Narcissism (2)

David McRaney writes:

"...the Western concept of 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' is seen in Eastern cultures as 'the nail that stands out gets pounded down.' American self-help techniques, they point out, ask people to do things such as look in the mirror and say, 'I am beautiful,' one hundred times before leaving the house, while in Japan, workers gladly do things such as hold hands and tell coworkers that they are beautiful.

"...in such a culture, people tend to become more confident after subsequent failures than they do following easy, first-time successes. Self-esteem comes from fitting in and contributing to the well-being of the whole. A person in such a culture, they say, doesn't feel the gut punch of disappointment if their personal accomplishments never set them apart or don't generate individual praise or fame. Disapproval in the eyes of other is given much more weight than praise, because praise is less reliable, less likely to be honest."

***
"A century of experimental data points to a central fact about your day-to-day experience and behavior: You are deeply invested in self-confidence. The higher your baseline self-esteem, the more protective you become of it. It waxes and wanes throughout your day and throughout your life, but a general feeling of being able to take on the world keeps you going. You feel effective. you feel you have some sort of control over your environment. You feel as though you have choices, and those choices can make your life better. Psychologists call that sense of control over your destiny self-efficacy.

"The famous psychologist B.F. Skinner said that your core personality developed around tiny science experiments you conducted throughout childhood. He saw a pattern in behavior he called responses and reinforcers. Imagine, as a kid, that you played around on a piano during a holiday party one year and everyone came into the room to listen, and then everyone clapped and laughed and praised you. Skinner said that added some points to your feelings of efficacy. You might try that again in a similar situation in the future, and if it worked again, you would add it to your bag of tricks for getting attention.

"Over time, he believed, you learn that a wide variety of situations and behaviors will get you attention and praise or some other reward, and you begin to position yourself to always be in situations that allow for such an exchange with the outside world. You build a sense of self-confidence around those actions and situations you can be fairly certain will provide you a return or, as he put it, a reinforcer. This is why, he said, you decide to skip some gatherings and attend others. This is why you become fast friends with some people, and others turn you off within seconds.

"You tend to protect a bubble you've created and nurtured your entire life, a bubble of positive illusions that make you feel good about yourself. Those good feelings bleed into your sense of control and your general attitude when facing unfamiliar problems. Self-esteem and self-efficacy work together to get you out of bed in the morning and keep you going back for more punishment from the unforgiving world.

***
"The studies into self-enhancement show that there is no one set level of confidence in all human beings. Instead, people make a wide variety of nuanced and complex assumptions about their abilities and self-worth. As with most aspects of the mind, there is a spectrum out there in the real world, and you fall somewhere along it, but when you take humanity as a whole and average out the temperaments, most people rate themselves a tad bit above average. Chances are, you do the same thing when it comes to the more nebulous and desirable aspects of the self, whatever you believe those aspects to be.

"Your opinions on what makes for an above-average, covetable persona are deeply influenced by your culture and the era in which you live, but the factory settings in your comparison-to-other-people introspection module seem to be set slightly above the midpoint.

"Knowing this, you can predict how you and others will attack difficult and convoluted issues, and maybe you can come to less-dumb conclusions and develop thoroughly non-dumb plans of action.

"Know that the people who do beat all the odds, who do persevere after being knocked down over and over again, end up being the only people left to compare yourself against. They are the people who tell inspirational stories of overcoming great odds and never giving in to doubt. The other people, the ones who tried and failed, the ones who make up the true majority -- they don't get invited to speak at college graduations.

***
"This mass of delusions was a useful evolutionary trick for your people. It is difficult to be a person hurtling through space on a hostile rock with only a handful of friends. It is hard even if you are fortunate enough to live in a wealthy, educated, industrialized nation in the 21st century and be born into a family who lives above the poverty line. In such a place, you live like a king compared with billions of less fortunate people.

"If you are living in such a wonderful place, think about all the complaining and sadness you've felt and witnessed. The gulf between what you want and what you have, the sudden loss of a loved one, the yearning for love and the pining for it when unrequited -- no matter how good you've got it, you are no stranger to tears. Obviously, owning a brain is not easy. It is a testament to the weirdness of our pursuit of happiness and fulfillment to realize how well we get by in the face of so much strife -- real or imagined. Self-enhancement bias and all its positive illusions temper the trials and tribulations of many people on this planet struggling with poverty and war, hunger and disease.

"In Phnom Penh and in Calcutta, a series of garbage heaps stretch out like low mountain ranges, and every day, large crowds of children gather to pick at the fresh trash as it spills from the back of giant trucks. The children scavenge all day, often barefoot, choking in the haze generated by nearby garbage fires. There are places where, right now, people go to work every day worried about sniper fire and suicide bombers. In many places, the water runs brown and meals are not guaranteed.

"Throughout human history there have been periods in which people bore tremendous burden and slogged through what seemed like insurmountable misery. From concentration camps to death marches, to plagues and wars, people who share the same basic mind as you have suffered and survived horrific events. Likewise, you share something amazing with those who live daily under the yoke of terrible oppression. Should you be plucked from your cozy place in this world and assume their plight, should your will be tested at the intensity of so many before you, one constant is sure: You will be resilient. You won't give up."

