Hello!
Seiiti Arata.
Continuing the conversation from the previous video, now we'll see how self-help books can
actually self-harm.
And how to reverse the risk by having a different way of doing the reading.
1.
Correlation and causation
It is easy to criticize the self-help books.
There are people who take an intellectual air around and say they can't stand manuals
of how to be happy and use positive thoughts.
Some people prefer to "learn from those who went and did" so they go after biographies
or books that tell the story of successful companies.
But there is something in common both in the popular literature of self-help and also the
biographies.
It is the survivorship bias.
Survivorship bias is a selection bias, a false perception of things.
Both self-help books and biographies are full of reports of enormous difficulties that have
been overcome.
So in the end, it all worked out and showed the little rules to follow in order to move
towards happiness.
But what about all the cases of those who followed these exact rules and still failed?
Did they go bankrupt?
Did they fail to overcome a depression or a great difficulty?
Well, we would not know, simply because they do not write books about it.
So when we find books and self-help books (or biographies or case studies, as you prefer),
and identify the habits of those who have success, we'll always remember that we may
be facing a correlation.
It does not necessarily mean that everyone who follows the recommended steps will always
have a positive outcome.
2.
Opposite effect
In the previous video about positive thinking ( arata.se/hello13 ) we also saw that there
are some important limits to be observed to maintain clarity of thought.
What we want to avoid is precisely the opposite effect of staring in the mirror saying affirmations
in a high-type voice "I will succeed!
I will succeed!"
When deep down we have a critical voice that says "What nonsense!"
This critical voice automatically rejects the positive statements when there is no consistency
with the image we have of ourselves, or our deepest beliefs.
We seek to be consistent.
And just by repeating motivational phrases aloud will not serve to bring a consistent
change.
You can even damage your self-esteem because there will be an internal conflict that seeks
to strengthen the existing picture of who we are and attack these motivational phrases.
There are even published studies showing that this kind of positive affirmation may cause
the opposite effect ( http://arata.se/w14z)
3.
Low quality of scientific rigor
Yet another criticism is that many of the popular self-help books are not written with
a scientific rigor based on evidence.
Anecdotes are difficult to prove, such as those stories of what happened to a friend
of the author when he was young.
And all these narratives can either be invented or even when true, exaggerated.
Even in situations where it is absolutely true, again we have the selection bias: only
the stories that confirm the author's ideas are selected to appear in the book ... while
countless cases where the theory has no support, simply do not appear.
Let me give an example, you might know: the Life Goals experiment at Yale University.
Legend says (which is repeated several times in dozens and dozens of books, including bestsellers
by authors well recognized in the market) that in 1953 the graduate students at Yale
University were interviewed to find out if they were clear about their life goals.
Only 3% of students had this clarity.
So two decades later, when students were contacted, it was found that 3% of the group that had
clear written goals had accumulated more financial wealth than the rest of the 97% students together.
And so this experiment was used in several self-help books as proof that it is important
to have well-defined objectives.
I'm not here to question the importance of REASONING.
Developing a list of goals and strategies to achieve these goals is certainly a great
exercise of reasoning.
However, the story is false.
The experiment of Yale has never existed.
So when we do the reading, it is important to always have a filter on the scientific
rigor of what is written.
It is the active reading, trying to find what is useful, and discarding what is not useful.
And also finding the hooks that stimulate the search for more information from other
sources.
Active reading is essential for all, and self help books would be no different.
We can open a book such as The Secret and hold a simplistic reading, imagining that
just by closing your eyes and waiting for the universe to manifest a new car in front
of our garage.
That's one way to think about this, the law of attraction that is not very useful to stimulate
our behavior change.
Or we can interpret the ideas of the book in order to understand that before we begin
the process of going after our goals we must first define these objectives and believe
that there is a possibility.
Despite all the criticism, it is still worth saying that the wise man can find valuable
information even in the worst sources.
And the foolish man cannot extract any useful information even in the best sources.