I really have seen multiple people (some of whom I significantly cared about) malfunctioning as a result of misinterpreting this point. As a stand-alone system for pulling your actions, urges have all kinds of problems. Urges can pull you to stare at an attractive stranger, to walk to the fridge, and even to sprint hard for first base when playing baseball. But unless coupled with goals and far-mode reasoning, urges will not pull you to the component tasks required for any longer-term goods. When I get into my car I have a definite urge for it not to be broken. But absent planning, there would never be a moment when the activity I most desired was to take my car for an oil change. To find and keep a job (let alone a good job), live in a non-pigsty, or learn any skills that are not immediately rewarding, you will probably need goals. Even though human goals can easily turn into fashion statements and wishful thinking.
I sort of run this way. Contrary to the description, though, I sometimes do get urges to clean, do laundry, etc. This usually occurs when I happen to be annoyed by the feel of dirt on my bare feet, or find my clothes hamper full, or some other stimulus triggers the behavior. Incidentally, I also am the one in my family who takes the cars for oil changes.
On the other hand, I also have no job. I have a hard time acting on anything that I don’t have an urge to do; fortunately or unfortunately, I also have parents to provide me with reasons to have urges to do things I wouldn’t otherwise have an urge to do. (This might also be why I once said I didn’t have an understanding of how people did things they didn’t feel like doing, because the process I use to decide what activity to do at any given moment seems to consist of weighing my various urges in order to figure out what it is that I “feel like” doing, and then doing it, which is a process that almost entirely relies on emotional/unconscious processes rather than conscious verbal reasoning.)
fortunately or unfortunately, I also have parents to provide me with reasons to have urges to do things I wouldn’t otherwise have an urge to do.
A good point.
Social incentives that directly incentivize the immediate steps toward long-term goals seem to be key to a surprisingly large portion of functional human behavior.
People acquire the habit of wearing seatbelts in part because parents’/friends’ approval incentivizes it; I don’t want to be the sort of person my mother would think reckless. (People are much worse at taking safety measures that are not thus backed up by social approval; e.g. driving white or light-colored cars reduces one’s total driving-related death risk by ord mag 20%, but this statistic does not spread, and many buy dark cars.)
People similarly bathe lest folks smell them, keep their houses clean lest company be horrified, stick to exercise plans and study and degree plans and retirement savings plans partly via friends’ approval, etc.; and are much worse at similar goals for which there are no societally cached social incentives for goal-steps. The key role social incentives play in much apparently long-term action of this is one reason people sometimes say “people do not really care about charity, their own health, their own jobs, etc.; all they care about is status”.
But contra Robin, the implication is not “humans only care about status, and so we pretend hypocritically to care about our own survival while really basically just caring about status”, the implication is “humans are pretty inept at acquiring urges to do the steps that will fulfill our later urges. We are also pretty inept at doing any steps we do not have a direct urge for. Thus, urges to e.g. survive, or live in a clean and pleasant house, or do anything else that requires many substeps… are often pretty powerless, unless accompanied by some kind of structure that can create immediate rewards for individual steps.
(People rarely exhibit long-term planning to acquire social status any more than we/they exhibit long-term planning to acquire health. E.g., most unhappily single folk do not systematically practice their social skills unless this is encouraged by their local social environment.)
(People rarely exhibit long-term planning to acquire social status any more than we/they exhibit long-term planning to acquire health. E.g., most unhappily single folk do not systematically practice their social skills unless this is encouraged by their local social environment.)
Is lack of social skills typically the factor that prevents unhappily single folk from finding relationships? Surely this is true in some cases but I would be surprised to learn that it’s generic.
People rarely exhibit long-term planning to acquire social status any more than we/they exhibit long-term planning to acquire health. E.g., most unhappily single folk do not systematically practice their social skills unless this is encouraged by their local social environment.
Long-term planning for status: Long-term education plans (e.g., law school or medical school)
For health: Controlling weight; regular medical check-ups
[I omit the last because I don’t understand what it means to “practice social skills.”]
You overstate the degree of goal-urge disconnect. Usually, when people ignore their professed goals, it’s a case of “approving of approving.” If goals were truly so disconnected from conduct as you imply (and have apparently convinced yourself is the case), they would serve little real function (except Hansonian signaling). You report that your friends came to grief by living by their urges alone, but if goals have minimal inherent power to guide conduct (that is, if they don’t tend spontaneously to recruit urges in their support), then we would all (or most of us) be living like your unfortunate friends, since most people don’t go through the self-help exercises of conscientiously attaching urges to goals.
