[HN Gopher] Self-control signals and affords power
___________________________________________________________________
Self-control signals and affords power
Author : namanyayg
Score : 175 points
Date : 2024-03-08 12:58 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (today.ucsd.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (today.ucsd.edu)
| danjoredd wrote:
| Seek freedom and become captive of your desires, seek discipline
| and find your liberty. - Frank Herbert
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Wonder if companies setting "Stretch" goals, and having people
| fail, is actually a form of control. Get results, but also keeps
| employees down. People may be less inclined to ask for raise if
| they miss goals, even if the results were 'good'.
| throwaway74432 wrote:
| That becomes clear when management says that hitting all of
| your goals actually means you weren't ambitious enough.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| My mother was a Manager at an insurance company for a very long
| time. She still firmly believes that one cannot get a 5 out 5
| on a review because no one is perfect. Business likes to set
| unobtainable goals like that. In my experience, that kind of
| corporate behavior drives high performers away. High performers
| know what they have done and if you refuse to acknowledge it
| over time they leave.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The folly is the same as the rock star amplifier that "goes
| to 11" or how gig economy reviews are 5 star = acceptable or
| better, anything else means dreadful.'It is just a linear
| transform people have to do in their heads.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| It's also a tool for HR to say they have a process that they
| follow but then still allow all of the decisions about pay
| increases and performance to be entirely subjective. You miss
| your stretch goals, and so depending on how your manager feels
| at the time that's either totally acceptable and you're doing a
| great job, or if they need justification to shaft you then it's
| totally unacceptable and you didn't do the work well enough to
| deserve that. Same situation but totally different outcome.
| petsfed wrote:
| There's a coaching philosophy that says to never praise
| unconditionally; rather every piece of praise should be
| followed with a criticism.
|
| I suppose this is theoretically a good practice, but only if
| you're already operating in a high-trust environment. If you're
| not, it starts to feel like you're never good enough, because
| absolutely every victory, no matter how big or small, is
| followed up with "but it could be better...". Which is, again
| technically accurate, but part of the finesse of being a good
| people-manager is understanding that humans are not robots who
| can simply process and accept criticism without any emotional
| hangups.
| disqard wrote:
| "Across all experiments, individuals with high self-control were
| seen as more powerful, and as better suited for powerful roles,
| than individuals with low self-control."
|
| Part of me sees this research as "doing everything by the book"
| and consequently failing to capture important insights. For
| instance, every economic model of humans assumes that we're
| "rational agents", yet we know that people with poor impulse
| control (like ElMo, Trump, etc.) are perceived as powerful by a
| wide swath of the public.
|
| Maybe their "turns down dessert" thought experiments are just
| that -- thought experiments -- and do not reflect what humans
| actually do, IRL.
| KuriousCat wrote:
| I think people like ElMo and Trump do have a lot of self
| control. In addition to getting what they want they are also
| masters of influence. It is also not poor impulse control if
| they are good enough to muster enough resources to afford their
| impulses in the first place.
| katmannthree wrote:
| How is this different from "it's not poor impulse control if
| you're a _functional_ alcoholic who can muster enough
| resources to afford a handle every morning"?
| KuriousCat wrote:
| It depends on the motive, if the person is highly motivated
| to indulge in hedonistic pleasure and alcohol gives him
| that, well he is achieving his objective. Where as person
| wants to experience some love/friendship and can't get it
| and he is using alcohol as a mask you know where to put
| him.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Ambition, persistence, and confidence play a role too. Some
| people do not take No for an answer and keep trying.
| glitchc wrote:
| Not to mention luck.
| ozim wrote:
| If you try against all failures and are persistent and you
| finally get lucky.
|
| Versus giving up after first or second failure.
|
| Is it still luck that is most important?
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Depending on your background the luck variable will be
| different and you may have to try more or less times to
| get a successful outcome.
| glitchc wrote:
| Luck is a huge factor in your starting point. It's
| significantly harder to become a millionaire if your
| starting point is a group home in a poor country. An
| unlimited amount of persistence can't overcome those
| odds.
| me_me_me wrote:
| I think you are missing the point. Self control is a source of
| persistence to get to goal. If you are impulsive buyer of
| random crap, you will not save money for a house.
|
| If you give up easily or get distracted accomplishing difficult
| tasks will be impossible.
|
| We all know those people and at least to me they always feel
| like bit of looser who openly jeopardise their own future.
