Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why We Spiral

behavioralscientist.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 115 posts

Re: Why We Spiral

#91

Post by joriskok1 »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #60
vijucat wrote: post #40

Wish I was taught things these in school. Psychology, CBT techniques, etc; I have always had a low EQ and learned a lot from basically messing things up, and from having a wife with super high EQ. Perception is reality for all practical purposes, despite the more mathematical wanting it to be not so, simply because the objective can literally not be perceived: each perceiver is subjective. Fixing this input layer wou…

Agreed. I don’t really have an inner monologue, so articles like this do not resonate with me. I occasionally think these sorts of thoughts, like “hmmm- should I have perceived that interaction differently than I did in the moment”. But unlike my partner, there is no little voice that keeps following that thought. The thought comes, is considered, then moved onto something else. Honestly, having a negative inner voic…

I also have an inner monologue more like how you describe it. I always thought it was related to afantasia, but not sure.

Re: Why We Spiral

#92

Post by t43562 »

47282847 wrote: post #84
t43562 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience you can only moderate your response. So you cannot pretend to be very pleased when you're 90% certain that someone has been very rude to you but you can avoid an immediate angry response and give yourself time to think. I sometimes feel that I'm being put upon at the moment and then later think perhaps not - I'm always glad when I manage to restrain my initial reaction.

The main point I wanted to make is that if you only assume the best but don’t actually believe it, you might think their reaction to your (pretended) niceness “confirms“ your assumption, where what it actually confirms is your belief and not their original intent.

Yes, knowing anything for certain is difficult so it's worth always harbouring a little doubt about both positive and negative conclusions.

Dzerzhinsky liked to say "Trust but verify", and I think that sums it up - if you look at the world entirely from his point of view, head of the Soviet secret police, then you will suspect everyone and if you act on that you'll end up hurting lots of innocents in amongst the people who would really do you harm. If you're in a situation where this is a good survival strategy it seems to me that one should try to leave rather than play the game.

Re: Why We Spiral

#93

Post by BobbyTables2 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #38
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #19

As a person with long experiences in trauma responses, I see this sort of behavior pattern everywhere. There’s so much “trust your gut!!” advice when the gut can be deeply wrong especially when it comes to identifying interpersonal threats. We don’t educate people in how to process their feelings in a healthy manner and to differentiate what they feel is happening and how they should behave. This results in anything…

I think a big part of maturing professionally is how I’ve gotten a better handle on not trusting my gut. He’s here to take my job. The VP knows him and hired him directly. There’s so many signals each week that say I’m right. He’s trying to take credit for a decade of my hard work. He’s going to exploit me and everyone will believe him and not me. The more likely reality: he’s new here and I’ve been here for a decade…

Good points.

I’ve also never worked at a company that had enough long term thinking to train up replacements. Several would only cut entire departments and/or only do layoffs.

So there isn’t really any point about worrying about being replaced (:>

Re: Why We Spiral

#94

Post by Sammi »

softwaredoug wrote: post #42
truelson wrote: post #30

A key part of breaking cycles for me has been noticing when my default mode network ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network ) or DMN is being activated, being able to stop, do a series of 4-2-6 breaths to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and focus on what I'm doing in the present. The DMN is the little chatterbox "daemon" always talking in the background. Learning to consistently notice it and…

Anyone who has a restless dog in the evenings can see DMN create anxiety. Like many dogs, my dog gets bored and looks for something to bark at. He scans out the window like I scan social media. He’s got extra energy that seems to need to go somewhere, and that somewhere seems to be looking out the window scanning for threats, barking, sounding meaner than he actually is. It’s like he manufactures anxiety out of nothi…

This comment actually made me read it slower as it progressed, because I felt a feeling of awe welling up of how insightful it is.

