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The Problem With Positive Thinking
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times explains research into how our mindset can influence results. The common refrain when striving for a goal is to stay positive and imagine success — people say this will help you accomplish what you want. But a series of psychological experiments show such thinking tends to have exactly the opposite effect. "In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, we asked two groups of college students to write about what lay in store for the coming week. One group was asked to imagine that the week would be great. The other group was just asked to write down any thoughts about the week that came to mind. The students who had positively fantasized reported feeling less energized than those in the control group. As we later documented, they also went on to accomplish less during that week." This research has been replicated across many types of people and many different goals.
Building on that research, the scientists developed a thought process called "mental contrasting," where people are encouraged to think about their dreams coming true only for a few minutes before dedicating just as much time to thinking about the obstacles they'll have to deal with. Experiments have demonstrated that subjects using these techniques were more successful at things like exercise and maintaining a healthy diet than a control group. "[D]reaming about the future calms you down, measurably reducing systolic blood pressure, but it also can drain you of the energy you need to take action in pursuit of your goals."
Building on that research, the scientists developed a thought process called "mental contrasting," where people are encouraged to think about their dreams coming true only for a few minutes before dedicating just as much time to thinking about the obstacles they'll have to deal with. Experiments have demonstrated that subjects using these techniques were more successful at things like exercise and maintaining a healthy diet than a control group. "[D]reaming about the future calms you down, measurably reducing systolic blood pressure, but it also can drain you of the energy you need to take action in pursuit of your goals."
The negative thinkers/pessimists get all the work done, then the positive thinkers say "See, there was nothing to worry about" and take all the credit.
Positive thinking .... I always knew it would never work
Positive thinkers already get some of the mental-benefit of the task being complete. Imagining being finished is just a little bit like being finished. That saps some of the motivation to finish, since they've already received part of the payoff. Negative thinkers have actually increased the payoff even more, because they get the additional payoff of having been wrong about their negativity.
Its always interesting to read articles that challenge the accepted wisdom
'Positive thinking' is essentially the vein hope that the current situation you judge as undesirable will change to something desirable just because you desire it. It fails to recognise that being happy and content can be achieved simply by changing your judgement. You can decide to be content with your life. The truth is that those external things; wealth, health, power and fame, are all fleeting. The only thing you really have control over is you. The solution isn't hoping that things will get better, it is accepting that they won't and pleasantly surprised if they do.
In a business book by James C. Collins called Good to Great, Collins writes about a conversation he had with Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during his period in the Vietnamese POW camp.[11]
When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
Stockdale then added:
Firefly first, Serenity later.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I don't see why establishing unrealistic views of reality would ever be constructive. Imagining the week will excel in every way and finding out that it doesn't isn't what I consider "positive thinking" -- obviously the week is going to fall short and then the lesson learned is not going to be a habit of thinking positive, it is going to be the opposite, that thinking positive is futile and incorrect.
What I consider "positive thinking" is a realistic perspective which acknowledges the good and the bad but emphasizing the good aspects. Seeing losing your job as an opportunity to start a new chapter. Seeing the misfortune of others as an opportunity to help them. Being thankful for what you already have instead of craving everything you don't. It's a more accurate view in any case -- it's quite rare that losing a job or a relationship deprives the rest of your life of meaning or success, and solving problems actually does give the brain a sense of euphoria, so why should you be upset about encountering them?
The mental contrasting approach the article describes seems oriented along those lines, but to me it's not a matter of "contrast" so much as a matter of compatibility -- positive thinking doesn't contrast with realism, realism simply sets the context in which positive thinking should take place.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
And negative thinking doesn't help all that much either. Negative thinking just assumes nothing will ever work.
Pragmatic thinking, on the other hand, asks "What might go wrong?" Pragmatic thinking says, "I want this to work well, but what would keep it from working?"
Pragmatic thinking ends up getting things right much more often than either positive thinking oe negative thinking.
People I worked with would always cringe when I'd say "Hold on a second!", until They found out how often I was right in the end. Eventually they'd bounce ideas off me for projects I wasn't even on to se if they forgot or didn't think of something.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Positive people are dangerous. Because they assume everything is going to be fine, they fail to plan for things to go wrong, and then after you're stuck cleaning up the mess they caused, they sweep it all under the rug and act like everything went smoothly - so not only do you get no recognition for your heroic efforts to fix everything, but they're fully confident in their ability to handle the next situation just as well as the last.
But nobody wants to listen to the pessimists, because they're so negative.
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The idea behind positive thinking was never to simply visualize the positive goal, it was to envision the challenges and think through overcoming the challenges.