Narcissism Like Rich Girls With Herpes

Look to your left, now look to your right.

If there's a human being both on your right & on your left, statistically speaking, you just looked at, on average, at least one person with Herpes.



You also saw at least one Narcissist.

In her book The Narcissism Epidemic, Jean Twenge says that since the mid-1980s, clinically defined narcissism in the US has increased in the population at the same rate as obesity.

***
Which I guess helps explain a study I found quite unbelievable upon first blush -- a study published in 2010 by Brad Bushman, Scott Moeller, & Jennifer Crocker. As part of a series of self-esteem experiments, they had college students rate a variety of things the average person desires -- food, sex, money, friendship, compliments. They then asked the students how strongly they wanted those things & how much they tended to like them.

***
They say the clear winner was what I thought would be the last place finisher: Compliments. Perhaps this explains a lot about me, because I thought I was in the process of changing my mind, but now, as I re-read the words of the study, I'm ever more baffled. I just don't give many fucks about compliments I guess.

But I'm going to start treating people like they're the ones in the study. It makes a lot of sense, when I think of the endless array of y'all donkeys -- that you're actually just diseased mentally. I used to think you were all dumb bots, but now this theory works better.

***
In 1980, Narcissistic Personality Disorder first appeared in the DSM-III as:

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

David McRaney explains things this way -- "In studies of high school & college-age people, boosts to self-esteem were found to be usually more attractive & beguiling than the sort of things older people see as proper rewards. When you ask a person in the first quarter of her life what she would rather have -- sex, pizza, or a positive comment about her -- the majority go for the kind words, even if the subject had not enjoyed the other options in a very long time."

***
The researchers used another study to show that this tendency to prefer self-esteem boosts diminishes over time, but not completely.

They say Grandiosity is the hallmark of narcissism, but I think most narcissists hear this & say to themselves, "No worries, no grandiosity here, look at how poor and wage-slavey hipster I am!"

(Like these University of Indiana sorority girls & their recent homeless-themed party)

The best excuse the Rich have, for not giving a shit about the rest of the world, is that they're ignorant.

If, however Rich people are going to pull back the curtain & start taunting the rest of the world, how does that not end in a lot of Rich people whose faces look like these girls, but not from digital blurs?

The Best Bluffs

The following is excerpted from David McRaney's "You Are Now Less Dumb:"

   Imagine you want access to a watering hole, but a nasty person arrives at this place at the same time as you & refuses to share. This person looks like he might be a bit stronger than you, but you can't be sure.

He might be bluffing.

If you are totally honest with yourself, you'll walk away, & thus possibly remove yourself from the gene pool. If, instead, you feel slightly overconfident given what you know about the other person, you might stand your ground, or go for some sort of bluff yourself. 

When Johnson & Fowler plugged these strategies into a computer program & had simulated opponents face off in a struggle for limited resources, they found that, over several thousand generations, those who were slightly overconfident started to outperform those with other evaluations of themselves.

As long as the reward was worth fighting for, & both sides were naive about what they were up against, overconfidence won. Those who routinely overestimated their abilities never turned away from disputes in which it seemed like a toss-up as to who could win, & they sometimes won even when they were the underdog because the other party didn't call their unwitting bluff. The more uncertain the computer opponents were, the more advantageous it became to be overconfident.

You have the capacity to rationally judge the risks & benefits, the costs & rewards, of complex systems, but in a pinch you can fall back on a simple & reliable shortcut: just be slightly & blindly overconfident.

The best bluff, it turns out, is the one in which even the bluffer is unaware of the cards he is holding.

If you could accurately assess the odds against you -- whether those odds took the shape of a hunting expedition, a one-on-one fight, or the job market for philosophy majors -- you would probably turn away from the struggle more often than not. There is always plenty of evidence that the odds are not in your favor, enough to deter you from trying just about everything in life.

Luckily for you, most of the time you have no idea what you are getting into, & you greatly overestimate your chances for success. 

It makes sense that primates like you would have evolved a fondness for delusions of grandeur. That's the sort of attitude that gets you out of caves & beds.

The relentless bombardment of challenges & tribulations makes it very difficult to be a person, whether you must fend off rabid beavers or ravenous bill collectors. Those who tried just a few percentage points harder, who persevered just a smidge longer, defeated nature more often than the realists. You've inherited a tendency to thrash against the odds, to be optimistic in the face of futility.

On average, positive illusions work, but left unchecked, they can lead to terrible decisions & policies. Overconfidence is a powerful tool to drive behaviors & encourage perseverance against strife & uncertainty in both your personal life & in the lives of nations & institutions. Occasionally, though, that same emotional state can mutate into hubris & blind ambition.

History is littered with the bodies, both real & metaphorical, of self-enhancement biases. The same irrational, unrealistic overconfidence swimming in your nervous system can be disastrous should you find yourself leading millions or tending to their investments.

