The Seven Deadly Sins I believe are a helpful way to categorize certain qualities in ourselves that lead to being unsuccessful in one way or another. But with that in mind, I would like to emphasize that while many of our failings might be correlated with these vices, the categorization of the Seven Deadly Sins is not the most scientifically sophisticated method for self-analysis and correction. The concept of Seven Deadly Sins is not by itself prediction of future events nor a corrective regimen. The most common reasons people behave against their own interest is not that they have these seven deadly sins floating inside their minds, but that their impressions of the world are mistaken in some way and they repeatedly react to real-life-situations with anger, envy, sloth. It’s these maladaptive impressions or schemas that cause repeated self-defeating emotional and cognitive patterns.
A schema is pervasive pattern of memories, emotions, and cognitions regarding oneself and others developed during adolescence and elaborated throughout one’s lifetime. When these schemas get triggered by normal daily events and decisions we react in one of three ways: Acceptance of the Schema, Avoidance of the situation, or Overcompensation. In this model there are 18 maladaptive schemas and three ways to react.
Excessive feeling of guilt are counted as a sin in the Christian tradition. It is called ‘scrupulosity’ and considered an aspect of pride. But in cognitive psychology feelings of guilt may be part of a larger Defectiveness Schema or Failure Schema or Self-Sacrifice Schema.
The Seven Deadly Sins are part of a larger Christian system of virtues and vices and procedures for increasing the virtues and decreasing the deleterious effects of the vices. In order for something to really be a sin you need to know it’s a sin and that it matters and intend it nonetheless. That’s three levels. Medieval Christianity makes a useful distinction between grave sins and minor sins. So totally negligent stupidity by failing to live up to your intellectual potential through heavy use of drugs and purposeful rejection of learning would be grave, but a stupid mistake or failing to realize your wife needs some help with the laundry would be a minor sin at most. Through the process of sin taxonomy you know where you stand in relation to the goal. The ultimate goal of the Christian is to increase in charity and contemplation of truths. (Goal difference matters tremendously in assessing a system, and remember the system will never be able to account for these goals by itself!)
The Se7en model does not provide a multi-layered insight of how these sins have taken hold on us. How am I continually f*cking up? This is an important question; Se7en provides only a partial answer. It provides a system for classifying our sins and noticing situations where we find ourselves engaging in this poor behavior, but it doesn’t offer much more advice than Stoic self-restraint/ grit and avoidance of those situations. The the clinical psychologist goes a step further and provides an overarching narrative to give a better understanding of how/why our failings and behavioral patterns are looping. This method provides more predicative power and more empirically testable hypotheses about how we got to this point than a taxonomy of previous incidents (a purely theoretical model) can provide.
Therapy (self-administered or professionally) tackles large systematic problems before tackling tiny failings (which are unpredictable or symptomatic). Tiny failings are much easier to overcome when our vision of ourselves and the world is closer to reality.
Further Reading: Schema Therapy by Jeff Young, The Screwtape Letters by Lewis, Reinventing Your Life by Jeff Young, The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. I believe these all provide insights into human frailty, something we all wish to overcome!
TL;DL The Seven Deadly Sins might be a useful taxonomy, but it is limited having little predictive power and no falsifiable hypotheses.
BTW, the Less Wrong posters are known for their insatiable lust.
The Seven Deadly Sins I believe are a helpful way to categorize certain qualities in ourselves that lead to being unsuccessful in one way or another. But with that in mind, I would like to emphasize that while many of our failings might be correlated with these vices, the categorization of the Seven Deadly Sins is not the most scientifically sophisticated method for self-analysis and correction. The concept of Seven Deadly Sins is not by itself prediction of future events nor a corrective regimen. The most common reasons people behave against their own interest is not that they have these seven deadly sins floating inside their minds, but that their impressions of the world are mistaken in some way and they repeatedly react to real-life-situations with anger, envy, sloth. It’s these maladaptive impressions or schemas that cause repeated self-defeating emotional and cognitive patterns.
A schema is pervasive pattern of memories, emotions, and cognitions regarding oneself and others developed during adolescence and elaborated throughout one’s lifetime. When these schemas get triggered by normal daily events and decisions we react in one of three ways: Acceptance of the Schema, Avoidance of the situation, or Overcompensation. In this model there are 18 maladaptive schemas and three ways to react.
Excessive feeling of guilt are counted as a sin in the Christian tradition. It is called ‘scrupulosity’ and considered an aspect of pride. But in cognitive psychology feelings of guilt may be part of a larger Defectiveness Schema or Failure Schema or Self-Sacrifice Schema.
The Seven Deadly Sins are part of a larger Christian system of virtues and vices and procedures for increasing the virtues and decreasing the deleterious effects of the vices. In order for something to really be a sin you need to know it’s a sin and that it matters and intend it nonetheless. That’s three levels. Medieval Christianity makes a useful distinction between grave sins and minor sins. So totally negligent stupidity by failing to live up to your intellectual potential through heavy use of drugs and purposeful rejection of learning would be grave, but a stupid mistake or failing to realize your wife needs some help with the laundry would be a minor sin at most. Through the process of sin taxonomy you know where you stand in relation to the goal. The ultimate goal of the Christian is to increase in charity and contemplation of truths. (Goal difference matters tremendously in assessing a system, and remember the system will never be able to account for these goals by itself!)
The Se7en model does not provide a multi-layered insight of how these sins have taken hold on us. How am I continually f*cking up? This is an important question; Se7en provides only a partial answer. It provides a system for classifying our sins and noticing situations where we find ourselves engaging in this poor behavior, but it doesn’t offer much more advice than Stoic self-restraint/ grit and avoidance of those situations. The the clinical psychologist goes a step further and provides an overarching narrative to give a better understanding of how/why our failings and behavioral patterns are looping. This method provides more predicative power and more empirically testable hypotheses about how we got to this point than a taxonomy of previous incidents (a purely theoretical model) can provide.
Therapy (self-administered or professionally) tackles large systematic problems before tackling tiny failings (which are unpredictable or symptomatic). Tiny failings are much easier to overcome when our vision of ourselves and the world is closer to reality.
Further Reading: Schema Therapy by Jeff Young, The Screwtape Letters by Lewis, Reinventing Your Life by Jeff Young, The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. I believe these all provide insights into human frailty, something we all wish to overcome!
TL;DL The Seven Deadly Sins might be a useful taxonomy, but it is limited having little predictive power and no falsifiable hypotheses.
BTW, the Less Wrong posters are known for their insatiable lust.