|
| Trumps of this world only impress naive people of this world,
| people who buy how to make $1m in a year books.
|
| Trump openly employs wrestling narrative building to win
| popularity. It doesn't get any basic than that (i am
| generalising avg trump voter of course, but a man who never
| worked a day of hard work in his life - is a hero of blue
| collar, cheated on every single of his 5 wives - christian hero
| and maybe eveb second coming, all his businesses went bust - a
| true successful businessmen)
|
| Would you trust trump to run your company? or oversee anything
| of value?
| sandspar wrote:
| Trump and Elon Musk have incredible self control. They have
| selective outlets, yes. But they also both drive themselves
| constantly, invariably in the face of resistance. They're both
| self control addicts whose entire lives are built around the
| question "How much resistance can I overcome?"
| gexla wrote:
| "Some set an ambitious goal of reading 200 pages each week, while
| others set a more moderate goal of reading 50 pages per week. All
| of these individuals read the same amount - 100 pages - but those
| who didn't meet their goal were seen as less powerful by study
| participants."
|
| Under-promise, over-deliver.
| largbae wrote:
| Elon Musk appears to be a counter-example...
| notnaut wrote:
| Over promising is better when you're interested in
| money/power and have plenty of your own to start with, rather
| than any underlying pointless nonsense like working toward an
| achievable goal or trying to be a decent human.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| We now know based on his numerous biographies and
| documentaries made about him that he overpromised because
| else his companies would not get the badly needed
| funds/support/customers. Is this fraud? Probably but he got
| away with it because he delivered enough tangible results
| to get people to back off. Otherwise he'd probably be in
| jail now.
|
| Why does he still overpromise when he does not need to?
| Well the latest biography sorta explained it: He can't help
| himself, he needs the thrill of an ever more difficult
| problem to solve. (ie. he's psycho)
| DinaCoder99 wrote:
| Musk has lost a massive amount of credibility because of
| failing to deliver on most of the self-proclaimed potential
| of his businesses--basically, all of them outside of the
| potential of SpaceX, and even there he should be grateful the
| perceived value of the company isn't tied to going to mars.
| time-less-ness wrote:
| /me eyes Tesla
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| That's what I do at work, it works quite well.
| tithe wrote:
| A key part of that statement (from the article) is "in
| comparison to your peers."
|
| By whom do you want to be considered powerful?
|
| And how can I maximize the real/perceived performance delta
| between myself and other participants in that target group?
|
| And how do I do so in a way that doesn't appear threatening to
| the decision-makers (group "leaders") in that target group?
| c4wrd wrote:
| This is something I've noticed in myself and I'm glad there's
| research to back this, although this is an open secret to those
| who do master self-control. I've spent the last three to four
| years working on self-control and discipline after I hit rock
| bottom in my life and realized I had no self-agency. For me,
| having greater self-control led me to ensure I can focus on
| providing value where it matters in my life, and not getting
| caught up by the shiny object syndrome I was distracted by a lot
| when I was younger. Not every thought needs to be acted on,
| especially if the thoughts come from external sources. In regards
| to why it leads to power, as you make your way up the managerial
| chain, when you have greater self-control you are less prone to
| get "bullied" by other managers into doing work for them and you
| can stand up more for your team and you will be able to provide
| more value. For perspective, I would personally trust others who
| have self-control more than those who don't for time-sensitive
| and critical tasks because I can rely on them to regulate their
| emotions and give honest answers, as well as hold themselves
| accountable.
|
| For someone, like me a few years ago, who is undisciplined and
| has not spent time cultivating self-control this is hard to hear.
| If you find yourself making excuses when you read this article
| for why the power hierarchy is against you, or that there is bias
| in the results of this study (as some of the comments here allude
| to), then you should consider reevaluating why you are making
| excuses. It's a sign that this post triggered you and your
| response was to make an excuse rather than accept a correlation
| that speaks to an underlying hard truth. Once you start digging
| into "why did I make an excuse" and chase that feeling over and
| over whenever you find yourself making excuses, you will start to
| realize that you can't think of a reason why you made an excuse,
| it's just what you've done and reinforced in the past. If you've
| read this comment this far and you have a spark of curiosity and
| relate to not knowing why you are making excuses, I suggest you
| take this moment to chase it down and gain agency over your own
| life. Some would say this is your red pill moment. 'The Daily
| Stoic' woke me up, I highly recommend it. Discipline equals
| freedom, my friend, and we sorely need you.
