain inhibition) and not with the part of our brain more adept at strategizing. These stress effects on frontal function also make us perseverative—in a rut, set in our ways, runnin…

>When we're too close to an issue, we process with our periaqueductal gray (key in pain inhibition) and not with the part of our brain more adept at strategizing. This must be what happens when you think of a funny comeback or joke several hours after the opportunity to use it.

The Treppenwitz or l'esprit de l'escalier: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/l%27esprit_de_l%27escalier

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#67

Post by gingabriska »

torstenvl wrote: post #15

Robert Sapolsky touches on this when discussing the effects of glucocorticoids on the prefrontal cortex. A stressed PFC is not an executive functioning PFC. When we're too close to an issue, we process with our periaqueductal gray (key in pain inhibition) and not with the part of our brain more adept at strategizing. These stress effects on frontal function also make us perseverative—in a rut, set in our ways, runnin…

So those who opt in for parasitic payday loans are doing so under stress, can we say they opt for that loan in similar conditions like you are influenced by alcohol and therefore the contracts are invalid?

Many people have ruined themselves with such contracts and it's understood that they had full awareness of what they are getting into and that's why they are liable for all the losses.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#69

Post by afarrell »

swombat wrote: post #65
lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

I think you speak here to an important potential misunderstanding about self-distancing. It shouldn’t be about eliminating emotions, it should be about seeing them clearly. Even the first example quote about LeBron makes the point... he says he doesn’t want to make an emotional decision... he wants to make a decision that will make him happy . Happy is an emotion too, and a totally valid goal. “Emotional” is really b…

> I think speak here about an important potential misunderstanding about...

Meta feedback: This strikes me as a great way to open a comment like this. You’re clarifying that you think someone’s wrong on a point of fact/interpretation but that they’ve thoughtfully contributed to the conversation.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#70

Post by lugg »

gingabriska wrote: post #67
torstenvl wrote: post #15

Robert Sapolsky touches on this when discussing the effects of glucocorticoids on the prefrontal cortex. A stressed PFC is not an executive functioning PFC. When we're too close to an issue, we process with our periaqueductal gray (key in pain inhibition) and not with the part of our brain more adept at strategizing. These stress effects on frontal function also make us perseverative—in a rut, set in our ways, runnin…

So those who opt in for parasitic payday loans are doing so under stress, can we say they opt for that loan in similar conditions like you are influenced by alcohol and therefore the contracts are invalid? Many people have ruined themselves with such contracts and it's understood that they had full awareness of what they are getting into and that's why they are liable for all the losses.

This is a very difficult area to draw a line on.

Your emotions can effect your actions and decisions like anything else. Are we to apply the same logic to how advertising made me feel a certain way leading to a purchase u wouldn't otherwise have made?

We are talking measures of degree here but it's a spectrum that is incredibly difficult to nail down.

What constitutes being of sound mind?

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