Positively Misguided: The Myths & Mistakes of the Positive Thinking Movement | Hacker News Reader

Positively Misguided: The Myths & Mistakes of the Positive Thinking Movement

skeptic.com

21 pointsadambyrtek17 comments

There's a kernel of truth behind positive thinking: that your feelings are largely affected by what you think, and what you think is largely your own choice. Conclusion: you are largely responsible for how you feel: anger, despondency, sadness, etc., and certainly responsible for how deeply and how long you let those feelings linger.

But this is more about avoiding negativity traps than it is building delusional world perspectives. Going too far the other side is not quite as bad, but bad nonetheless. You have to be realistic. And act. The reaction to action ought to inform one of how things really are.

Yes, but feeling good, doesn't make you act good.

Being realistic makes you more effective.

The "Skeptics" began as a movement combating pseudo-science. Unfortunately, many skeptics confuse the negative ability to refute clearly irrational belief systems with the positive ability to offer prescription about how people should live life or order society. Our "Skeptics" generally aren't scientists and even science can't describe the best way to organize society. Unlikely debunking UFOs, organizing society doesn't have easy villains and clear proofs.

One problem is that many people with provably false belief systems still live lives that they find satisfying and even make crucial contributions to science itself. One can clearly demonstrate the irrationality of their belief systems. One cannot clearly prove that they would do better in life if they adopted different belief systems - this isn't saying that they wouldn't but rather that this is a much more complex and nuanced question to address, something that skeptics have failed to consider.

It seems to me that the whole "skeptical" movement has long run out of useful things to debunk (UFO's, astral projection, homeopathy, etc.) and have taken to just pissing in everyone's cereal.

“You can be president of the Unites States, if you really want to!"

This one motivates person to at least try his best

A more truthful message would be, "You have much higher odds of being struck by lightning than of ever becoming president of the United States"

This one motivates the person to sit on his backside and do nothing.

My guess would be that if everyone was thinking in terms of "truthfulness", we would not have a civilization at all. After all, there's always more chances to NOT make a discovery than to make one, to NOT become the next Google than to become one, to NOT find a new continent than to find one etc.

And of course, he was going to miss a few blocks. But, suppose that everything else is equal - training, physical abilities, skill, and your opponents are ready to give it all and fight for each ball, while your teams is expecting to miss a few here and there - who would have better chances?

> “You can be president of the Unites States, if you really want to!"

The theory that I think applies is the idea of global and local maximums. It is unrealistic to shoot for being a global maximum (the best in the world). For example, the POTUS is a global maximum. Local maximum is president of your school board. You have much better odds of achieving the local maximum ("big fish in small pond"). It's hard to be the most social guy in a club, but if you host and throw a party, you are the most social guy by definition.

Being "ready to give it all and fight for each ball" and "expecting to miss a few here and there" are not mutually exclusive.

One is a statement on commitment. The other is a rational assessment of the likely outcome.

The last section of the article is perhaps the most important. It contains this paragraph:

After surveying and studying that database, Hill has identified key characteristics that enabled these dieters to achieve their impressive results, and he has distilled them down to a series of tips. Among the first tips is this: Expect failure…but keep trying.

This 'expect failure' bit just does not sound right to me. 'Do not fear failure' - maybe, or 'don't get discouraged by failure', or something like that.

Rational assessments can prevent commitment. Only one out of millions becomes an Olympic champion (rational), why even try? (lack of commitment as a result of rational assessment)

Why sugar coat it? You will fail along the way. A lot. If you expect it, you're less likely to see failures as disastrous.

It's the people who continue on despite knowing that today's effort won't make much difference that can achieve great things. It will make some difference, but not much. But added up over years, you've achieved something significant. Any single Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practice I attend won't make much difference in how good I am. But five years worth of consistently showing up despite that I now have a purple belt, and I compete in the advanced division in competition. Any given day I show up at the office won't make much difference in my research, but five years worth of that means I'm close to my PhD.

>"You can be president of the Unites States, if you really want to!" >This one motivates person to at least try his best >A more truthful message would be, "You have much higher odds of being struck by lightning than of ever becoming president of the United States" >This one motivates the person to sit on his backside and do nothing.

No - telling someone something so patently unlikely sets a disconnect between a goal and the effort required to reach it (as if the only thing required to be president of the USA was to want it.) Two possibilities: the person ignores the message (if they're sensible), or they take it to heart and then get dejected when they fail.

This is also the current thinking on teenage girls and anorexia; presented with supermodels in the media and the (implied) message that they should/can emulate those role models is what is thought to cause self-esteem problems in impressionable teenage girls, which can lead on to more serious disorders.

I think it would be better to teach people how to make the best of their circumstances (and by this I mean personal attributes as well as social surroundings), rather than encourage unrealistic expectations.

"Let’s say that you are broke, overweight, and have no friends. You decide to apply positive thinking. You tell yourself that you are lucky to be you and walk around with a smile on your face."

Ugh, that's positive thinking gone terribly wrong. I guess, he should tell himself that he'll lose 500g bodyweight this week ... and next week ... and stick to it. And apply for X jobs this week, and next week and ...

But, wait, let's be truthful, odds are high of staying overweight and jobless. Why bother then?

Because a positive attitude -- not lying to yourself -- gives you a reason to try, to create the environment in which good things will happen to you. (Working up the nerve to say hi to a stranger, volunteering at a charity, throwing away the sugar in the house.)

“you have within you the energies you need to heal”

While obviously there are diseases that don't heal themselves, it seems to me the human immune system is a lot more complex and fine tuned than anything physicians could offer at the present time. I suspect most medical treatments are somewhat akin to operating with a sledge hammer. Therefore it seems to be preferable to find a way to let the human immune system (and regenerative capabilities of the body) do it's job than to go about it with medications and operations. Of course sometimes there is no choice, but in general it seems worthwhile to ask "why can't the immune system fix this by itself?" - which probably leads to an attempt to treat the causes, rather than the symptoms.

Is the author poking holes in delusional optimism, a mere pocket of positivity, or honest self-esteem? Isn't the point of believing you can do something (being positive) so you try harder to achieve it and not just (as it seems to be written here) wait for it to fall in your lap?

The dude might be Michael Shermer, but he's still overdoing his ads by placing them an entire screenful before the blog post.

Blind optimism in the absence of supporting evidence is silly, yes, but maintaining no semblance of positive attitude is also silly.

I think a large part of why motivational speaking/writing is over the top is that, at most, people only take away and action a certain percentage of what they are told. So you need to give them 200% to get them to absorb 80%.

To misquote 'if you think education is bad, you should try ignorance' : 'if you think positive attitude is bad, you should try a negative attitude'. It pays to be positive, but it also pays to fold and admit when you're wrong. I think it's the latter part many people are suffering from, not the former.

In my experience, the "positive" business types (those to whom reality and facts are "negative" if those don't fit their agenda) are in reality some of the most negative, vicious, two-faced, double talking, backstabbing, manipulating, thieving humans in existence.

I had a brother like that once, and he was THE most negative person in the world when it came to me . . . amazing! My ex-wife too!

If you ask me, when it comes to most of those types of people, the whole "positive" thing is just mental and emotional masturbation plus crack.

I can only be real in life. "Positive" or "negative" are just illusions that cloud the FACTS.

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