Interesting Idea on Human Behavior -- what's your take?

[einbert]

I'm currently reading <u>Self Esteem</u> by McKay and Fanning. [Here's the Amazon link in case you're interested.] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1567310036/103-1801208-2251848?st=%2A&amp;v=glance&amp;n=283155) So far I really like it and have found the first few chapters to contain a ton of excellent insights into, of course, self-esteem.

[ QUOTE ]
People with low self-esteem consider mistakes to be an indication of a general lack of worth. Each error reaffirms their underlying belief that something is terribly wrong with them. In chapter eight on "Handling Mistakes" you will explore one of the fundamental laws of human nature: that you always choose actions that seem most likely to meet your needs based on current awareness. You make the best decision you can at any point in time, given what you know and what you want.

[/ QUOTE ]
-page 53

I am mainly interested in the bolded text in the quoted passage above. I feel this statement is one of those that you could feel many ways about. Personally, it hit me as something that I've thought for a long time without ever putting it into words, or something that I have come to believe without even realizing it. Perhaps some people completely disagree with it.

I want to know how you feel about this statement. Is it true? Is it useful? Does everyone realize it?

I think that actively accepting this philosophy a long time ago might have made my life a lot easier. I can't count the number of times I have beat myself up over a decision, either in poker, a social situation, an academic situation, or anything else that turned out to look bad in hindsight. If I had seen things through the light of this statement, I could have looked at those "mistakes" very differently. I really like the statement and find it very comforting.

What human situations do you find this statement runs contradictory to? Do you believe most people believe in this statement actively, passively, or not at all? I really just want to know any thoughts you have about it.

There's no need to have any background knowledge except your own life experience to answer this question. I am as interested in outliers as I am in the general concensus, so don't hesitate to post what might be an unpopular viewpoint.

Thanks so much for reading my long post and I really can't wait to read your answer to my question.

[SlowStroke]

Great quote!

Think of the way children learn things.

Their first attempts may be huge failures, but the child does not view them as mistakes. The process of learning is fun for children. They want to learn everything.

But most of us adults are afraid of making mistakes, of being wrong, or of failing at anything. This makes learning difficult, not to mention painful.

Also, fear of making mistakes will tend to make us want to blame something besides ourselves when things go wrong. Just look at all the posts on this site that blame bad beats for losses.

Anyway, it sounds like an interesting book.

[_TKO_]

It's another way of saying that mistakes only exist in hindsight.

[mindflayer]

Flame me for using his name..., but let us take the typical Tony Robbins out of body breakdown of this HUMAN CONDITION.

Animals and Humans follow two basic rules
Everything we/animals do, we do to 1)avoid pain or 2)to gain pleasure.

Humans are the ONLY animals capable of changing behaviour patterns by merely DECIDING to. This means we can (on appearance) break these two rules. In reality we cannot, but what we can do is DECIDE what we associate pain and pleasure to, so that we achieve the results we want.


If another animal changes its behaviour, it is because it was following your rule.

Typical example.. of an overweight person.
my needs based on my current awareness
Im hungry
I like burgers and fries
that food tastes good
that food is cheap
that food is easy to buy
I will eat that food because it satisfies my needs.
I can work it off in the gym later.. (HA.. my fav)

you can focus on those ideas or you can try thinking
I am fat
I have high cholestorol
these foods are high in trans fats
I need to fit in my suit/ tuxedo 2 months from now for my cousin's/brother's/nephew's wedding
women are attracted to well built guys..
any other reason you want to put here (you just have to believe it and with some conviction)
Aliens are more prone to eat fat people etc.

What you decide is usually based on which set of ideas will give you more pain and which will give you more pleasure.

Robbins goes into how to focus on one set (usually the long term set) and associate more pleasure with it.. and the other (short term) and how to associate pain with them Instead of pleasure.
Typical example.. watch and repeat watching a commercial where they take a dead (fat) guy's main cornerary artery and squeeze the plaqe out of it (like a tube of tooth paste.) It is ssoooo disgusting/ look at a hamburger// watch the add again/ smell the hamburger/ watch the add again/ look at the fries/ etc../Try on the tuxedo/smell the fries/watch a porno with fat people (hahahah )

he does the same thing with healty foods.. and associates pleasure with them.. untill you can easily/naturally and then by default decide to eat the healthier foods.

[ QUOTE ]
Do you believe most people believe in this statement actively, passively, or not at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see this as a belive/not believe and active/passive question, it is more of a true/not true statement and are people aware of it or not. From the actions of human behaviour it seems very true and that most people are not aware of it.

