What makes people change
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Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Everyone should know!</div>I found this interesting text by chance while looking for papers on interview techniques:
<a href="http://www.google.se/books?id=r_CuyHwdz7EC&lpg=PA1&ots=x_RT_PqElK&dq=interviewing&lr&hl=sv&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=true" target="_blank">http://www.google.se/books?id=r_CuyHwdz7EC...mp;q&f=true</a>
It explains an awful lot about why people don't/seem motivated, and how to effect a change in your own life and get it to stick.
It also reminds me of my brother who said that it isn't hard to get things done, just decide to do them - which seemed monumentally unhelpful at the time, because how do you get to the point where you decide to decide, so to speak.
A lot of it can be seen as "Well, that's just common sense", but as so often, having it written down makes it that much clearer to the mind. Clarity of expression is clarity of understanding, basically.
Interesting specific parts include going to three different treatment programs and telling the counselors that specific participants were likely to recover, and all of them doing so even though they were actually chosen at random.
"Accurate empathy" from the counselor was one of the most important factors in whether a patient improved, whereas confrontation would just make people resist more.
That last is one I particularly wanted to bring up, and much more relevant to us random people on the Internet than it might seem. Consider how people's attitudes are when discussing things with people they disagree with - often they're defensive and confrontational, like "maybe if you'd read my post more carefully" will just ensure hostilities continue without progress. So... yeah. If you wanna convince them, don't put their backs up.
I dunno, the text made it seem so clear...
<a href="http://www.google.se/books?id=r_CuyHwdz7EC&lpg=PA1&ots=x_RT_PqElK&dq=interviewing&lr&hl=sv&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=true" target="_blank">http://www.google.se/books?id=r_CuyHwdz7EC...mp;q&f=true</a>
It explains an awful lot about why people don't/seem motivated, and how to effect a change in your own life and get it to stick.
It also reminds me of my brother who said that it isn't hard to get things done, just decide to do them - which seemed monumentally unhelpful at the time, because how do you get to the point where you decide to decide, so to speak.
A lot of it can be seen as "Well, that's just common sense", but as so often, having it written down makes it that much clearer to the mind. Clarity of expression is clarity of understanding, basically.
Interesting specific parts include going to three different treatment programs and telling the counselors that specific participants were likely to recover, and all of them doing so even though they were actually chosen at random.
"Accurate empathy" from the counselor was one of the most important factors in whether a patient improved, whereas confrontation would just make people resist more.
That last is one I particularly wanted to bring up, and much more relevant to us random people on the Internet than it might seem. Consider how people's attitudes are when discussing things with people they disagree with - often they're defensive and confrontational, like "maybe if you'd read my post more carefully" will just ensure hostilities continue without progress. So... yeah. If you wanna convince them, don't put their backs up.
I dunno, the text made it seem so clear...
Comments
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect</a>
That one kind of strikes a chord.
Anyway, I could go on and on about this. As far as the Rosenthal effect goes, people with no motivation are simply lowering their expectations to avoid disappointment. But more importantly, should we increase their expectations or keep their expectations low? The answer is, that it is dangerous to increase the expectations in those whose Egos have been fractured repeatedly over the course of their childhood, teens and adolescence, because there are only so many fractures an Ego can take before it bursts. If you are to increase your own expectations or the expectations of someone else, make sure you stick to it, and see it through to the end, to avoid the bitter outcome that loss brings. If you want to destroy your own psyche or somebody else's psyche, make lots of promises that you can't keep.
As for random internet people, I think most people on some level or another don't want to leave the comfort zone of their own intuitive beliefs or mindset. Perception of threats to this comfort zone (which is highly linked to self identity), would understandably then result in reflexive 'irrational' defensive behaviour. I say 'irrational' because from their perspective it probably seems entirely rational to defend something they already believe to be correct or justified. Kinda like the 'rationality' behind the massive civilian bombing in ww2.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EOptZ5QVeFI/TkqCR9ZaVvI/AAAAAAAAAAc/hOTdi8aJJ68/s320/PlanescapeTorment_02_1280x1024.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
What can change the nature of a man?
"If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you *believe* can change the nature of a man, can. I've seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than just a part of me!"
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It is the role of a civilised human to attain balance. We all (things) simply want to belong, afterall.
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Becoming less selfish and more socially aware is a normal part of growing up (that's not to say that adults aren't selfish, but they are not irrationally selfish; the best way to get what you want is often to help others get what they want).
Change from generation to generation is also huge, but it's not the same people who are changing, but kids who are different from their parents.
It's also useful to note that most change is bad. It's a lot easier to change something that works for the worse than it is to change it for the better. Nevertheless, we try again and again.
In theory it would be efficient to learn from other's mistakes instead of making them all over again, but that just doesn't appear to happen. The russians have a saying which seems eerily close to the truth; the only lesson of history is that we don't learn anything from history.
From financial disasters, like the one we're living in now, which is a triple disaster with accounting control fraud(S&L disaster supersized) + fake insurance (CDS) + extraordinary amounts of leverage in the entire economy private and public (in the US it's quadruple economic disaster, with medical cartels specifically exempt from antitrust regulations, like no other industry), to starting useless wars in far off places and arming the enemy of my enemy, to supporting totalitarianism, fascism, communism and religion (all the other tens of thousands of gods that ever existed were created by us; but the god my parents more or less coerced me to believe in is totally legit).
Don't look for change in others. If you want to change yourself, by all means go ahead.