I think good feelings ought to be grounded in reality—caused by perceiving a good state, or good future prospects, according to our values.
This is a misunderstanding of an important function of positive feelings, which is to motivate positive action, in anticipation of a result. Many outcomes can only be achieved by having the feeling in advance, that you can only expect “grounding” for afterwards.
In particular, if “times are tough”, the worst thing you can possibly do is feel bad about it, since that is creating a positive feedback loop of negative expectation.
Feelings are intended to prepare current behavior in expectation of future outcomes; if you feel bad, your brain thinks you need to prepare for a negative outcome, and vice versa. The catch is that (at least at human-scale intelligence), these expectations have a significant self-fulfilling aspect.
I’m curious about how “learned optimism” or similar ideas fit into aspiring rationality. I’m somewhat nervous that learned optimism seems like ignoring reality – for example, say you lost your job due to poor performance, but you attribute it to some external factor, either due to your natural reaction, or through applying learned optimism techniques. My understanding is that the literature suggests that such a mindset will generally lead to better life outcomes, but how does it fit in with aspiring rationality?
That is, can we employ learned optimism techniques to improve our chances of winning, while still working to improve our rationality?
That is, can we employ learned optimism techniques to improve our chances of winning, while still working to improve our rationality?
If you expand “rationality” to mean “improving our chances of winning”, you’ll notice that you just asked “can we improve our chances of winning while working to improve our improving our chances of winning?”
To which I would say, “I should certainly hope so.” ;-)
That having been said, I’ve in the last few months decided that the direct concept of learned optimism is bunk. Or more precisely, it’s based on an error in reasoning.
Specifically, reversed stupidity is not necessarily intelligence, and reversed learned helplessness is not necessarily healthy confidence. Also, just because confident people produce certain patterns in the output of their thinking, it does not necessarily mean that mimicking those outputs will produce the same internal states.
Yes, Seligman has some research on those points. However, his training methods call for essentially rote repetition of thought disputation until something “clicks” for you; AFAICT, there is no way to predict just how much disputation you will have to do in order to actually change your inner experience. In effect, there is a faith-based exhortation that sufficient repetition will bring about changes.
In contrast, I’ve found that by focusing on removing learned helplessness instead, the click to positivity is natural. I (and others) automatically begin seeing the positives in an area of action that was previously restricted. And instead of having to continually have the negative thoughts arise in order to be disputed, getting rid of the helplessness simply switches off the negative thoughts in that context, from that point forward.
I contend, therefore, that “learned optimism” is a nonentity, as optimism and confidence are the natural state. Helplessness can be learned and unlearned, and must be unlearned in order to experience actual optimism or confidence. Practicing optimism skills may eventually lead you to stumble on an unlearning of some bits of your helplessness, or not. But directing your attention to identifying and removing the specific bits of helplessness pays off in a much more predictable and permanent fashion.
My “good future prospects” definitely covers your “anticipation of a result”.
Good point; I just was using a slightly different meaning of “anticipation” than the one implied by the context of, “grounded in reality—caused by perceiving … good future prospects”.
In that sense of “anticipation”, the mental activity is passive—perceiving that something good is already going to happen, by projecting from current circumstances.
In the sense I meant, the activity is active—you intentionally create a sense of anticipation for something that has no “grounding in reality” and is not “caused by perceiving”. (Indeed, in the ideal case, it is entirely ungrounded in current perceptual reality, so as to be based solely upon one’s intentions.)
I like your responses in this thread. I’m going to comment on the one thing that bothered me:
In particular, if “times are tough”, the worst thing you can possibly do is feel bad about it, since that is creating a positive feedback loop of negative expectation.
That’s appealing, but a little facile.
If times are tough, perhaps a negative enough feeling about them will encourage me to pursue drastic change or effort. Naturally, I should feel good in anticipation of my work beginning to pay off.
If times are tough, perhaps a negative enough feeling about them will encourage me to pursue drastic change or effort.