| coop_solution wrote:
| Is there any way to disagree with this comment without being
| disregarded as resentful?
|
| Good work is the key to good fortune / Winners take that praise
| / Losers seldom take that blame
| 15457345234 wrote:
| Disagree? It's ad copy promoting a self-help book.
| c4wrd wrote:
| I have no affiliation with the author of the book and stand
| to gain nothing from helping others. I still stand by my
| choice of The Daily Stoic. I resented the thought of
| reading self help books because my pride led me to believe
| that if I read a self help book, I was admitting I was
| weak. That said, the reason for the book is simple: the
| book is intended to take a year to read, one page at a
| time. I wake up each day and the first thing I do is open
| the Books app on my iPhone, load up The Daily Stoic and
| read the days entry. It takes me 2-3 minutes and reminds me
| why I am chasing self-discipline. I have done this every
| day faithfully for three years. I hate to admit, but a page
| was as much as I was personally able to commit myself to, a
| full book was too much for my pride to handle at first. So
| if you're like me and can't make time for a full book, I
| ask you to make time for a single page per day.
|
| In fact I will double down on this book so much, that I
| will personally buy a copy for anyone who sends me an email
| cory@linux.com. No one will know you asked for a copy and I
| ask for nothing in return.
| zafka wrote:
| Nice offer! I would also be very interested in how many
| people have taken you up on your generous offer. I myself
| would edit your offer to include the caveat: "emails
| within a week" to prevent all future orders for the book
| being funneled through you :).
| InSteady wrote:
| Good call. The author of this book is a marketer and "media
| strategist," with an obvious focus on social media. He was
| great at plastering subtle ads all over relevant threads
| and subs over on reddit. Nice to know that he too has
| figure out reddit has gone to shit and is also looking for
| greener pastures..
| Rediscover wrote:
| Good quote from Neil Peart. Roll the bones
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| > less prone to get "bullied" by other managers into doing work
| for them and you can stand up more for your team
|
| This is the real key. Management is about controlling others
| and not letting others control you without compensation.
|
| > I would personally trust others who have self-control more
| than those who don't for time-sensitive and critical tasks
| because I can rely on them to regulate their emotions and give
| honest answers, as well as hold themselves accountable.
|
| Of course you would, and if they wanted to be in your shoes
| they would do well to learn mastery over others as well as you
| have.
|
| Learning the language of self-control may be a path to that,
| especially if you have not heard it before. However, it can
| also be a path to _being_ controlled, as in your example. I
| grew up in a conservative environment, so that was my problem:
| I was heavily indoctrinated in the language of self-control,
| responsibility, and accountability, and these made me easy to
| exploit. My own "red pill" moment involved understanding these
| as tools of power rather than facts of the world, thereby
| freeing myself to better represent my own interests.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >I was heavily indoctrinated in the language of self-control,
| responsibility, and accountability, and these made me easy to
| exploit. My own "red pill" moment involved understanding
| these as tools of power rather than facts of the world,
| thereby freeing myself to better represent my own interests.
|
| Can you give some clearer examples? I am curious how this is
| done in those circles.
| detourdog wrote:
| I grew up in central Pennsylvania farm country. This is a
| conservative area that has voted republican in every
| presidential election since Lincoln. The area is also rich
| in both Amish and Mennonite families. When a whole area is
| so packed with conservative ideas and individual it has a
| strong effect on what is "common sense". Common sense is
| not generally universal it is culturally based.
|
| The best example I can think of is that 85% of the kids in
| my High School had the same haircut and rarely left the
| area. Suddenly mTV arrived on cable and the kids and
| hairstyles went wild. I know of parents calling the cable
| company to get mTV removed from the home(unsuccessfully).
|
| It is simply a cultural standard.
| c4wrd wrote:
| Having self-control can give a false sense of self-
| righteousness, and if you're not careful, this will lead to
| you eventually caring about how you look and you will do
| whatever it takes to maintain the image of self-
| control/responsibility. If you carefully analyze this, you
| are now basing your self-worth on external appearances,
| therefore you are giving your control away to anyone who
| can see this projection. Anyone experienced with
| controlling others can sniff out this projection and then
| use it against you in this way: "We need to think about the
| importance of handling this (X) responsibly. What do you
| think we should do?". Now they are telling you they think
| you can make responsible decisions on an important
| decision, stroking your projected ego, and they've
| activated your want to act responsibly to do something for
| them.
