This would be great next year, when I take my gap year between high-school and uni. Although I must say, just seeing the results will be amazing in itself—I can’t wait until you release the details of the games and such you used, and how well they worked. (I’m taking from your previous replies to comments that you intend on this, for now at least.)
Are there age limits? I saw on the application it asks about degrees, employment etc… which, as a 16-year-old, I don’t have yet. But I think I could really benefit from this if it’s still running in 2012.
I’m not going to say this is a brilliant idea, because I’m sure it’s not original at all—but actually doing something about it, bringing this to life—that’s brilliant. I’m sure it takes a hell of a lot of planning, effort and money: so thank you.
I’m really hoping this is the start of something that will grow, because the sense of pure awesome that filled me when I read it is something I don’t want to have to fall down.
Oh, side note, I had to go and look up ‘rejection therapy’ - it sounded iffy. After researching, it sounds scary and iffy. Has anyone here tried it before?
I don’t particularly like the rejection therapy thing. I see what the idea for social skills would be, but since the thing involves strangers, it’s no longer about just the person doing it, and like you say it would be obnoxious if a large fraction of people were actively doing it. I’d probably give a free pass to anyone categorically refusing to do the exercise themselves based on that, but wouldn’t go as far as to say people actually shouldn’t do the thing at all.
These sort of categorical imperative / game theoretic things where you can get a positive sum advantageous outcome (as opposed to stuff like shoplifting which a few people can get away with, but which is zero or negative sum and therefore much more obviously undesirable) for yourself for doing something that wouldn’t work very well if everyone was doing it are tricky, since in practice only a few people will be doing the thing. The impression I’ve gotten of Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week thing is that it’s mostly composed of stuff like that. People also don’t tend to like it because it comes off as iffy.
The particular iffiness in rejection therapy is probably the way how it goes blatantly against the convention that people should express themselves genuinely in random social interactions. Trashing unspoken social contract in the name of self-empowerment therapy sounds like a good recipe for resentment.
Based on what little research I did, there seems to be a lot of variation in how iffy it looks. Some models of rejection therapy would probably help me, others look pointless or counter productive. So essentially… good thing they are giving a free test for their program.
Models? The only one I saw was basic ‘ask for things you think will be rejected’ - with a few extra bits like the 30-day-challenge and rejection cards. What different models did you find? And which do you think would work best?
Nothing very significant, but all of the additional rules I found seemed hard to justify. Just forcing myself to become comfortable asking for help from strangers seems harmless and should be beneficial however. I have already been doing something similar for a few weeks actually.
http://rejection.posterous.com/ - this is one person’s experience with it. I agree that sometimes it sounds iffy, but I think it’s useful for people who have that problem. When you say it sounds ‘scary’ do you mean scary to try or scary what could happen if everyone tried it?
By the way, you sound a lot smarter than the average 16-year-old. (I speak as one who also used to tell people online my age at the age of 16, in the hope I’d get such compliments :) )
I meant scary to try, although it would be terrible if everyone did it—what request could you trust they meant? I read a few of the blogs, and a common thread was when people unexpectedly said ‘yes’, the… what to call them?… wannabe rejectee would feel guilty for requiring them to go out of their way for something they didn’t really want. On the other hand, if you only ask for things you really want, it limits your options and usually has higher stakes.
Before my tangent gets too far lost, I’m bringing this up because I get way more guilty about things like that than the average, from what I’ve seen. It was a bigger problem when I was younger; I’d refrain from things that had a chance of being slightly inconvenient for someone—even if it was extremely inconvenient for me. I’m better about it now, have trained myself to feel less guilty (by literally catching myself when I am and considering it, then forcing it down), but it still shows through in many ways.
So I might benefit a lot from the program, but as I say it sounds like it could create scary situations—I deal well with more formal improv (theater sports, debating, chatting with close friends etc) but not with social situations I’m unfamiliar with, or with strangers/acquaintances. It also sounds a little new-age to me. I can see how it could work, but I can also see that it could compound fears through the uncomfortable situations, and that it could negatively effect relationships—seeing as for it to work best, they can’t know why you’re really asking.
Maybe it works for some and not others. I don’t know—I haven’t seen any research on it, just a few blogs (which are more likely to be written by those it worked for, I’d think). I’ll be interested to see how it works in the camp. It’ll be different there, though, with everyone knowing people are trying to get rejected. On that note, @Jasen: how are you going to work through that? Even if you make it ‘get rejected x amount of times during the whole camp’, people will be on the lookout for wannabe rejectees. It would be less ‘real-world’. And I’d think telling them ‘go ask that person for x’ would ruin the point of the exercise (as a buildup of willpower, confidence and social skill in self-motivated real-life situations).
In the end, despite all the above, I’d be interested in trying it out in a controlled situation like the camp—sure, I’d prefer it with nice research and such backing it, but I’d definitely be up for it anyway. And what other way are we gonna get those stats?
I know—that was a long explanation. I think I’m yes-no answer averse. ;-)
One of the most interesting and useful things that I noticed in my experience with exercises similar to rejection therapy were the frequency and variety of times that people responded in ways that I didn’t expect.