As soon as you’ve felt bad long enough to notice there’s a problem, the emotion ceases to provide you with any new information.
And the more complex or stressful the course of action required to change the circumstances, the more counterproductive a continuing negative emotion will likely be.
Essentially, our negative emotion systems were evolved to handle short-term emergencies (e.g. being stalked or chased by a predator) and seasonal-or-longer resource pressures like food shortages. These kinds of situations either require immediate but short term action, or else a passive strategy of energy conservation, resource hoarding, and risk-avoidance.
So, if the thing you’re feeling bad about isn’t an immediate emergency, or won’t be helped by passive inaction, a negative emotion will hurt more than it helps. (And most people’s goals, most of the time, aren’t helped by passive inaction!)
The “but maybe negative feelings will motivate me” idea is just plain wrong, in precisely the same way that “but death is a natural part of life” is wrong. It’s socially-cached sour grapes.
People think negative emotion makes sense because a person who holds power over you can get you to do things with it. But there’s still a high cost to your effectiveness in that case (narrowed focus, lower creativity, greater stress, etc.), and if you try to apply it to yourself, it has some rather nasty failure modes.
(Worse, sometimes, these negative motivations can be stealthy; i.e., you don’t really realize that the “carrot” you’re dangling for yourself is just a stick in disguise. Hence my saying that “what pushes you forward, holds you back”—i.e. anything you use to try to get yourself to do something, is a disguised “stick”. Positive motivation doesn’t feel like you’re trying to motivate yourself at all—you just are motivated.)
As soon as you’ve felt bad long enough to notice there’s a problem, the emotion ceases to provide you with any new information.
I absolutely agree, provided that you also roughly apprehend the problem’s relative importance to your happiness. Not all problems can be solved at once.
our negative emotion systems were evolved to handle short-term emergencies (e.g. being stalked or chased by a predator) [or famine reaction]
Plausible, but be careful—Caveman stories are ripe for mockery (see “Paleo” diet/fitness). But to put it in Caveman Bob terms—as I mentioned before, mounting unhappiness with a situation may be the only thing enabling a risky decision, like looking for food in a new area, or attacking a rival.
“but maybe negative feelings will motivate me” idea is just plain wrong … It’s socially-cached sour grapes.
Negative feelings about my long-term situation do motivate me—not directly (like they would if they were in response to some immediately addressable threat), but in giving me a reason to plan/think about changing things. I readily admit that I wish to experience fewer negative feelings. So for me there are no sour grapes. I’m 100% behind reducing pointless discomfort. Maybe what you say is so for most people; I agree that such sentiments as “maybe we need death so we can appreciate life” are just as you say, suspiciously convenient and without sound basis.
Negative feelings about my long-term situation do motivate me—not directly (like they would if they were in response to some immediately addressable threat), but in giving me a reason to plan/think about changing things.
Sure—but “plan/think about” changing things is not the same thing as actually taking positive action on a consistent basis. Otherwise, we’d all be skinny rich supermodels, just by worrying about our weight, money, or looks. ;-)
That’s my main point here. Negative emotions don’t provide much utility for the action part, even if they do promote thinking. Seth Roberts suggests that one function of negative emotions is a relative increase in thinking and observation, and it does indeed make sense. You just have to remember to switch to positive anticipation as soon as possible, by deciding what you want to change the situation to.
Plausible, but be careful—Caveman stories are ripe for mockery (see “Paleo” diet/fitness).
Notice that my hypothesis is actually a negative one—I’m saying that there’s no evolutionary basis for a long-term action motivation system based on negative emotions. Can you point to an evolutionary pressure that would create such a thing?
But to put it in Caveman Bob terms—as I mentioned before, mounting unhappiness with a situation may be the only thing enabling a risky decision, like looking for food in a new area, or attacking a rival.