|
| Now, it doesn't always mean that this is a way someone is
| manipulating you. Self-control is realizing that this ego-
| stroke feeling of making you feel important does not mean
| to need to involve yourself or act. You need to separate
| the emotion from the decision-making process and realize
| that others can use your emotions to manipulate you. It's
| up to you to decide whether you can trust this person or
| not, you just need to be aware that the emotion could have
| been intentional or unintentional.
| atoav wrote:
| I read somewhere: "The first thought you have in reaction to
| something is a mirror of how you were brought up, the second
| thought is a mirror of who you are".
|
| So the defining thing isn't reacting to a shiny thing, it is
| what you do after that initial thought and whether you can see
| yourself falling in the ever-same traps and do something
| against it.
| richardgreeko27 wrote:
| > ...making excuses when you read this article for why the
| power hierarchy is against you, or that there is bias in the
| results
|
| > ...this post triggered you
|
| Definitely the language choices of an unbiased perspective from
| someone who doesn't have an axe to grind
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Are these words really that verboten now?
| autoexec wrote:
| No, but a person's choice of even our non-verboten words
| will still cause others to make certain assumptions about
| them.
| mjburgess wrote:
| These are the excuses culture makes available. I take the
| commenter just to be reporting them.
| c4wrd wrote:
| You're right. I never said it was an unbiased perspective, so
| let me make it clear. The post was intended to help those who
| were like me. When I wrote the post, I wrote it as if I was
| speaking to my past self in a style that would have motivated
| my younger self; nothing more, nothing less.
| blueprint wrote:
| > you will start to realize that you can't think of a reason
| why you made an excuse
|
| this may not always be true by the way. such constant
| observation of yourself, constantly asking yourself what such
| and such a thing means or came from - may eventually lead you
| to notice the cognitive jump you take - the experience you had
| all those years ago plus the new thought pattern you started to
| let yourself believe - which became compressed and hidden by
| the familiarity and comfort of having no problems due to the
| resulting dissociation. Before you let yourself believe there
| was no reason, consider deferring belief permanently until you
| remember what impression you had which caused 'what is'. Far
| along that path lies deep self-knowledge and therefore deep
| knowledge of the world. Most people aren't as interested in
| seeing the truth as they believe so they give up when they feel
| more comfortable. It's explained, then, that as a result of not
| being awakened to what is, their karma inside themselves can
| still conquer their destiny [1]. Whereas someone who actually
| respects the truth is going to think more seriously about
| controlling their karma, at the very least so as not to damage
| the truth more.
|
| 1. What is Destiny?- https://tathagata.netlify.app/page/destiny
| astura wrote:
| >when you have greater self-control you are less prone to get
| "bullied" by other managers into doing work for them and you
| can stand up more for your team
|
| Umm... You are confusing self control with confidence and self
| esteem. They aren't the same thing. Though I can see how
| becoming more disciplined can lead to more confidence and self
| esteem.
| andai wrote:
| > Not every thought needs to be acted on, especially if the
| thoughts come from external sources.
|
| I've heard it said (I believe by Hormozi on Williamson's
| podcast) that at a certain level, success becomes mostly about
| saying no to increasingly great opportunities.
|
| I can confirm this is relevant near the bottom too, at least if
| you have a high level of openness (personality dimension) and
| are presented with inspiration on a regular basis.
|
| The 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration quote comes to mind.
|
| The principle of sacrifice comes to mind. It seems to be a
| choice between sacrificing many small things, or a few great
| things.
| c4wrd wrote:
| Here's an analogy that I think about from time to time.
| Imagine your life as a garden. You have a finite amount of
| days, with a finite amount of resources per day to plant new
| things or caretake existing things. Your soul represents the
| breadth and depth of your reach on any given day, but it is a
| fixed size and you must choose how much breadth and depth it
| has through your choices. Consider each day as an opportunity
| for change in this ratio of breadth vs depth, and over time
| this will play out as a spectrum between the two following
| situations:
|
| (1) You can spend each day traveling to a new area, planting
| a new seed wherever you go, but never watering the same area
| twice. You get to learn about many different seeds, but you
| never get to stick around somewhere long enough to watch them
| grow into fruit-bearing plants. Your soul will be full of
| different experiences, but you will not be able to relish in
| the details of any particular area (i.e. pluck the fruit from
| your garden when you are ready to relax and are thinking back
| on your life)
|
| (2) You can choose to focus on one or a few areas to add
| depth, learn the fundamentals of how things grow in those
| areas, and learn to care for and nourish them over time. In
| the end, you will be left with a beautiful garden that you
| have perfected and know every detail about that is full of
| fruit-bearing plants. You can wander this garden and eat the
| fruit from any of your plants.
