Accuracy and Flourishing
Via Tyler Cowen, research indicating that being sad has its virtues:
Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.
The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.
Put this in a box with a growing body of researching indicating that there’s a problematic relationship between what’s good for you to think and what’s accurate. For example, how well you fare in life is largely due to socioeconomic circumstances and luck. But individual initiative does play a role. And consequently people who overestimate the role of individual initiative tend to do better in life than those with more accurate perceptions, plausibly because getting this stuff wrong inspires you to try harder. There’s also a substantial literature on “depressive realism” indicating that people suffering from depression have more accurate perceptions about many things.
17 Responses to “Accuracy and Flourishing”
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November 3rd, 2009 at 9:22 am
Maybe people with a better understanding of things become depressed.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
Balloons rain down from the ceiling upon Njorl.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:51 am
Well, yes Njorl. That seems fairly likely. It’s easy to be joyous when you’re too stupid to notice that you’re rolling in filth.
There’s a reason most people differentiate between reactive and chronic depression.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:02 am
And consequently people who overestimate the role of individual initiative tend to do better in life than those with more accurate perceptions, plausibly because getting this stuff wrong inspires you to try harder.
That statement contradicts itself. Try this:
And consequently people who believe in the value of individual initiative do better in life than those who consider themselves “realists”, plausibly because believing in yourself inspires you to try harder.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:20 am
This says nothing about how difficult it is to motivate yourself when you’re depressed. More accurate perceptions, maybe, but it’s harder to act on those perceptions. I don’t think depression gives anyone any sort of economic advantage.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
America is fuelled by toxic optimism. On the net American optimism id false, but in order to function among toxic optimists you have to be optimistic yourself.
Optimists who are doing well also find it easy to blame the victim. Optimists who believe that they’ve been blessed by Jesus are even more insane than the others.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:48 am
This post reminds me of a horrible boss I once had. She had completely unrealistic expectations of what was feasible for her subordinates to accomplish, yet because she was so demanding people worked harder and got more done.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
So what you’re saying, Matt, is that Dean Wormer (John Vernon) got it backwards in Animal House.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK-Dqj4fHmM
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people
Couldn’t the paying more attention to surroundings largely be explained by sad people spending more time alone? It’s much easier to pay attention to what’s going on around you when walking alone than when walking with a group.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:39 am
I think that the main problem is that overly opitimistic people (who are basically idiots) succede too well in the United States. If there were people with more pessimistic views in charge of this nation’s government and economy there would be no Iraq War, greater attention to the environment, and no stock market bubbles. Americans need to reward those with a more pessimistic view of life and treat those who are overly optimistic as delusional and in need of help.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
There is some of that good old fashioned chicken and egg thing going on too, with sad people, isn’t there, young philosopher.
Is it, people become ever sadder as they seek to use their minds to penetrate toward the the truth; or is it, sad people have always known the truth, almost from the moment of their cognitive inception no curtain was ever thick enough to hide the truth, and therefore, the sad have always been sad.
And let us not forget, how easily Black Swan events can effect the happy/sad delusional/non-delusional equation. A Black Swan event can make even the happiest of people blue, at any time.
So I will say this about our leaders, Matt. In a world of many possible futures[?], it is necessary for them, at minimum, to openly recognize that Black Swans do not always, just, Peggy Noonan style, keep on flying -flying right by.
In fact, Black Swans build nests among us, and produce many hatchlings. This must be understood -and accepted.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
there’s a problematic relationship between what’s good for you to think and what’s accurate
Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil, part one.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
what about all the depressed people who make ‘thinking errors’ that lead to depressive thoughts. The thinking errors lead to self fulfilling prophecies and therefore become ‘true’. Eg I say ‘I suck at x’ so I stop doing x, avoid x, get sad when I think about x and lo and behold the statement ‘I suck at x’ becomes true, not because of objective reality (I may really have talent at x) but because of subjective, distorted perception.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
“where but to think is to be full of care”–Keats
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
And consequently people who overestimate the role of individual initiative tend to do better in life than those with more accurate perceptions, plausibly because getting this stuff wrong inspires you to try harder.
How exactly are you measuring “do better in life”? Financially? Because working harder at earning money has a non-zero (although not actually that good) chance of earning you more money, but it has a nearly guaranteed chance of giving you less free time. Maybe people with a more realistic estimate of their chances of making more money are choosing to enjoy more free time.
Working harder to try to make more money is a lottery ticket whose cost is paid in time and whose results are paid in money (or not at all, if you lose, which lots of people do). It’s not surprising that people who think the odds of winning are better are more likely to play, but if you interpret well-being solely by dollar figures, then of course the decision to play looks like a good one: you’ve already defined away the cost.
P.S. I also wonder about the methodology of the study and whether there is any self-justifying adjustment of attitudes. People who have already economically failed are more likely to attribute economic success or failure to things other than personal characteristics or efforts, and people who have economically succeeded have the reverse tendency.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:08 am
Ignorance is bliss. Are we surprised that bliss is ignorance?
November 5th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
[...] made reference a couple of days ago to the literature on “depressive realism,” which I characterized [...]