Neither of which is a course of action that requires sustained motivation in the face of opposition. Either your attack succeeds or fails, and the only reason you’re looking for food elsewhere is that there’s none here. IOW, nothing needing willpower to continue at.
Again, the thrust of my argument here is that negative emotions are not a viable anti-akrasia tool; they’re vastly more likely to be a source of akrasia than a cure for it, except in cases where you can distort the problem into the form of an urgent/emergency situation, or an ongoing resource shortage.
(Some people do one or both of these things all the time, but it’s not good for their physical or mental health, and there are many problems that can’t be abused into one of those shapes.)
This is a misunderstanding of an important function of positive feelings, which is to motivate positive action, in anticipation of a result. Many outcomes can only be achieved by having the feeling in advance, that you can only expect “grounding” for afterwards.
In particular, if “times are tough”, the worst thing you can possibly do is feel bad about it, since that is creating a positive feedback loop of negative expectation.
Feelings are intended to prepare current behavior in expectation of future outcomes; if you feel bad, your brain thinks you need to prepare for a negative outcome, and vice versa. The catch is that (at least at human-scale intelligence), these expectations have a significant self-fulfilling aspect.
I’m curious about how “learned optimism” or similar ideas fit into aspiring rationality. I’m somewhat nervous that learned optimism seems like ignoring reality – for example, say you lost your job due to poor performance, but you attribute it to some external factor, either due to your natural reaction, or through applying learned optimism techniques. My understanding is that the literature suggests that such a mindset will generally lead to better life outcomes, but how does it fit in with aspiring rationality?
That is, can we employ learned optimism techniques to improve our chances of winning, while still working to improve our rationality?
If you expand “rationality” to mean “improving our chances of winning”, you’ll notice that you just asked “can we improve our chances of winning while working to improve our improving our chances of winning?”
To which I would say, “I should certainly hope so.” ;-)
That having been said, I’ve in the last few months decided that the direct concept of learned optimism is bunk. Or more precisely, it’s based on an error in reasoning.
Specifically, reversed stupidity is not necessarily intelligence, and reversed learned helplessness is not necessarily healthy confidence. Also, just because confident people produce certain patterns in the output of their thinking, it does not necessarily mean that mimicking those outputs will produce the same internal states.
Yes, Seligman has some research on those points. However, his training methods call for essentially rote repetition of thought disputation until something “clicks” for you; AFAICT, there is no way to predict just how much disputation you will have to do in order to actually change your inner experience. In effect, there is a faith-based exhortation that sufficient repetition will bring about changes.
In contrast, I’ve found that by focusing on removing learned helplessness instead, the click to positivity is natural. I (and others) automatically begin seeing the positives in an area of action that was previously restricted. And instead of having to continually have the negative thoughts arise in order to be disputed, getting rid of the helplessness simply switches off the negative thoughts in that context, from that point forward.
I contend, therefore, that “learned optimism” is a nonentity, as optimism and confidence are the natural state. Helplessness can be learned and unlearned, and must be unlearned in order to experience actual optimism or confidence. Practicing optimism skills may eventually lead you to stumble on an unlearning of some bits of your helplessness, or not. But directing your attention to identifying and removing the specific bits of helplessness pays off in a much more predictable and permanent fashion.
(tl;dr: optimism good, learned optimism conceptually flawed, eliminate learned helplessness ftw.)
My “good future prospects” definitely covers your “anticipation of a result”.
Good point; I just was using a slightly different meaning of “anticipation” than the one implied by the context of, “grounded in reality—caused by perceiving … good future prospects”.
In that sense of “anticipation”, the mental activity is passive—perceiving that something good is already going to happen, by projecting from current circumstances.
In the sense I meant, the activity is active—you intentionally create a sense of anticipation for something that has no “grounding in reality” and is not “caused by perceiving”. (Indeed, in the ideal case, it is entirely ungrounded in current perceptual reality, so as to be based solely upon one’s intentions.)