|
| Your soul has a finite reach. By focusing on one thing, you
| are neglecting to focus on another, and there is nothing you
| can do to change that. It's up to you to choose how you want
| to live, and not making a choice is also a choice. If you
| don't make a choice (i.e. a sacrifice of not visiting some
| areas or not nourishing the area around you), you will be
| left with the worst of both worlds: a decaying garden and no
| knowledge of how to grow anything.
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| I wonder what do you think about the usage of such training. I
| have had such trainings for diet control and distraction
| control but I felt unless one manages to gain a long term
| control the whole time is kinda worthless.
|
| For example I can lose 10 pounds in 2 months with diet control
| and a bit of discipline. But it comes back quickly once the
| self control goes away. What is the point? Practicing such self
| control does not give me better self control next time but only
| brings down self confidence a bit every time.
|
| I guess the ultimate reason is that I do not really enjoy the
| targets I set. How can I enjoy something I do not but
| inherently good for me?
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Part if it is that enjoying it is not the goal, losing the
| weight or passing the test or whatever is the goal. You're
| not trying to enjoy yourself, so if the pursuit of the goal
| is very painful for you, you're not going to enjoy it. But
| you had a reason to start. Sometimes we encounter very
| difficult obstacles in our lives and relationships, we get so
| far out into trouble and unhappiness that it seems impossible
| to get back. General advice in this case is to try to connect
| back to why you started. What does passing the test do for
| you, why did you want to lose weight, why did you originally
| fall in love with that person.
|
| If you never had a grounding to start with then it's time to
| find one.
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Thanks. For weight lost I guess the initial grounding is to
| gain a healthier body.
|
| But then again, I probably have no idea what I am going to
| do with a healthier body.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| You do literally everything with your healthier body!
| Every moment of your life is lived inside a body which is
| more capable of physically influencing the world around
| you. A big physical change is like going from notepad to
| vim. It takes time and effort and attention but it's so
| damn _powerful_. Eating healthier and especially,
| _especially_ exercising is such a boon to generally
| feeling good throughout the day. I've never been more
| motivated, productive, and capable than when i was
| running every day. It was honestly astonishing.
| robocat wrote:
| I suggest you read this:
| https://radicalcontributions.substack.com/p/escalation-theor...
|
| It is really insightful about how we train ourselves for
| compliance, but how that training struggles to cope when we
| interact with violence escalaters (who are common in some parts
| of society).
|
| I live near a port town and face and threat of violence is
| easily visible in men and many women.
| abeppu wrote:
| All of this is in a context where it's assumed that participants
| _know_ the goals of the person under consideration, can straight-
| forwardly evaluate whether actions are in line with those, and
| where the _participant's_ goals are framed to not be a part of
| the discussion.
|
| In real life, how often are these true for power that matters?
|
| - as an IC, I generally don't have the information an exec has,
| and cannot easily judge which choices are aligned with stated
| goals
|
| - as a voter, I'm regularly unsure which goals that a politician
| says publicly are their real goals
|
| - and for any situation where I'm close enough to judge the
| actual suitability of actions, and the intents of the
| participants, I probably have enough of a stake that my view of
| who should be in control is swayed by what outcome I want
| seydor wrote:
| This doesn't pass my sniff test. The results are based on what
| people say about who "looks powerful" but didn't put people in a
| position where they actually give power to them . "Look what
| people do rather than what they say" is very relevant here.
| Reject and resubmit
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _...you gotta have the self-control first. Then when you get
| the self-control, you get the power. Then when you get the
| power, then you get the women._ -- not AM
| zubairq wrote:
| Interesting. Maybe I should try to get more done by having more
| self control
| xeckr wrote:
| >In one experiment, working adults imagined a scenario where a
| colleague with the goal of being fit either ate a large dessert
| or abstained from dessert altogether. Researchers found that the
| colleague was seen as being better suited for high-power roles
| when they abstained from indulging, an indication of self-
| control.
|
| The result of the study seems obvious even if the design is a bit
| primitive.
