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Rejection Therapy (2011)

lincolnquirk.com

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Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#61

Post by armchairhacker »

klabb3 wrote: post #36

Slightly OT: It seems to me that a large part of our social fabric is based on chance encounters. Talking to strangers in passing, as you go about your day to day business. With increasing digitalization, especially in the first world, we're quickly losing these opportunities. There is often no longer any need to talk to anyone when buying groceries, running errands, asking for directions, etc. All of these are poten…

honestly i think it’s a shame that online ways to meet people are inferior than chance encounters. Chance encounters rely on luck, with online you get filters and algorithms to pair you with similar people.

Unfortunately the filters filter out good people, the algorithms are shoddy and gamed, and you genuinely don’t know if who you meet online is some weirdo who could turn out to harass or stalk you (of course there are weird people in person too, but it’s a lot harder to look and act “normal” in real life than it is on Reddit).

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#62

Post by nuclearnice1 »

dtrent wrote: post #45
cobertos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I get this exact anxiety, but the anxiety needs to be challenged. The communication is what forms the bedrock of a healthy society that can talk about it's problems and needs and find it's way to the empathy of the decision makers.

maybe but making the decision for someone else of whether, when, and how their anxieties should be challenged is, again, kind of shitty

I agree with you.

He doesn’t even want these things. May I try on your sunglasses? Can I have a taste of your ice cream?

I guess they set the bar low to encourage the experimenters. “Don’t worry you can ask for anything — ask for a dollar! Borrow their newspaper!”

I would be more open to it if they had done some thinking. What’s something you genuinely need? Go ask for it. But I guess that’s not as simple. This is just street side IRL spam. Can I have those plastic flowers that I don’t want by which I mean can I waste your time with a nonsense game so I fresh content for my blog?

It’s also fundamentally selfish: “ask random strangers to do you favors”

Why not go out into the world and ask if you can do favors? Find a homeless guy or gal. Ask if he wants your shoes. Ask if she needs a dollar. Then you at least anticipate finding people who welcome partition in your psychological experiment.

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#63

Post by nuclearnice1 »

EsperHugh wrote: post #7
munificent wrote: post #4

Using strangers as unwitting tools in your own psychological therapy without their consent seems super sketchy to me.

My psychologist suggested I partake in 1 act of kindness every day, doesn't matter if in favor of a loved one or a stranger. This was to help me deal with some mental problems I had. Following this advice in multiple occasions I actively helped people on the streets, be it by helping them put the groceries in their cars or by taking something that fell off their pockets. I would say this helped me immensely, would yo…

I prefer this at least because you are performing an act of kindness rather than taking a random favor.

To the extent we do not have enough pro social behavior, injecting random kindness encourages more. Showing up and demanding nonsense favors encourages less.

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#65

Post by its_bbq »

armchairhacker wrote: post #61
klabb3 wrote: post #36

Slightly OT: It seems to me that a large part of our social fabric is based on chance encounters. Talking to strangers in passing, as you go about your day to day business. With increasing digitalization, especially in the first world, we're quickly losing these opportunities. There is often no longer any need to talk to anyone when buying groceries, running errands, asking for directions, etc. All of these are poten…

honestly i think it’s a shame that online ways to meet people are inferior than chance encounters. Chance encounters rely on luck, with online you get filters and algorithms to pair you with similar people. Unfortunately the filters filter out good people, the algorithms are shoddy and gamed, and you genuinely don’t know if who you meet online is some weirdo who could turn out to harass or stalk you (of course there…

You're acting like chance encounters are like uniformly random samples or something. If you're doing the same thing at the same place at the same time you probably have something in common. If that thing is a hobby you enjoy, you now both have a hobby in common.

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#66

Post by munificent »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #12
munificent wrote: post #4

Using strangers as unwitting tools in your own psychological therapy without their consent seems super sketchy to me.

It's sketchy if you frame it in such an awful, uncharitable way. Behold: Talking about the weather = using strangers as unwitting tools in your compulsive need for social interaction. How about rejection therapy = "Harmlessly interacting with other humans to overcome your trauma, so you can become a more productive member of society"?

Asking someone the weather is not at all the same.

The whole point of "rejection therapy" is to interact with a stranger that pushes against their boundaries such that they feel the need to assert themselves in order to reject you.

I'm all about helping people overcome their trauma, but not at the expense of making nonconsenting strangers uncomfortable.

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#67

Post by munificent »

EsperHugh wrote: post #7
munificent wrote: post #4

Using strangers as unwitting tools in your own psychological therapy without their consent seems super sketchy to me.

My psychologist suggested I partake in 1 act of kindness every day, doesn't matter if in favor of a loved one or a stranger. This was to help me deal with some mental problems I had. Following this advice in multiple occasions I actively helped people on the streets, be it by helping them put the groceries in their cars or by taking something that fell off their pockets. I would say this helped me immensely, would yo…

Not at all. You're offering someone help in a way where they are free to decline it.

That's pretty different to me from making a request that's pushy enough that someone has to "reject" it in order to say no.

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#68

Post by munificent »

beaconstudios wrote: post #31
henriquemaia wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your comment. I came here to say roughly the same thing. Yes, in a way we are always using others as means to an end. But to make this interpretation true, I have to really push the boundaries of what I mean by using others, by mean, and by end. However, let us try to think this from a different perspective. How about what others in this _experiment_ felt? How would you feel if someone came out of nowhe…

A good compromise would be something like asking people what the time is, or if they know any good restaurants in the area or something that isn't really asking them for something weird.

But that's not rejection therapy. That's just talking to strangers, which is totally reasonable.

The point of rejection therapy is to make a request in a pushy enough way for something that the other person doesn't want to do that they end up assertively saying no.

It's not "friendly offer therapy" or "polite decline therapy".

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#69

Post by munificent »

sacrosancty wrote: post #24
papandada wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I use strangers as unwitting tools in my own psychological therapy all the time, but yes here it's sketchy because rejecting someone (the intended response) is an unpleasant activity.

Perhaps those people who suffer rejecting-unpleasantness should do their own therapy where they go around rejecting people's requests!

You know, if a whole bunch of rejection therapy and rejector therapy folks want to get in a room and work through their stuff, I am all about it because then they've all agreed to participate.

Re: Rejection Therapy (2011)

#70

Post by munificent »

InitialLastName wrote: post #49
dtrent wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't pass an IRB. This sort of thing is fundamentally selfish. At best de minimis but you can imagine how annoying public life would get if tacitly recruiting strangers as unpaid therapists was at all common.

Third Place [0] theory would suggest that places where you can meet and interact with (semi-) strangers are critical to building communities. I'd argue that a part of that is the internal self-development function that is served by talking to strangers (effectively 'recruiting strangers as unpaid therapists`). Done well, it is mutual (you are each building social trust by interacting with one another). [0] https://en…

Talking to strangers is great. Third places are great.

Contriving a way to talk to a stranger such that your goal is to force them so far outside of their comfort zone that they assertively reject you is not great.

These are not at all the same thing. I'm not saying don't talk to strangers. I'm saying don't use unwitting strangers in your contrived boundary pushing scenarios for your own psychological growth at the expense of their comfort and consent.

You wouldn't walk around putting spiders on people and tell them, "It's cool, bro, I'm just doing spider therapy."

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