Re: Why We Spiral

#95

Post by madacol »

Those sequences of thoughts that makes us spiral down are not fixed, it's cultural thoughts that we learned as we grew up whether from our family, friends or from TV shows, movies, games, etc. We see situations and we learn how other people handle them, we match the thoughts to similar contexts

In LLM/agent lingo, those are prompts that we inject based on similarity search

Re: Why We Spiral

#96

Post by IAmBroom »

neuronic wrote: post #85
truelson wrote: post #30

A key part of breaking cycles for me has been noticing when my default mode network ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network ) or DMN is being activated, being able to stop, do a series of 4-2-6 breaths to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and focus on what I'm doing in the present. The DMN is the little chatterbox "daemon" always talking in the background. Learning to consistently notice it and…

For anyone wondering like me: > What is the 4-2-6 breathing technique? > The 4-2-6 breathing technique is a calming exercise. First, inhale slowly for four seconds. Then, hold your breath for two seconds. Finally, exhale slowly and steadily for six seconds. This technique helps by making your exhale longer than your inhale, which is a signal to your body to relax. It's particularly useful when you need to settle your…

And there's nothing magical about that set of numbers. I learned it as 5-5-5-2, but in the end it's about using a pattern to regulate your breathing, and - I believe - to force your attention to counting breaths, an anxiety-free exercise, allowing it to lower its hyper-vigilant awake state.

Re: Why We Spiral

#97

Post by coolThingsFirst »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #19

As a person with long experiences in trauma responses, I see this sort of behavior pattern everywhere. There’s so much “trust your gut!!” advice when the gut can be deeply wrong especially when it comes to identifying interpersonal threats. We don’t educate people in how to process their feelings in a healthy manner and to differentiate what they feel is happening and how they should behave. This results in anything…

Here is a yardstick that I've found works really well when trusting your gut: if and only if your general mood is peaceful and calm can you trust your gut.

Otherwise it doesn't work, that knowledge is blocked off by anxiety, fear, anger etc.

Never once has this failed me

Re: Why We Spiral

#98

Post by Aurornis »

roenxi wrote: post #88
Aurornis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He’s here to take my job. The VP knows him and hired him directly. There’s so many signals each week that say I’m right. He’s trying to take credit for a decade of my hard work. He’s going to exploit me and everyone will believe him and not me. I think this is where it’s important to know yourself. If you’re having a constant stream of anxiety inducing thoughts and light paranoia, learning how to silence those and…

Even then shutting down the anxiety and paranoia is a good idea. You're friend didn't know how to process reality without feeling negative, maybe. But it can be done and they should probably learn how to do that. A calm & confident person can still see if a problem is coming, the real world isn't determined by the feelings of the viewer but by actual evidence present and a very fine sliver of basic world modelling. T…

> Even then shutting down the anxiety and paranoia is a good idea. You're friend didn't know how to process reality without feeling negative, maybe.

No, the way to “process” it was to start looking for new jobs, which would have avoided the completely avoidable employment and income gap.

Re: Why We Spiral

#99

Post by Aurornis »

whstl wrote: post #90
Aurornis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don’t educate people in how to process their feelings in a healthy manner and to differentiate what they feel is happening and how they should behave. This results in anything like saying someone has “bad vibes” to be a reason to exclude them, to actively covering for someone with a known pattern of harming people simply because they are charming In recent years the workplaces I’ve been involved with have actual…

Interesting. My criteria for hiring is the opposite of this, and I wouldn't have it any other way. If someone is technically great but combative in an interview, they get a "strong no" from me. It's nothing big: especially in a startup environment there will be situations where the product manager or another engineer will ask for changes, and I expect people to adapt, or at least to argue the merits of the change. Ma…

> Interesting. My criteria for hiring is the opposite of this, and I wouldn't have it any other way. If someone is technically great but combative in an interview, they get a "strong no" from me.

Well exactly, but that’s “vibes” in the view of an extremely objective hiring criteria that tries to eliminate anyone’s subjective feelings about the candidate.

Re: Why We Spiral

#100

Post by peepee1982 »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #97
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #19

As a person with long experiences in trauma responses, I see this sort of behavior pattern everywhere. There’s so much “trust your gut!!” advice when the gut can be deeply wrong especially when it comes to identifying interpersonal threats. We don’t educate people in how to process their feelings in a healthy manner and to differentiate what they feel is happening and how they should behave. This results in anything…

Here is a yardstick that I've found works really well when trusting your gut: if and only if your general mood is peaceful and calm can you trust your gut. Otherwise it doesn't work, that knowledge is blocked off by anxiety, fear, anger etc. Never once has this failed me

I agree, but this does not work for people who are unable to get into a peaceful and calm mood ever, and they aren't even "trusting" their gut, their view of the world is completely distorted by it.

Again, not disagreeing. But if you're suffering from (C)PTSD, that advice might backfire by packing on even more feelings of shame onto your shoulders.

Post reply on HN