| pilgrim0 wrote:
| IMO simply striving to gain power or money is easier than to
| achieve greatness and mastery, in general. Mainly because one can
| lie their way into power and money, countless examples of that
| both at a local level and global level. Now, mastery requires the
| opposite of lying and pursuing easy to achieve goals. It's the
| hardest path because frustration is constant, and it requires one
| to keep stretching the limits of their own capabilities, and it
| never gets easier. Self control in that scenario is not
| necessarily about getting things "done", but rather to not give
| up, and keep trying restlessly. The lack of nuance in the summary
| of that paper makes me think it's not worth reading it. For me, I
| have greater admiration and respect for someone who has failed
| majestically at being great, than for someone who deals purely
| with median or below median expectations. The former will have
| amazing stories to tell, the latter usually don't. The summary
| given by this blog, and likely the paper, too, is heavily tainted
| with the idea of "being for others", rather than the idea of
| "being for self". Again, being for others is super easy because
| it's simply a matter of controlling the information you give,
| people do that all the time in social media. This doesn't work
| for "being for self" because one can't fool oneself indefinitely.
| Like the summary hints at, striving for greatness indeed involves
| fulfilling many achievements in the process of pursuing the
| greater achievement. This usually doesn't count for observers,
| though, because the crowd has no taste or time for the story, but
| only for conclusions. Again illustrating how "being for self" is
| harder, as you're set to be perceived as less than what you're
| really trying to become. A functional remedy for that is simply
| to not be so public about your desires, which has the upside of
| protecting you from all sorts of exploitation.
| kingkawn wrote:
| The thing obstructing all progress is the wanton deployment of
| generalizations that hold no obligation other than to reflect
| the reality of their distributor
| jack_pp wrote:
| > IMO simply striving to gain power or money is easier than to
| achieve greatness and mastery
|
| While my ego would want to agree the truth is staying in power
| and making money exponentially isn't easy either, and you can't
| lie your way to lifelong power and fuck you money because
| eventually people figure you out, your reputation plummets and
| then you have less power and less opportunity to make money.
|
| That said you choose what game you want to play, if you care
| more about your craft focus on perfecting it even though that's
| not gonna make you as much money as pursuing money for its own
| sake.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| > you can't lie your way to lifelong power and fuck you money
| because eventually people figure you out, your reputation
| plummets and then you have less power and less opportunity to
| make money.
|
| Surely we do have very notable exceptions to this.
| jack_pp wrote:
| I'm not saying top earners never lie, I'm saying overall
| they have to be somewhat trustworthy. There are exceptions
| to this rule of course but I do believe it's a rule.
|
| Take Elon, he does overpromise and you could say he lies
| about self-driving capabilities but overall he does deliver
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I think luck and lying is essentially _the_ method to real
| wealth. Find me someone who got there without those two
| elements. Wealth is an expression of your ability to
| manipulate other people into devoting their labor to your
| enrichment. You don 't get there without some deception.
| sunshinerag wrote:
| i.e like your worldview. good to know
| dasil003 wrote:
| Both great points. One way to think about it is that pursuit
| of wealth simply has more competition--the opportunities for
| the upper tiers are very few relative to the population that
| aspires to them. It is objectively hard to get there
| regardless of whether you lie or not. One thing is certainly
| true though, you can't get there without incredible social
| leverage of some sort, otherwise why would tens or hundreds
| of thousands multiples of per capita GDP be routed to you?
|
| The answer is: you kind of have to bring something uniquely
| valuable to the table. Exceptional skill with people and
| general intelligence are certainly valuable ingredients, but
| to really crack the upper tier some kind of domain mastery is
| what really pushes you over the top. Bonus points if it's a
| new domain, fast to monetize and scale, hence the rapid rise
| of tech in the Fortune 500 over the past couple decades
| through the web and smart phone revolutions.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| We just need to look at politicians and voters, to know, that
| it is not necessarily true, that ones power and opportunities
| vane, when people discover the truth about ones lies.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Also lying is not that easy. Humans have evolved various
| tools to spot liars. I would bet that the average person is
| better at detecting lies and liars than they are at lying.
|
| The exceptions people talk about, of people gaining power by
| lying, are all exceptionally good at lying.
| lchen_hn wrote:
| Well said
| verisimi wrote:
| Fantastic comment, thanks
| boringuser2 wrote:
| A controversial take from this is that, aside from the health
| benefits, you will also accrue personal and professional benefits
| from not being fat.
|
| I remember interviewing when I was chubbier post-COVID thinking
| that the only evidence the interviewer has of my self-control and
| drive is that I have none. Best case scenario, you are
| interviewing a temporarily embarrassed skinny person.
|
| Noble prize winner James Watson, famous bluntly tell it like it
| is-er, said he didn't hire fat people for this reason.
|
| (This has since been rectified by reinstating strength training
| and dietary controls, which I recommend.)
