Wednesday, May 13, 2015

The Limits of Positive Thinking

Like everything else in this world optimism has its limits. Even positive thinking has its limits. In some cases negative thinking can be valuable.

Having suffered through an era of negative psychology one understands why positive psychologists would be prescribing large doses of optimism.

It makes sense to say that your ability to complete a task will increase if you believe that you can do it.

The more you are optimistic, the more you will persevere. The more you persevere, the more you are likely to succeed.

Besides, pessimism often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who are convinced they will fail are more likely to give up too soon, thus to fail.

As I said, it makes perfectly good sense.

Now, however, new research has challenged these views. Or better, has put them in perspective.

Roberto Ferdman reports in the Washington Post:

"Reach for the stars" is the sort of uplifting advice parents impart on their children, coaches pass along to their players, and people all over the place repeat to themselves. And for good reason: A life outlook that, generally speaking, assumes the best, has many tangible benefits. Positive thinking has been linked to better relationships, increased happiness, and health.

Great, we all think.

Unfortunately, in some situations optimism is not your friend.

Remember a book about what was called “the secret.” The book suggested that if you think it, it will come true. A lot of people took the book very seriously. It was offering an alternative that was better than work.

And yet, it was purveying a belief that we should have long since discarded. Namely, that your state of mind will naturally express itself in the world and will naturally change the world.

The old name for this was magical thinking. We do not need a new name.

The truth is, if you believe you will succeed when you lack the talent or the training to succeed, it might cause you to keep working on a project you will never complete… and thus waste your time.

Ferdman writes:

Optimism isn't merely unhelpful at times—it can be demonstrably counterproductive. Telling someone "you can you do it" when they actually can't doesn't change the outcome, and it makes them more likely to exert time and effort on a fruitless task. 

It takes more than the right attitude to succeed in life.

Moreover, studies have also shown that people who are overly optimistic tend to be more impulsive about their finance.

Ferdman quotes Professor Don Moore, from Berkeley:

Moore, based on both his research and his real life observations, favors more of a middle ground, where one's expectations are as closely aligned with reality as possible.

"Early on in my career, I was quite sure that there were instances where being optimistic helps you perform better," he said. "Now I'm pretty sure that the true value is in realism."

A middle ground is always the place to be.

One might throw oneself into optimism and positive thinking as an antidote to pessimism, but one size does not always fit and the right frame of mind is never a substitute for good judgment.


4 comments:

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

I, too, have seen the destructive power of "The Secret" as practiced by many, and agree that is is just another substitute for magical thinking. Thoughts do become things, but they require action. And lots of times, the things that become aren't what we imagined they'd be. This is the wisdom of humility. But action is the ingredient I've always found lacking. It's like these people think they can harness The Force or something.

I have also seen many organizations destroyed by the mantra of "If you build it, they will come." Hogwash. People need to be invited... it's simple human nature. Amateur inventors and social engineers delude themselves into believing people will just appear if they build an interesting-enough contraption. More magical thinking.

Ares Olympus said...

re: Optimism isn't merely unhelpful at times—it can be demonstrably counterproductive. Telling someone "you can you do it" when they actually can't doesn't change the outcome, and it makes them more likely to exert time and effort on a fruitless task.

I'm sure this is true, but it also depends on the type of goal you have, some goals have incremental improvements and many intermediate goals you can stop at and reassess.

A coach might tell a runner at a 4:30 mile he's got the potential to run a sub 4-minute mile, even if he's not sure, and this can encourage him to work harder and get down to a 4:10 mile on a great race, and feel he's giving it his all and nothing left.

So then the coach can still see those last 10 seconds are within reach, that training can still be raised another notch, but a coach also has to ask about motivation.

Maybe the runner never believed he could come close, and surprised himself, but doesn't have the heart to push further, and its better to acknowledge that and try a different goal, maybe a different distance.

So to me all this shows is we have "objective limits" and "subjective limits", and others can see more of the first, and we can see more of the second in ourselves, and either one might be the bottleneck, and so when limits are hit, you have to look at both.

And books like "The Secret" might be more related to "subjective limits", that are in part based on false limits internalized by old patterns, or might be related to "intrinsic motive", and knowing why you want to reach a goal, and not just because "everyone else is doing it."

Ares Olympus said...

re: Remember a book about what was called “the secret.” The book suggested that if you think it, it will come true. A lot of people took the book very seriously. It was offering an alternative that was better than work. And yet, it was purveying a belief that we should have long since discarded. Namely, that your state of mind will naturally express itself in the world and will naturally change the world. The old name for this was magical thinking.

This issue of "magical thinking" makes me curious, is it so simple, so simply unhelpful?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking
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Magical thinking is the attribution of causal relationships between actions and events which cannot be justified by reason and observation.
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So that's a pretty wide open definition. Anything that we assume to be causally related but isn't represents magical thinking? And certainly the idea that our inner states can affect the outer world without action is a risky belief.

And you can say prayer is such a belief. If you believe prayer affects the world in a positive way, you can be accused of magical thinking, at least consequences happen, and there's no way to rerun reality without prayer to see if outcomes change, so all you know is you pray or not, and things improve or not, and it may be a wasted effort.

And Richard Feynman identified what he called "Cargocult science" considering a case of primitive people trying to copy the external forms of modern airport, hoping to attract the plans to return, but we know it doesn't work that way, so it didn't help, and being positive is like "Waiting for Godot".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science

So that shows us something of the predicament of positive thinking or magical thinking. If you don't understand the "mechanisms" of success, and have no way or will to measure progress, then you'll likely just keep trying things, and not doing it systematically enough to prove a cause and effect, and superstitions are born, and copied by others.

And the Christian "Prosperity gospel" shows how magical thinking can be used to enrich a few individuals in a Church from the many all giving a little, on the strange idea that God will reward you for your generosity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology

Are there "hidden agents" of the universe like God or angels who intervene in mysterious ways? And how do you protect yourself from magical thinking while considering the possibility?

"Invisible agents" are perhaps by definition outside of science because they can act outside of normal mechanical cause and effect, and perhaps even act within the consciousness of living beings, so in every miracle, you can identify individual physical actors that "caused" an outcome but without knowing where the initial intrinsic cause came from.

We might call this intuition, and like "prayer" people can listen to inner "voices"/"visions" act on them, and serve the interest of hopefully benevolent invisible beings.

So if you're running a church, you might have this faith, and when the money flows in, you can believe you're blessed, and the only problem is not worrying if you're cursed if it stops flowing.

Oh yes, remember Job from the old testament. He did everything right, and was seemingly punished, so that doesn't mean doing right is wrong, and it doesn't mean your prosperity exists only because of your own effort.

Uh oh, as Warren and Obama said "You didn't build it" and got into so much trouble and mockery against a Work Ethic that makes success likely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn't_build_that

Is it positive thinking or magical thinking to believe you're always responsible for your success?

And maybe that's the dilemma - cause-and-effect can be partially true, and partially untrue, and we get in trouble when we need it exclusively to be one or the other.

Anonymous said...

The fear of God (properly developed sensitivity to causes of life, pleasure, pain, and death) is a canopy of blessings.