[einbert]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see this as a belive/not believe and active/passive question, it is more of a true/not true statement and are people aware of it or not. From the actions of human behaviour it seems very true and that most people are not aware of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree.

Very cool example too.

I'm a little exhausted right now from a full day of classes but I will try to respond more to your post soon.

[Bluffoon]

"People with low self-esteem consider mistakes to be an indication of a general lack of worth. Each error reaffirms their underlying belief that something is terribly wrong with them."

I like what you are getting at and I think that the issue of self-image is vital to one's well-being. I would for example take the statemnt above a step farther. I believe that that most people make choices that reaffirm their self-worth. If you think you are a failure, let's say, you will intentionally, (maybe not consciously though), make choices that insure that you will fail, thus confirming your poor self-image.

This behaviour I believe is very common among gamblers, many of whom appear to be drawn to gambling because it is such an efficient means of reaffirming a poor self-image. A good example is a talented player who continuously plays above his bankroll and busts out again and again. Or maybe a player who keeps taking his winnings to the craps table, knowing full well that they must lose in the long run.

I have found it helpful to disassociate failure with being a failure. Let's say, if I have a session where I played poorly, I try not to beat myself up about it but say ok Jim you are a good player and you didn't play your best today, so let's take a look at what we can do to play better next session.

Be your friend not your enemy.

[Vaughen]

[ QUOTE ]
one of the fundamental laws of human nature: that you always choose actions that seem most likely to meet your needs based on current awareness. You make the best decision you can at any point in time, given what you know and what you want.

[/ QUOTE ]
All this seems to do is change "I made the wrong choices" to "I had the wrong needs."

[Max Weinberg]

[ QUOTE ]
one of the fundamental laws of human nature: that you always choose actions that seem most likely to meet your needs based on current awareness

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't believe in self-esteem, but this seems pretty standard.

[Nut4Dawgs]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't believe in self-esteem,...

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean you think very poorly of or have no opinion of yourself?

[Max Weinberg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't believe in self-esteem,...

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean you think very poorly of or have no opinion of yourself?

[/ QUOTE ]
I mean that "self-esteem" as a lifechanging idea has no inherent virtue. If you're a [censored] who values himself highly, you're still a [censored], and if you're a genius who hates his life, you're still a genius. I misphrased when I said "I don't believe in self-esteem," because you any opinion you have about yourself is "self-esteem," but I don't believe in the New Age-y [censored] that says, "Think positively, and you can do anything!"

[Dommer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't believe in self-esteem,...

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean you think very poorly of or have no opinion of yourself?

[/ QUOTE ]
I mean that "self-esteem" as a lifechanging idea has no inherent virtue. If you're a [censored] who values himself highly, you're still a [censored], and if you're a genius who hates his life, you're still a genius. I misphrased when I said "I don't believe in self-esteem," because you any opinion you have about yourself is "self-esteem," but I don't believe in the New Age-y [censored] that says, "Think positively, and you can do anything!"

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think anyone here really agrees with the wishy-washy attitude you mention, reminds me of the one taken in schools that causes everyone in the class to get an "A for effort!". Low self esteem would be more like "you're a genius but hate yourself and don't trust any of your ideas/perceptions/etc so you are constantly fighting yourself". Pretty hard to operate at your full capacity when you feel like that. It's the same as having no confidence at the poker table and second guessing yourself, beating yourself up over mistakes, etc. I know when I feel confident I play much much better, so if theres a way to improve on that then I am by all means for it.

[LinusKS]

The basic problem is that people have too much self-esteem, especially the stupid ones.

Somebody needs to be in charge of putting an "I'm stupid" stamp on people's foreheads. That way they'd be reminded everytime they look in a mirror, in case they forget.

Everyone would be a lot better off that way. Especially the stupid people.


Edit: actually, nm. This would cost poker pros a lot of money.

[donkeyradish]

....always choose actions that seem most likely to meet your needs based on current awareness

So basically, you are saying people do whatever they feel like.

I could be wrong but this may be commonly known already /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Usagi_yo]

No, I disagree. The statement is naive. People make good snap decisions when they are 1. Relaxed, 2. Under pressure. Inbetween we rationalize too much, read between the lines too much.

Also, there are plenty of common day to day examples of people acting in self destructive manners. Watching people smoke, watching people Jay walk, watching people drink and get drunk.