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _...you will also accrue personal and professional benefits
| from not being fat._
|
| As an overweight person, I don't think it's controversial.
| You'll also accrue personal and professional benefits from
| being a tall man and/or good-looking.
|
| However, "fat people have no self-control" is still fatphobia
| and ignores the interplay of genetic, metabolic, physiological,
| cultural, socio-economic, and environmental factors that
| contribute to obesity. There are countless fat people who are
| incredibly smart and hard-working, and have exquisite
| discipline in most areas of their life.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| >fatphobia
|
| First of all, I really find this term to be gross. You should
| be afraid of being unhealthy.
|
| Second of all, are you posting that you have individual
| metabolic differences that substantially alter your caloric
| expenditure?
|
| FYI most studies show very little innate caloric expenditure
| differences between human beings outside of what can be
| predicted based on their body mass. Ironically, heavier
| people burn more calories, not less, innately.
|
| This makes sense because metabolic machinery is complex and
| so fundamental to life that it would obviously be very
| tightly tuned genetically.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _First of all, I really find this term to be gross._
|
| Lodge a complaint with dictionaries, I guess? https://dicti
| onary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/fatph...
|
| You can't agree with "you will accrue personal and
| professional benefits from not being fat" and then pretend
| fat-scrimination (is that better?) doesn't exist.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| Being negatively predisposed to bad things is both normal
| and healthy behavior.
|
| Also, using heuristics to make judgments about situations
| is how intelligence works.
| tekla wrote:
| As a former obese person, the culture of America is excusing
| people for being fat is disgusting. I'm not saying you have
| to be supermodel thin, but being fat is literally bad in
| every single possible metric (Except for possibly surviving
| longer in a survival situation, which I presume most fat
| people will never be in)
|
| Being fat is bad. Being a normal weight is better in every
| metric
| silent_cal wrote:
| "Thus, a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man,
| though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but
| what is worse, as many masters as he has vices."
|
| - St Augustine
| rgbrgb wrote:
| Correlates with the relatively high number of executives I know
| who do not drink alcohol.
| runamuck wrote:
| Unexpected comment! Can you provide details? I have not noticed
| a correlation, and about a half of the successful executives I
| see drink heavily and frequently, and nearly all drink a little
| (except me).
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| You will also see it correlates with people who exercise.
| pphysch wrote:
| This conclusion is a bit tautological: another way to frame
| "self-control" is "power over yourself" or "ability to influence
| your own actions". Of course people who have power over N=1
| people are more likely to be perceived as "powerful" than people
| who have no self-control i.e. N=0, because they are.
|
| In other words, self-control doesn't just "lead to" power, it
| _is_ power.
| ranprieur wrote:
| This article mentions a study that found almost no correlation
| between people who self-report having high self-control, and
| people who actually do well on tests measuring self-control:
|
| https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/15/16863374/wi...
|
| The most likely explanation is that people who report high self-
| control are really experiencing less temptation.
| CharlesW wrote:
| It's the same "illusory superiority" cognitive bias as the
| Dunning-Kruger effect. The least competent will overestimate
| their self-control, and the most competent will underestimate
| it.
| fsckboy wrote:
| while it could be, that doesn't ring true to me.
|
| I'd go for more of a Freudian "people who are somewhat
| obsessed with self control (therefore mindful of it) are
| people who struggle with it," coupled with salience bias.
| People who don't struggle with self control never think about
| it.
| anon291 wrote:
| How in the world does a test of 'does this colored text match
| its name' test 'self-control'. 'Self-control' as used in the
| article means things like 'can you stick to a diet', or 'can
| you keep your word', not can you control your thought processes
| enough to quickly name a color. You can be highly self
| disciplined and bad at this task, or highly undisciplined and
| good at it. In fact, I'd imagine undisciplined people might be
| inspired by the entertainment value of this 'game', and spend
| useless time practicing it rather than doing what actually
| matters.
|
| This study is complete garbage.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Is this a distinction without a difference?
