Most long-lasting negative emotions and moods exist solely for social signaling purposes, without any direct benefit to the one experiencing them. (Even when it’s in private with nobody else around.)
Feeling these emotions is reinforcing (in the learning sense), such that it can be vastly more immediately rewarding (in the dopamine/motivation sense) to stew in a funk criticizing one’s self, than ever actually doing anything.
And an awful lot of chronic akrasia is just the above: huffing self-signaling fumes that say “I can’t” or “I have to” or “I suck”.
This lets us pretend we are in the process of virtuously overcoming our problems through willpower or cleverness, such that we don’t have to pay any real attention to the parts of ourselves that we think “can’t” or “have to” or “suck”… because those are the parts we disapprove of and are trying to signal ourselves “better than” in the first place.
In other words, fighting one’s self is not a way out of this loop, it’s the energy source that powers the loop.
(Disclaimer: this is not an argument that no other kinds of akrasia exist, btw—this is just about the kind that manifests as lots of struggling with mood spirals or self-judgment and attempts at self-coercion. Also, bad moods can exist for purely “hardware” reasons, like S.A.D., poor nutrition, sleep, etc. etc.; this is about the ones that aren’t that.)
I had a personal experience that strongly suggests that this is at least partially true.
I had a mountaineering trip in a remote location that went off the rails pretty badly — it was turning into a classical “how someone dies in the woods” story. There was a road closure some miles ahead of where I was supposed to drive, I hiked an extra 8 miles in, missed the correct trail, tried to take a shortcut, etc etc—it got ugly.
I felt an almost complete lack of distress or self-pity the entire time. I was just very focused methodically on orienting around my maps and GPS and getting through the next point.
I was surprised at how little negative internal discourse or negative emotions I felt. So, n=1 here, but it was very informative for me.
I think there is a lot of truth to this, but I do not quite agree.
Most long-lasting negative emotions and moods exist solely for social signaling purposes
feels a bit off to me. I think I would agree with an alternate version “most long-lasting negative emotions and moods are caused by our social cognition” (I am not perfectly happy with this formulation).
In my mind the difference is that “for signalling purposes” contains an aspect of a voluntary decision (and thus blame-worthiness for the consequences), whereas my model of this dynamic is closer to “humans are kind of hard-wired to seek high-calorie food which can lead to health problems if food is in abundance”. I guess many rationalists are already sufficiently aware that much of human decision-making (necessarily) is barely conscious. But I think that especially when dealing with this topic of social cognition and self-image it is important to emphasize that some very painful failure modes are bundled with being human and that, while we should take agency in avoiding/overcoming them, we do not have the ability to choose our starting point.
On a different note: This Ezra Klein Show interview with Rachel Aviv has impressive examples of how influential culture/memes can be for mental (and even physical) illnesses and also how difficult it is to culturally deal with this.
In my mind the difference is that “for signalling purposes” contains an aspect of a voluntary decision (and thus blame-worthiness for the consequences),
I was attributing the purpose to our brain/genes, not our selves. i.e., the ability to have such moods is a hardwired adaptation to support (sincere-and-not-consciously-planned) social signaling.
It’s not entirely divorced from consciousness, though, since you can realize you’re doing it and convince the machinery that it’s no longer of any benefit to keep doing it in response to a given trigger.
So it’s not 100% involuntary, it’s just a bit indirect, like the way we can’t consciously control blood pressure but can change our breathing or meditate or whatever and affect it that way.
alternate version “most long-lasting negative emotions and moods are caused by our social cognition”
That phrasing seems to prompt a response of “So?” or “Yes, and?” It certainly wouldn’t qualify as a fact most people aren’t ready to accept. ;-)
This would explain the therapeutic effectiveness of being heard by other people, even (especially?) if they basically do nothing (e.g. Rogerian therapy).
From the signalling perspective, “listening and repeating” is not a null action. It actually means a lot! It means that your thoughts / concerns / attempts to solve your problems are socially acceptable.
As opposed to not having anyone to listen to you (without a dismissive reaction), which means that your thoughts / concerns / attempts to solve your problems are socially irrelevant or straight unacceptable.
That’s not really therapeutic, except maybe insofar as it produces a more rewarding high than doing it by yourself. (Which is not really a benefit in terms of the overall system.)
To the extent it’s useful, it’s the part where evidence is provided that other people can know them and not be disgusted by whatever their perceived flaws are. But as per the problem of trapped priors, this doesn’t always cause people to update, so individual results are not guaranteed.
The thing that actually fixes it is updates on one’s rules regarding what forms, evidence, or conditions that currently lead to self-hatred should lead to being worthy of self-approval instead. Some people can do this themselves with lightweight support from another person, but quite a lot will never even get close to working on the actual thing that needs changing, without more-targeted support than just empathic listening or Rogerian reflection.
(As they are Instead working on how to make themselves perfect enough to avoid even the theoretical possibility of future self-hatred—an impossible quest. It’s not made any easier by the fact that our brains tend to take every opportunity they can to turn intentions like “work on changing my rules for approving of myself” into actions more suited for “work on better conforming to my existing rules and/or proving to others I have so conformed”.)