A hypothesis better accounting for the facts is that we often don’t pursue our goals because our limited supply of will-power produces decision fatigue. We have to carefully focus our efforts and only pursue the goals most valuable at the margin. But that doesn’t mean we practically ignore our paramount goals.
I think I understand, sort of, but I haven’t actually changed my decision-making methods. I don’t even know how I would begin to go about doing that. Also, would changing my decision-making methods tend to increase or reduce urge-satisfaction?
I sort of run this way. Contrary to the description, though, I sometimes do get urges to clean, do laundry, etc. This usually occurs when I happen to be annoyed by the feel of dirt on my bare feet, or find my clothes hamper full, or some other stimulus triggers the behavior. Incidentally, I also am the one in my family who takes the cars for oil changes.
On the other hand, I also have no job. I have a hard time acting on anything that I don’t have an urge to do; fortunately or unfortunately, I also have parents to provide me with reasons to have urges to do things I wouldn’t otherwise have an urge to do. (This might also be why I once said I didn’t have an understanding of how people did things they didn’t feel like doing, because the process I use to decide what activity to do at any given moment seems to consist of weighing my various urges in order to figure out what it is that I “feel like” doing, and then doing it, which is a process that almost entirely relies on emotional/unconscious processes rather than conscious verbal reasoning.)
A good point.
Social incentives that directly incentivize the immediate steps toward long-term goals seem to be key to a surprisingly large portion of functional human behavior.
People acquire the habit of wearing seatbelts in part because parents’/friends’ approval incentivizes it; I don’t want to be the sort of person my mother would think reckless. (People are much worse at taking safety measures that are not thus backed up by social approval; e.g. driving white or light-colored cars reduces one’s total driving-related death risk by ord mag 20%, but this statistic does not spread, and many buy dark cars.)
People similarly bathe lest folks smell them, keep their houses clean lest company be horrified, stick to exercise plans and study and degree plans and retirement savings plans partly via friends’ approval, etc.; and are much worse at similar goals for which there are no societally cached social incentives for goal-steps. The key role social incentives play in much apparently long-term action of this is one reason people sometimes say “people do not really care about charity, their own health, their own jobs, etc.; all they care about is status”.
But contra Robin, the implication is not “humans only care about status, and so we pretend hypocritically to care about our own survival while really basically just caring about status”, the implication is “humans are pretty inept at acquiring urges to do the steps that will fulfill our later urges. We are also pretty inept at doing any steps we do not have a direct urge for. Thus, urges to e.g. survive, or live in a clean and pleasant house, or do anything else that requires many substeps… are often pretty powerless, unless accompanied by some kind of structure that can create immediate rewards for individual steps.
(People rarely exhibit long-term planning to acquire social status any more than we/they exhibit long-term planning to acquire health. E.g., most unhappily single folk do not systematically practice their social skills unless this is encouraged by their local social environment.)
Is lack of social skills typically the factor that prevents unhappily single folk from finding relationships? Surely this is true in some cases but I would be surprised to learn that it’s generic.
Long-term planning for status: Long-term education plans (e.g., law school or medical school)
For health: Controlling weight; regular medical check-ups
[I omit the last because I don’t understand what it means to “practice social skills.”]
You overstate the degree of goal-urge disconnect. Usually, when people ignore their professed goals, it’s a case of “approving of approving.” If goals were truly so disconnected from conduct as you imply (and have apparently convinced yourself is the case), they would serve little real function (except Hansonian signaling). You report that your friends came to grief by living by their urges alone, but if goals have minimal inherent power to guide conduct (that is, if they don’t tend spontaneously to recruit urges in their support), then we would all (or most of us) be living like your unfortunate friends, since most people don’t go through the self-help exercises of conscientiously attaching urges to goals.
A hypothesis better accounting for the facts is that we often don’t pursue our goals because our limited supply of will-power produces decision fatigue. We have to carefully focus our efforts and only pursue the goals most valuable at the margin. But that doesn’t mean we practically ignore our paramount goals.
Do you still feel this way, or do you feel that you understand what I meant in Action and Habit? Have you changed any of your decision-making methods?
I think I understand, sort of, but I haven’t actually changed my decision-making methods. I don’t even know how I would begin to go about doing that. Also, would changing my decision-making methods tend to increase or reduce urge-satisfaction?