I like your responses in this thread. I’m going to comment on the one thing that bothered me:
That’s appealing, but a little facile.
If times are tough, perhaps a negative enough feeling about them will encourage me to pursue drastic change or effort. Naturally, I should feel good in anticipation of my work beginning to pay off.
As soon as you’ve felt bad long enough to notice there’s a problem, the emotion ceases to provide you with any new information.
And the more complex or stressful the course of action required to change the circumstances, the more counterproductive a continuing negative emotion will likely be.
Essentially, our negative emotion systems were evolved to handle short-term emergencies (e.g. being stalked or chased by a predator) and seasonal-or-longer resource pressures like food shortages. These kinds of situations either require immediate but short term action, or else a passive strategy of energy conservation, resource hoarding, and risk-avoidance.
So, if the thing you’re feeling bad about isn’t an immediate emergency, or won’t be helped by passive inaction, a negative emotion will hurt more than it helps. (And most people’s goals, most of the time, aren’t helped by passive inaction!)
The “but maybe negative feelings will motivate me” idea is just plain wrong, in precisely the same way that “but death is a natural part of life” is wrong. It’s socially-cached sour grapes.
People think negative emotion makes sense because a person who holds power over you can get you to do things with it. But there’s still a high cost to your effectiveness in that case (narrowed focus, lower creativity, greater stress, etc.), and if you try to apply it to yourself, it has some rather nasty failure modes.
(Worse, sometimes, these negative motivations can be stealthy; i.e., you don’t really realize that the “carrot” you’re dangling for yourself is just a stick in disguise. Hence my saying that “what pushes you forward, holds you back”—i.e. anything you use to try to get yourself to do something, is a disguised “stick”. Positive motivation doesn’t feel like you’re trying to motivate yourself at all—you just are motivated.)
I absolutely agree, provided that you also roughly apprehend the problem’s relative importance to your happiness. Not all problems can be solved at once.
Plausible, but be careful—Caveman stories are ripe for mockery (see “Paleo” diet/fitness). But to put it in Caveman Bob terms—as I mentioned before, mounting unhappiness with a situation may be the only thing enabling a risky decision, like looking for food in a new area, or attacking a rival.
Negative feelings about my long-term situation do motivate me—not directly (like they would if they were in response to some immediately addressable threat), but in giving me a reason to plan/think about changing things. I readily admit that I wish to experience fewer negative feelings. So for me there are no sour grapes. I’m 100% behind reducing pointless discomfort. Maybe what you say is so for most people; I agree that such sentiments as “maybe we need death so we can appreciate life” are just as you say, suspiciously convenient and without sound basis.
Sure—but “plan/think about” changing things is not the same thing as actually taking positive action on a consistent basis. Otherwise, we’d all be skinny rich supermodels, just by worrying about our weight, money, or looks. ;-)
That’s my main point here. Negative emotions don’t provide much utility for the action part, even if they do promote thinking. Seth Roberts suggests that one function of negative emotions is a relative increase in thinking and observation, and it does indeed make sense. You just have to remember to switch to positive anticipation as soon as possible, by deciding what you want to change the situation to.
Notice that my hypothesis is actually a negative one—I’m saying that there’s no evolutionary basis for a long-term action motivation system based on negative emotions. Can you point to an evolutionary pressure that would create such a thing?
Neither of which is a course of action that requires sustained motivation in the face of opposition. Either your attack succeeds or fails, and the only reason you’re looking for food elsewhere is that there’s none here. IOW, nothing needing willpower to continue at.
Again, the thrust of my argument here is that negative emotions are not a viable anti-akrasia tool; they’re vastly more likely to be a source of akrasia than a cure for it, except in cases where you can distort the problem into the form of an urgent/emergency situation, or an ongoing resource shortage.
(Some people do one or both of these things all the time, but it’s not good for their physical or mental health, and there are many problems that can’t be abused into one of those shapes.)