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Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

psyche.co

61–70 of 268 posts

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#62

Best way to get people to do the right thing: pay them to do it.

There has been numerous research showing that money rewards led to worse outcome. That was especially true do it creative tasks. Eg curiosity, fun, purpose, development was much better motivation. Of course in real life job situation good money has to be on the table. But once they are are there, international motivators make all.the difference. I recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_...

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#63
Wait, this is great. It means the guilt trip is very good at entrenching a viewpoint. So if you want to fuck someone over, find something he's doing that's hurting him and guilt trip him till he doubles down.

You can do this at the whole society level: for instance, no society that underemploys some large fraction of its populace will effectively compete against an equivalent one with efficient workplace participation.

So you can then blame them for all sorts of things. Guilt trip the Arabian nations for low participation of women, the Mississippis of America for low black participation. They'll double down and not correct. Then you beat them by just being better at using your people.

Sadly the article only hypothesizes this and doesn't talk about concrete evidence for the entrenching effect but one can hope.

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#64
post #8

"The potential of positive self-directed emotions has largely not been embraced by activists. The worry could be that it might make those engaging in the cause appear self-satisfied or selfish. But these studies suggest that, instead of focusing on ‘doom and gloom’ messaging that zooms in on people’s shortcomings and risks alienating them, policymakers and strategists might find that positive messaging, speaking to p…

> I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. Actually, occasional and positive reinforcement has been shown to be the best way to change behavior. Slot machines (and the most successful games) are based on this principle.[0] > One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of…

Without having lived there, but from reading: Shame and guilt is basically non-honor, so the positive emotion used for positive inforcement is a feeling of honor.

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#65

I agree that framing issues in a way that allows people to avoid feeling like they have done something wrong is more effective. I also think most activists are aware of this. I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. Hard to know what one could buy to stop police brutality right now, for instance. I suspect people will come up with things. When I see a prote…

Interesting point. Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed. Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts. QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many…

And I must say, though this thought is controversial. If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel, as a human being. Not personal guilt, as few even living today are directly responsible for the systems that came before. But guilt from being born into privilege in a society built entirely to benefit you, from the net worth of your parents, to the quiet mono-racial neighborhoods that are the after effects of federal redlining.

Born poor? That means you should understand the plight of people trapped in hopeless poverty more.

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#66

I agree that framing issues in a way that allows people to avoid feeling like they have done something wrong is more effective. I also think most activists are aware of this. I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. Hard to know what one could buy to stop police brutality right now, for instance. I suspect people will come up with things. When I see a prote…

> I also think most activists are aware of this.

I'm sorry, but how did you come to this conclusion? The first thing that comes to mind is the new tactic used by activist, saying something to the effect of "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist." Which is what (I believe) lead to this thing: https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-di...

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#67

"you're wrong" - Best way to win over someone you disagree with

I've been trying really hard to replace all my usage of "you're wrong" with "yes and".

Another good one I'm trying recently is: "You're right to think that given the information you know, and here's some more information you should consider."

Oh and: "That's a great hypothesis, here's another one."

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#68

Wait, this is great. It means the guilt trip is very good at entrenching a viewpoint. So if you want to fuck someone over, find something he's doing that's hurting him and guilt trip him till he doubles down. You can do this at the whole society level: for instance, no society that underemploys some large fraction of its populace will effectively compete against an equivalent one with efficient workplace participatio…

Beat them at what though?

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#69

Wait, this is great. It means the guilt trip is very good at entrenching a viewpoint. So if you want to fuck someone over, find something he's doing that's hurting him and guilt trip him till he doubles down. You can do this at the whole society level: for instance, no society that underemploys some large fraction of its populace will effectively compete against an equivalent one with efficient workplace participatio…

> Wait, this is great.

Slave labor can be more "effective" than workers with rights.

Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

#70
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about health fads. Eating all meat is great for you. You'll feel better. They seem pretty successful. Church and religion, I would say mostly works on positivity. The argument would be these campaigns degrade to negativity. This certainly seems like it's playing out. Movement X goes more extreme. The internal members chose negativity over positivity. The stereotype of the Chinese is they will work towards a comm…

> Church and religion, I would say mostly works on positivity. Depends on the religion, I guess. I was raised Catholic, and a lot of it was about making people fell guilty about their sins and telling them if they keep doing bad things and don't repent, they'll spend an eternity in hell. Not exactly positive, IMO. Sure, there was always mention of how if you're a good, Christ-believing person, you'll get eternal rewa…

I think these Catholic ads are a positive way to try and get people to come back to the Catholic church, I'm sure you can find negative ads though.

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/our-evangomercials/

There's a lot of complexity going on

Getting them to start doing something.

To keep them doing something.

Competing with alternative ideas as they run negative campaigns.

I totally think guilt works, I just can't workout how well, I do know it can spark a organised backlash, guilt in the church probably strengthens Atheism but might also strengthen current members.

> saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video.

Like the Chinese examples I'm always cautious how to interpret these stories/footage. Rough rule in life, people are good as long as you make it easy for them to be good.

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