|
| In the original qualitative write-ups for the Marshmallow Test,
| they described the children using all sorts of distraction
| strategies to basically make themselves forget that there's a
| tasty marshmallow sitting right in front of them. Maybe this is
| all that self-control _is_ - having enough self-awareness (and
| valuing your future self highly enough) to direct your
| attention elsewhere so that temptations disappear from your
| view. It fits with the neuroscience we know about consciousness
| as well (that it 's effectively a brain network which taps into
| the other brain networks and can observe and direct their
| firing) and even into how attention mechanisms in GPTs work.
|
| It also is how most mature adults approach the world. If you're
| an alcoholic, don't go to the bar. If you're married, don't go
| to the strip club. If you want to lose weight, put less food on
| your plate. Most of what we know of as self-control is really
| having the skills to avoid temptation.
| abalaji wrote:
| I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-
| death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will
| permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone
| past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear
| has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
| dekhn wrote:
| "Researchers confirm their own biases using poor quality study"
| akomtu wrote:
| It's a tautology. Self-control is about controlling your self,
| which is made of thoughts and desires. Either you control them,
| or they control you.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I for one can attest to this. I saw great gains in power, and the
| power people perceived in me once I prioritized and stuck to a
| strict exercise regime.
|
| Once I started doing 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 air squats, and
| a 10-km run every day, I found greater strength and focus in my
| life. I felt I could easily take on just about any task with ease
| and immediately conquer it!
|
| Eventually, I got into training which used higher-than-normal
| gravity to maximize resistance and further build strength.
|
| After a while I measured my power, and it was well over 9000!
| fsckboy wrote:
| having self-control could be a result of having higher IQ: being
| better able to figure out the future results of current behavior.
|
| And "higher IQ leads to power" (on average, population statistic)
| is not counterintuitive.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Welcome to 101 in people do not like failure.
| begueradj wrote:
| Winston Churchill said: "A man is about as big as the things that
| make him angry".
|
| > But Steve Jobs could also be a tyrant. He was obsessively
| controlling, and given to fits of rage, throwing tantrums and
| yelling at employees and board members.
|
| (quoted).
|
| >Read the internal Tesla employee survey from 2018, where
| employees called Elon Musk an 'unapproachable tyrant' who fires
| people 'because of his ego'
|
| (Quoted)
|
| ... The list is long ...
| bitwize wrote:
| Darth Vader is just so much cooler and more menacing than Kylo
| Ren, and a lot of it is to do with that the latter loses his shit
| when he encounters an obstacle.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| The second half of the study (setting but not meeting ambitious
| goalposts) seems to conflate self-control with realism. Setting
| impossible goals is not a trait one wants in a leader. This
| result may have little to do with perceptions of self-control.
| barrystaes wrote:
| Nice article. It is good to bear in mind the perception of
| selfcontrol by observers does not actually correlate with the
| actual selfcontrol that a person exercises.
| davidhay wrote:
| It would be interesting to map how powerful a person is to their
| perceived power via this study.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| Makes you wonder why the stereotype of the "Playboy"-type
| billionaire who is slave to his desires has been pushed and
| accepted for long, when it's plainly false.
| 48864w6ui wrote:
| Is it plainly false in your circles? In mine, only one acquired
| (economic) power; all the rest inherited, and they do tend more
| to the playboy stereotypes. (But this dichotomy may largely be
| due to the fact that only the former is a nerd?)
| thecosas wrote:
| Enjoyed this tidbit from the bottom of the article:
| "To motivate their employees, organizations often want employees
| to set stretch goals - goals that are challenging and hard-to-
| reach. However, we found that setting a stretch goal and not
| meeting it makes someone look less powerful than setting an easy
| goal and surpassing it," said Rady School PhD student Shuang Wu,
| the first author of the paper.
| FredPret wrote:
| Let me tell you - I did a five-star job of opening my laptop
| this morning. Just super - knocked it out of the park.
| advael wrote:
| This has a kind of silly sleight of hand I've unfortunately come
| to expect in psych research. This seems to try to study power
| while controlling for... power?
|
| It can definitely be interesting to see how the personality one
| projects can influence the social dynamics of a peer group (with
| the usual caveats that studying people in laboratory conditions
| for something iterated and evolving like social relationships is
| famously fraught in the first place), but this notion of power as
| something that's given to people _by_ social perception on a
| moment-to-moment basis seems ill-suited to describe the real
| world, where in many contexts the relevant power is official and
| considerably less up for social negotiation
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