You mention feeling guilty for inconveniencing someone. What I noticed was that frequently I would be wrong about what people consider an inconvenience. Sometimes I would go up to someone and ask for something that I thought that at worst they’ll hate and at best they’ll be ambivalent about and I was completely surprised when that person was excited or interested in my suggestion. This really does happen and at first it is shocking. I think it’s actually had a pretty dramatic effect on how I look at and think about the world. This effect was not limited to strangers. This happened (possibly even more) with people I knew or were my friends.
I think one of the motivations for this exercise is to uncover these hidden win-win encounters. I was very surprised by how large the mismatch can be between what I expect the outcome to be and what it actually is.
I want to stress that I think it is important to ask for things that you are actually interested in. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, as described above, I was surprised by how often the answer was ‘yes’. If I didn’t ask for things I actually wanted then I just ended up inconveniencing and annoying myself. Secondly, the risk involved with asking for something that I actually wanted added immensely to the experience as an opportunity for personal growth.
I ended up learning that my picture of the world was just wrong and that I was missing a lot of opportunities that would be good for me and the people around me just because I was scared no one would care. Sometimes the best way to find out what people thought was to ask them.
Intelligence is notoriously hard to quantify, and I am slightly insulted by your generalization. Perhaps I know very unusual sixteen year olds, but I think maturity would be a better word to use in this context.
I would say as a rough guesstimate that intelligence as such (a vague concept admittedly) really has fully developed or close to fully developed in the early teen years. Knowledge keeps building.
But “smart”, which is the term Isaac used, colloquially is not limited to intelligence. For example the term “street smarts” refers entirely or almost entirely to knowledge, even to a kind of maturity, gained through a certain kind of experience.
Fluid and Crystallized intelligence (admittedly measured on IQ tests, which are not perfect to say the least) were both found to peak at age 26 by this study (for those who don’t know the distinction between the two types of intelligence, wikipedia explains it rather well). Fluid intelligence levels off between 16 and 18, increases slightly until the mid-twenties, then starts a slow, steady decline. Crystallized intelligence is similar, except it levels off in the early twenties, and decreases much more slowly, though the decrease still starts in the mid-twenties.
Interestingly, the intelligence of people on the lower bound levelled off earlier (by about two years) than that of those on the upper bound.
Are there age limits? I saw on the application it asks about degrees, employment etc… which, as a 16-year-old, I don’t have yet. But I think I could really benefit from this if it’s still running in 2012.
I suggest you send Jasen a quick email asking about it, but SIAI has taken teenagers on the visiting fellows scheme before.
This would be great next year, when I take my gap year between high-school and uni. Although I must say, just seeing the results will be amazing in itself—I can’t wait until you release the details of the games and such you used, and how well they worked. (I’m taking from your previous replies to comments that you intend on this, for now at least.)
Are there age limits? I saw on the application it asks about degrees, employment etc… which, as a 16-year-old, I don’t have yet. But I think I could really benefit from this if it’s still running in 2012.
I’m not going to say this is a brilliant idea, because I’m sure it’s not original at all—but actually doing something about it, bringing this to life—that’s brilliant. I’m sure it takes a hell of a lot of planning, effort and money: so thank you.
I’m really hoping this is the start of something that will grow, because the sense of pure awesome that filled me when I read it is something I don’t want to have to fall down.
Oh, side note, I had to go and look up ‘rejection therapy’ - it sounded iffy. After researching, it sounds scary and iffy. Has anyone here tried it before?
I don’t particularly like the rejection therapy thing. I see what the idea for social skills would be, but since the thing involves strangers, it’s no longer about just the person doing it, and like you say it would be obnoxious if a large fraction of people were actively doing it. I’d probably give a free pass to anyone categorically refusing to do the exercise themselves based on that, but wouldn’t go as far as to say people actually shouldn’t do the thing at all.
These sort of categorical imperative / game theoretic things where you can get a positive sum advantageous outcome (as opposed to stuff like shoplifting which a few people can get away with, but which is zero or negative sum and therefore much more obviously undesirable) for yourself for doing something that wouldn’t work very well if everyone was doing it are tricky, since in practice only a few people will be doing the thing. The impression I’ve gotten of Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week thing is that it’s mostly composed of stuff like that. People also don’t tend to like it because it comes off as iffy.
The particular iffiness in rejection therapy is probably the way how it goes blatantly against the convention that people should express themselves genuinely in random social interactions. Trashing unspoken social contract in the name of self-empowerment therapy sounds like a good recipe for resentment.
ETA: The ask vs guess culture thing is relevant here.
Based on what little research I did, there seems to be a lot of variation in how iffy it looks. Some models of rejection therapy would probably help me, others look pointless or counter productive. So essentially… good thing they are giving a free test for their program.
Models? The only one I saw was basic ‘ask for things you think will be rejected’ - with a few extra bits like the 30-day-challenge and rejection cards. What different models did you find? And which do you think would work best?