Ignoring the challenges is an absence of thinking.
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I thought it was just me that was was motivated solely by fear and worry, but apparently it's most people if not everyone! Of course if you expect things to go great already then wtf are you working so hard for, things are going to turn out great anyway remember?
Anxiety energizes and motivates people. Too much will paralyze them. Gotta reach the optimal amount that energizes, but does not enervate. Along the lines of "eustress" not "distress."
There is a strange middle ground of a sort. I am not invested too much in the outcome. Some people shrink from the fight because victory is impossible. This is the 'pragmitist' who evaluates the probability of success and decides the low chance of success means the goal itself isn't worth the effort. Then there are the optimists who fool themselves that the goal is easier than it is, or who believe that the good guy always wins. This is delusional.
Then there are people who accept the reality: they know the road will be hard, and long, involve personal sacrifice and perhaps suffering. They will not fool themselves about the ease of the goal or the probability of success. In fact in many ways the success or failure is deeply irrelevant because as I said above all we have is our intentions and actions. Do or do not, that is our choice. The outcome is up to fate and should not concern us.
This is what Stockdale meant; that we should not fool ourselves about the ease of the goal; that we should face up to grim reality and conduct ourselves in a way that best reflects on us. Because nothing else matters.
It is this attitude that drove my involvement in the campaign against Software Patents in New Zealand. A campaign that was always one breath away from failure. A campaign that many concluded was doomed to fail. A campaign that despite being passed into law may be swept away by the TPP. But these threats do not worry me because so long as I am prepared to stand up and work for the common good I honour myself regardless of the outcome.
Doesn't it seem strange that human intellect seems to have peaked at it's current level? Intelligence beyond a couple standard dev. above a 100 IQ seems to be negatively correlated with reproduction(or else 100 would be more intelligent than it is).
IQ != intelligence.
I think you need to have confidence in yourself and believe that you can do something. But then you need to do the actual work, solve the problems, work for success. To me, there is a difference between fantasizing about success and believing in your ability to achieve it.
In other words, I know I can do X. But to do it, I must do A, B, C, D, and overcome obstacles I, II, III, and IV. That's positive thinking combined with realism and the willingness to do what you have to do.
So for the last couple months I've been working on a start-up idea in my spare time. The thought process "I know I can do X. But to do it, I must do A, B, C, D, and overcome obstacles I, II, III, and IV." is a bad idea that turns me into a quivering blob hiding under my quilt.
The long term obstacles are certainly achievable, but they're also a ton of work and extremely daunting since I can't do anything about them for a long time.
If I want to get work done the key is to think of the long term goal but only the short term obstacles. I know X is still a very long way off, but I also know I can subtract a tangible Y and get closer to my goal.
I can also berate myself more effectively for being lazy, ie "to get closer to X all you have to do is a bit of Y, so why the hell are you wasting your time posting on /.?!?"
I stole this Sig
Well, it is used a lot in organization such as Amway. If you think positive, you can become a billionaire.
I have always wandered if it was a way to blame the person if he/she wasn't successful. Kind of: you didn't think positively enough..
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
In any setting I need to see shortcomings in order to improve on them. So called "positive thinkers" have a tough time dealing with that. (Usually their claim to fame on my work is that they too cooperated. Usually by not inhibiting me.) But as age grinds on, I learned to naturally word my concerns in a positive sounding fashion. I sometimes utter a kind of new-speak -which I detest- but it enables me to proceed with development, so I indulge.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Nope. The trick is to convince your followers and customers to be positive, for that to happen you need to appear extremely positive.
The negative thinkers/pessimists get all the work done, then the positive thinkers say "See, there was nothing to worry about" and take all the credit
In reality no one can be said to be absolutely pessimistic nor absolutely optimistic
Most often the one who truly gets the work done follows the "Expect the _worst_ but hope for the _best_" adage
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Correction: a small business.
Once you're too big to fail you're in clover.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
But the correlation is quite high.
Actually, no. Fools have arbitrarily decided that certain things are relevant to intelligence (how well you do in school, how much money you make, etc.) without a shred of evidence. We haven't even properly defined intelligence in any sort of rigorous way.
But the serious IQ tests have demonstrated effectiveness at rating our commonsense concept of intelligence, so it is good enough.
Nonsense. Common sense is often neither common and nor does it often make sense. Plenty of nonsensical things used to be "common sense." That is not science, either. The "common sense concept" of intelligence does not matter in the least.
Stop repeating myths.
Always expect the worst, that way you can never be disappointed. Life is mostly disappointment, really, and the rare exceptions are cause for joy and celebration.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.