Your evolved response is to allow your brain to trick you into doing what maximizes fitness in your species, even though that benefit shows up only over the course of millions of lifetimes. In an isolated instance, in a specific situation, overconfidence may not be the best state of mind, & the behaviors that spring from that sort of reality assessment may not be the best actions in the great multiple-choice exam of life. 

When you dissolve that situation into the billions that humans faced over their journey into modernity, though, it averages out to be the preferred route to just about every destination. 

Your brain fiddles with your emotions to get you to do what usually works by suggesting that you are more awesome than you actually are, even in scenarios in which that would be a terrible mistake.

Sometimes you pause, think, & reject the suggestion. Sometimes you don't. As some experts have pointed out, this general strategy matured among small societies without the ability to prevent or cause great harm. Modern society is large & complex, with institutions wielding great power over the lives of many. This is why Johnson & Fowler added a dire parting shot in their predictions. 

Since you are programmed to become increasingly overconfident the less you understand about any given scenario, you can expect to find the most destructive overconfidence in places that are exceedingly complicated & unpredictable. Their examples include governments, wars, financial markets, & natural disasters.

***

Offer Me Solutions, Offer Me Alternatives

The end of poker as we know it.

DURRRRRR

(or, Bink!)

(or, Knish, a Biopic)

Years & years ago,

when I first conceived this project,

I wrote in my poker journal:

“Sunglasses should be banned.

Be a man (or a woman) and don’t give in to all that sunglasses bullshit. I can’t be intimidated by the dudes and dudettes in sunglasses—I just can’t. Alan Goerhing—I like him, I think I might respect him if I were to play against him, but only in spite of his goofy Darth Vader/nursing home sunglasses. Not because of them. He’s random when he plays. That’s more intimidating than the most reflective Oakleys in Chris Moneymaker’s nightstand.

Take charge of the look. Get rid of the sunglasses. Or—you know what—better yet, have the sunglasses and use them. Make the sunglasses character one of your characters. Be aware of what it means to be wearing sunglasses. What your opponent thinks of you when you are wearing them versus when you are not. Give them more to think about. Turn them into the field goal kicker and then ice them to death.

I think sunglasses might lead to the end of poker. If everyone were to be covered in tinted glass from head to toe, we might as well all be playing online. Shouldn’t it be important that players know how to control their fucking eyes at the poker table? Jesus Christ.

“You can’t call your book DURRRRRR. Thomas “durrrr” Dwan III copyrighted himself in the Year of Our Lord, twentyoughtsix.”

“That’s ridiculous. Tom Dwan only had four r’s in his screen name. My Durrrrrr has 50% more r’s.”

“Because you’re 50% more re****ed.”

“& not a vampire. & not gay.”

Tom Dwan is neither homosexual nor a vampire. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things.”

£ They are not folding. They are not folding. They are not folding. They didn’t come here to fold

From Flying Cars To Cities on the Moon

I'm almost wrapping it up with the David McRaney series of excerpts from You Are Now Less Dumb, a great read -- I can't wait to read his other stuff:

From flying cars to cities on the moon, science fiction movies rarely get the future right. There is no internet on Star Trek, no smartphones in Blade Runner. Your brain is just as bad as any science fiction movie when it comes to predicting your own future. The difference is that movies leave behind a perfect record of their failure. You don't.

When things are going your way, you have no problem calling attention to your own contributions to good fortune. If you win a game, or get promoted, or make an excellent grade, you tend to attribute that success to your skills, talent, effort, & preparation.

If you FAIL, though, or get passed over, you have a habit of looking for something outside yourself to blame -- a mean boss, a crappy team, a confusing teacher -- whatever it takes to keep yourself from blame. 

This SELF-SERVING BIAS provides you with credit for all the things in life that worked out in your favor, & it absolves you of responsibility for those times you fell short. The self-serving bias makes it difficult for you to acknowledge the help of others, or luck, or an unfair advantage. It isn't a malicious defect of your personality; it's just your brain's way of framing things so that you don't stop moving forward. If you fail the tests that would have made you a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or dog groomer, you protect your ego by noticing all the factors in between you & your goals. That way, you can try again with all the gumption & certainty required to accomplish such difficult objectives.

The positive illusions & their helpers form a supercluster of delusion that thumps in the psyche of every human. Together, ILLUSORY SUPERIORITY BIAS, THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL, OPTIMISM BIAS, CONFIRMATION BIAS, HINDSIGHT BIAS, & SELF-SERVING BIAS combine like Voltron into a mental chimera called self-enhancement bias. It works just as the name suggests--it enhances your view of your self. 

If you drive, you probably see yourself as a competent, considerate, skillful driver, especially compared with the morons & assholes you face on the road on a daily basis. If you are like the typical subject, you believe you are slightly more attractive than the average person, a bit smarter, a smidgen better at solving puzzles & figuring out riddles, a better listener, a cut above when it comes to leadership skills, in possession of paramount moral fiber, more interesting than the people passing you on the street, & on & on it goes. 

A report in 2010 published in the British Journal of Social Psychology suggests that you even see yourself as more human than other people.