Nothing very significant, but all of the additional rules I found seemed hard to justify. Just forcing myself to become comfortable asking for help from strangers seems harmless and should be beneficial however. I have already been doing something similar for a few weeks actually.
http://rejection.posterous.com/ - this is one person’s experience with it. I agree that sometimes it sounds iffy, but I think it’s useful for people who have that problem. When you say it sounds ‘scary’ do you mean scary to try or scary what could happen if everyone tried it?
By the way, you sound a lot smarter than the average 16-year-old. (I speak as one who also used to tell people online my age at the age of 16, in the hope I’d get such compliments :) )
Haha, thanks Isaac.
I meant scary to try, although it would be terrible if everyone did it—what request could you trust they meant? I read a few of the blogs, and a common thread was when people unexpectedly said ‘yes’, the… what to call them?… wannabe rejectee would feel guilty for requiring them to go out of their way for something they didn’t really want. On the other hand, if you only ask for things you really want, it limits your options and usually has higher stakes.
Before my tangent gets too far lost, I’m bringing this up because I get way more guilty about things like that than the average, from what I’ve seen. It was a bigger problem when I was younger; I’d refrain from things that had a chance of being slightly inconvenient for someone—even if it was extremely inconvenient for me. I’m better about it now, have trained myself to feel less guilty (by literally catching myself when I am and considering it, then forcing it down), but it still shows through in many ways.
So I might benefit a lot from the program, but as I say it sounds like it could create scary situations—I deal well with more formal improv (theater sports, debating, chatting with close friends etc) but not with social situations I’m unfamiliar with, or with strangers/acquaintances. It also sounds a little new-age to me. I can see how it could work, but I can also see that it could compound fears through the uncomfortable situations, and that it could negatively effect relationships—seeing as for it to work best, they can’t know why you’re really asking.
Maybe it works for some and not others. I don’t know—I haven’t seen any research on it, just a few blogs (which are more likely to be written by those it worked for, I’d think). I’ll be interested to see how it works in the camp. It’ll be different there, though, with everyone knowing people are trying to get rejected. On that note, @Jasen: how are you going to work through that? Even if you make it ‘get rejected x amount of times during the whole camp’, people will be on the lookout for wannabe rejectees. It would be less ‘real-world’. And I’d think telling them ‘go ask that person for x’ would ruin the point of the exercise (as a buildup of willpower, confidence and social skill in self-motivated real-life situations).
In the end, despite all the above, I’d be interested in trying it out in a controlled situation like the camp—sure, I’d prefer it with nice research and such backing it, but I’d definitely be up for it anyway. And what other way are we gonna get those stats?
I know—that was a long explanation. I think I’m yes-no answer averse. ;-)
One of the most interesting and useful things that I noticed in my experience with exercises similar to rejection therapy were the frequency and variety of times that people responded in ways that I didn’t expect.
You mention feeling guilty for inconveniencing someone. What I noticed was that frequently I would be wrong about what people consider an inconvenience. Sometimes I would go up to someone and ask for something that I thought that at worst they’ll hate and at best they’ll be ambivalent about and I was completely surprised when that person was excited or interested in my suggestion. This really does happen and at first it is shocking. I think it’s actually had a pretty dramatic effect on how I look at and think about the world. This effect was not limited to strangers. This happened (possibly even more) with people I knew or were my friends.
I think one of the motivations for this exercise is to uncover these hidden win-win encounters. I was very surprised by how large the mismatch can be between what I expect the outcome to be and what it actually is.
I want to stress that I think it is important to ask for things that you are actually interested in. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, as described above, I was surprised by how often the answer was ‘yes’. If I didn’t ask for things I actually wanted then I just ended up inconveniencing and annoying myself. Secondly, the risk involved with asking for something that I actually wanted added immensely to the experience as an opportunity for personal growth.
I ended up learning that my picture of the world was just wrong and that I was missing a lot of opportunities that would be good for me and the people around me just because I was scared no one would care. Sometimes the best way to find out what people thought was to ask them.
Intelligence is notoriously hard to quantify, and I am slightly insulted by your generalization. Perhaps I know very unusual sixteen year olds, but I think maturity would be a better word to use in this context.
I would say as a rough guesstimate that intelligence as such (a vague concept admittedly) really has fully developed or close to fully developed in the early teen years. Knowledge keeps building.
But “smart”, which is the term Isaac used, colloquially is not limited to intelligence. For example the term “street smarts” refers entirely or almost entirely to knowledge, even to a kind of maturity, gained through a certain kind of experience.
Fluid and Crystallized intelligence (admittedly measured on IQ tests, which are not perfect to say the least) were both found to peak at age 26 by this study (for those who don’t know the distinction between the two types of intelligence, wikipedia explains it rather well). Fluid intelligence levels off between 16 and 18, increases slightly until the mid-twenties, then starts a slow, steady decline. Crystallized intelligence is similar, except it levels off in the early twenties, and decreases much more slowly, though the decrease still starts in the mid-twenties.
Interestingly, the intelligence of people on the lower bound levelled off earlier (by about two years) than that of those on the upper bound.
I suggest you send Jasen a quick email asking about it, but SIAI has taken teenagers on the visiting fellows scheme before.