This article made me realize that perhaps our theory of mind is actually quite bad. I mean, not as bad as believing that we are actually talking to gods—obviously we made some progress there—but probably still containing many flawed assumptions that perhaps people 100 or 200 years later will laugh at. The parts related to self-control are plausible candidates for “lol, look what the silly humans of the 21st century actually believed!”
It definitely makes sense to distinguish between people using “classic self-control” (I love that phrase!) and people who are not tempted at all. The outcome may seem similar—both refrain from doing something harmful—but from inside, their mental situation is completely different; the former suffers, the latter barely notices the possibility. If you had a choice, you would most likely prefer to be in the latter situation. If only you knew how...
Then there is a difference between negative motivation “I don’t want X”, and positive motivation, which probably needs to go beyond “I want non-X” (which still seems like the negative motivation with a positive spin) into “I want Y” (where Y is a desirable thing that happens to be incompatible with X). I would expect people wanting “Y” to succeed more often than people who want “non-X”. You do not run marathon because you want to be fit. You run marathon because you want to win at marathon! Being fit comes as a side effect. (Even if you have no realistic chance to win the marathon, it seems to me that imagining a great goal still gives you more motivation than aiming to be mediocre. But maybe this is just about me.)
Then there are the habits and mental habits, which are important to set up right, and overcoming trivial inconveniences. (I don’t like involving other people, because that feels like codependency. But for some people it seems to work.)
So it seems to me that helping someone gain greater self-control would require a quite complex intervention: psychotherapy, setting life goals, observing their daily environment… Each of these, done separately, has a chance to miss the actual obstacle.
Agreed that people’s internal mental states can be wildly different even while their external behavior is about the same. Yet there is a temptation to assume that similar external behavior implies similar mental states.
This article made me realize that perhaps our theory of mind is actually quite bad. I mean, not as bad as believing that we are actually talking to gods—obviously we made some progress there—but probably still containing many flawed assumptions that perhaps people 100 or 200 years later will laugh at. The parts related to self-control are plausible candidates for “lol, look what the silly humans of the 21st century actually believed!”
It definitely makes sense to distinguish between people using “classic self-control” (I love that phrase!) and people who are not tempted at all. The outcome may seem similar—both refrain from doing something harmful—but from inside, their mental situation is completely different; the former suffers, the latter barely notices the possibility. If you had a choice, you would most likely prefer to be in the latter situation. If only you knew how...
Then there is a difference between negative motivation “I don’t want X”, and positive motivation, which probably needs to go beyond “I want non-X” (which still seems like the negative motivation with a positive spin) into “I want Y” (where Y is a desirable thing that happens to be incompatible with X). I would expect people wanting “Y” to succeed more often than people who want “non-X”. You do not run marathon because you want to be fit. You run marathon because you want to win at marathon! Being fit comes as a side effect. (Even if you have no realistic chance to win the marathon, it seems to me that imagining a great goal still gives you more motivation than aiming to be mediocre. But maybe this is just about me.)
Then there are the habits and mental habits, which are important to set up right, and overcoming trivial inconveniences. (I don’t like involving other people, because that feels like codependency. But for some people it seems to work.)
So it seems to me that helping someone gain greater self-control would require a quite complex intervention: psychotherapy, setting life goals, observing their daily environment… Each of these, done separately, has a chance to miss the actual obstacle.
Agreed that people’s internal mental states can be wildly different even while their external behavior is about the same. Yet there is a temptation to assume that similar external behavior implies similar mental states.