Ego depletion. Well, the idea that self-control takes effort, and that the ability can be cultivated, goes back at least to the ancient Greeks, and I would be unsurprised to find it in all cultures everywhere throughout human history. It seems quite likely true.
I’m not sure what value experimental psychologists have added to this piece of universal folk psychology, because of general concerns like Ioannidis’ work and the extraordinarily parochial range of experimental subjects that a lot of experimental psychology uses. Ioannidis studied medical research, but psychological research has in principle all of the same hazards plus a few of its own: the WEIRD issue, and the fact that most of the entities studied do not have the same objective existence as those of medicine. You can exhibit someone’s liver, but not their “self-control”. I would be interested to see someone do for psychology what Ioannidis has done for medicine.
So, ego depletion, fine. Everyday phenomenon known to everyone. What of it? BTW, it’s curious that although the Wikipedia article begins by describing it as “a model that relates self-control to a muscle, which can become both strengthened and fatigued”, all of the experiments described there relate only to weakening. The strengthening part gets left out.
Since it’s costing me 5 karma per post to post down here, I’ll try and respond in advance to what I think your answer would be to my “What of it?”, not because I’m concerned about the karma, but because I agree with the norm of not prolonging downvoted discussions.
If someone is overwhelmed by a crisis, well, then, they are overwhelmed by a crisis. There is no point in telling them then that they could have dealt with it better had they been better prepared to handle such things. The time to become prepared is before the crisis. Soldiers are not trained by throwing them straight into battle with equipment they know nothing about.
And yet, that side of the ego depletion metaphor is little studied.
Annoyingly, this exchange feels like it’s starting to get somewhere interesting now.
My response to “what of it” would kind of along those lines, but rather than having some sort of binary state of crisis/not-crisis, there are ongoing areas or subjects in one’s life that are cognitively expensive to think about. These subjects might popularly be called “unresolved issues”, but that carries a lot of unnecessary connotations.
An especially banal personal example is a task I have to occasionally do at work, which involves dealing with a particularly counterintuitive data structure that we haven’t automated yet. It’s horrible to think about, and as a result I find it very draining to work with (cf. ego depletion), and this influences decisions I make regarding it. I avoid dealing with it even though it’s quite important, and my distress at dealing with it, coupled with its generally perverse structure, means I make a lot of mistakes when doing so.
If I had a good way of thinking about this data structure, it wouldn’t be so exhausting or unpleasant to work with. But the process of coming up with a good way of thinking about it is itself exhausting and unpleasant. This would be me “coming to terms with”, “working through”, “seeking closure” or “processing” the general problem of my evil data structure, but it’s laborious and nasty, so I can’t just do it. There’s a cost involved.
If you don’t acknowledge that cost (such as not believing in something like ego depletion, as some people don’t), it would be easy to say “just update already”, but updating isn’t free. It’s work, and that work can’t necessarily be carried out in one go.
FYI, your original post came across as exactly that sort of useless and obnoxious advice.
You have a point. But it’s not intended for advice to those in the middle of such things.
Can you indulge me in a data point? Do you believe ego depletion is describing a real phenomenon?
Ego depletion. Well, the idea that self-control takes effort, and that the ability can be cultivated, goes back at least to the ancient Greeks, and I would be unsurprised to find it in all cultures everywhere throughout human history. It seems quite likely true.
I’m not sure what value experimental psychologists have added to this piece of universal folk psychology, because of general concerns like Ioannidis’ work and the extraordinarily parochial range of experimental subjects that a lot of experimental psychology uses. Ioannidis studied medical research, but psychological research has in principle all of the same hazards plus a few of its own: the WEIRD issue, and the fact that most of the entities studied do not have the same objective existence as those of medicine. You can exhibit someone’s liver, but not their “self-control”. I would be interested to see someone do for psychology what Ioannidis has done for medicine.
So, ego depletion, fine. Everyday phenomenon known to everyone. What of it? BTW, it’s curious that although the Wikipedia article begins by describing it as “a model that relates self-control to a muscle, which can become both strengthened and fatigued”, all of the experiments described there relate only to weakening. The strengthening part gets left out.
Since it’s costing me 5 karma per post to post down here, I’ll try and respond in advance to what I think your answer would be to my “What of it?”, not because I’m concerned about the karma, but because I agree with the norm of not prolonging downvoted discussions.
If someone is overwhelmed by a crisis, well, then, they are overwhelmed by a crisis. There is no point in telling them then that they could have dealt with it better had they been better prepared to handle such things. The time to become prepared is before the crisis. Soldiers are not trained by throwing them straight into battle with equipment they know nothing about.
And yet, that side of the ego depletion metaphor is little studied.
Annoyingly, this exchange feels like it’s starting to get somewhere interesting now.
My response to “what of it” would kind of along those lines, but rather than having some sort of binary state of crisis/not-crisis, there are ongoing areas or subjects in one’s life that are cognitively expensive to think about. These subjects might popularly be called “unresolved issues”, but that carries a lot of unnecessary connotations.
An especially banal personal example is a task I have to occasionally do at work, which involves dealing with a particularly counterintuitive data structure that we haven’t automated yet. It’s horrible to think about, and as a result I find it very draining to work with (cf. ego depletion), and this influences decisions I make regarding it. I avoid dealing with it even though it’s quite important, and my distress at dealing with it, coupled with its generally perverse structure, means I make a lot of mistakes when doing so.
If I had a good way of thinking about this data structure, it wouldn’t be so exhausting or unpleasant to work with. But the process of coming up with a good way of thinking about it is itself exhausting and unpleasant. This would be me “coming to terms with”, “working through”, “seeking closure” or “processing” the general problem of my evil data structure, but it’s laborious and nasty, so I can’t just do it. There’s a cost involved.
If you don’t acknowledge that cost (such as not believing in something like ego depletion, as some people don’t), it would be easy to say “just update already”, but updating isn’t free. It’s work, and that work can’t necessarily be carried out in one go.