Most long-lasting negative emotions and moods exist solely for social signaling purposes, without any direct benefit to the one experiencing them. (Even when it’s in private with nobody else around.)
Feeling these emotions is reinforcing (in the learning sense), such that it can be vastly more immediately rewarding (in the dopamine/motivation sense) to stew in a funk criticizing one’s self, than ever actually doing anything.
And an awful lot of chronic akrasia is just the above: huffing self-signaling fumes that say “I can’t” or “I have to” or “I suck”.
This lets us pretend we are in the process of virtuously overcoming our problems through willpower or cleverness, such that we don’t have to pay any real attention to the parts of ourselves that we think “can’t” or “have to” or “suck”… because those are the parts we disapprove of and are trying to signal ourselves “better than” in the first place.
In other words, fighting one’s self is not a way out of this loop, it’s the energy source that powers the loop.
(Disclaimer: this is not an argument that no other kinds of akrasia exist, btw—this is just about the kind that manifests as lots of struggling with mood spirals or self-judgment and attempts at self-coercion. Also, bad moods can exist for purely “hardware” reasons, like S.A.D., poor nutrition, sleep, etc. etc.; this is about the ones that aren’t that.)
I had a personal experience that strongly suggests that this is at least partially true.
I had a mountaineering trip in a remote location that went off the rails pretty badly — it was turning into a classical “how someone dies in the woods” story. There was a road closure some miles ahead of where I was supposed to drive, I hiked an extra 8 miles in, missed the correct trail, tried to take a shortcut, etc etc—it got ugly.
I felt an almost complete lack of distress or self-pity the entire time. I was just very focused methodically on orienting around my maps and GPS and getting through the next point.
I was surprised at how little negative internal discourse or negative emotions I felt. So, n=1 here, but it was very informative for me.
I think there is a lot of truth to this, but I do not quite agree.
feels a bit off to me. I think I would agree with an alternate version “most long-lasting negative emotions and moods are caused by our social cognition” (I am not perfectly happy with this formulation).
In my mind the difference is that “for signalling purposes” contains an aspect of a voluntary decision (and thus blame-worthiness for the consequences), whereas my model of this dynamic is closer to “humans are kind of hard-wired to seek high-calorie food which can lead to health problems if food is in abundance”. I guess many rationalists are already sufficiently aware that much of human decision-making (necessarily) is barely conscious. But I think that especially when dealing with this topic of social cognition and self-image it is important to emphasize that some very painful failure modes are bundled with being human and that, while we should take agency in avoiding/overcoming them, we do not have the ability to choose our starting point.
On a different note:
This Ezra Klein Show interview with Rachel Aviv has impressive examples of how influential culture/memes can be for mental (and even physical) illnesses and also how difficult it is to culturally deal with this.
I was attributing the purpose to our brain/genes, not our selves. i.e., the ability to have such moods is a hardwired adaptation to support (sincere-and-not-consciously-planned) social signaling.
It’s not entirely divorced from consciousness, though, since you can realize you’re doing it and convince the machinery that it’s no longer of any benefit to keep doing it in response to a given trigger.
So it’s not 100% involuntary, it’s just a bit indirect, like the way we can’t consciously control blood pressure but can change our breathing or meditate or whatever and affect it that way.
That phrasing seems to prompt a response of “So?” or “Yes, and?” It certainly wouldn’t qualify as a fact most people aren’t ready to accept. ;-)
This time, I agree fully :)
This would explain the therapeutic effectiveness of being heard by other people, even (especially?) if they basically do nothing (e.g. Rogerian therapy).
From the signalling perspective, “listening and repeating” is not a null action. It actually means a lot! It means that your thoughts / concerns / attempts to solve your problems are socially acceptable.
As opposed to not having anyone to listen to you (without a dismissive reaction), which means that your thoughts / concerns / attempts to solve your problems are socially irrelevant or straight unacceptable.
That’s not really therapeutic, except maybe insofar as it produces a more rewarding high than doing it by yourself. (Which is not really a benefit in terms of the overall system.)
To the extent it’s useful, it’s the part where evidence is provided that other people can know them and not be disgusted by whatever their perceived flaws are. But as per the problem of trapped priors, this doesn’t always cause people to update, so individual results are not guaranteed.
The thing that actually fixes it is updates on one’s rules regarding what forms, evidence, or conditions that currently lead to self-hatred should lead to being worthy of self-approval instead. Some people can do this themselves with lightweight support from another person, but quite a lot will never even get close to working on the actual thing that needs changing, without more-targeted support than just empathic listening or Rogerian reflection.
(As they are Instead working on how to make themselves perfect enough to avoid even the theoretical possibility of future self-hatred—an impossible quest. It’s not made any easier by the fact that our brains tend to take every opportunity they can to turn intentions like “work on changing my rules for approving of myself” into actions more suited for “work on better conforming to my existing rules and/or proving to others I have so conformed”.)
sucks when you’ve got this and also an illness