Confidence Gap and Myths

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,I have a final Monday evening it a graduate Electrical Engineering class and so need to be studying for that.  But during breaks from work and study, I've been reading Russ's Confidence Gap.  It causes be to think about a lot of things.

Russ talks about some myths we have - about general things like Einstein getting bad grades in school to our using only 10% of our brains to myths about confidence and self-esteem.  I think a couple of myths that were prevalent in 20th century are these two.

1.  That humans have no nature or that our minds are Blank Slates.  See Pinker's book The Blank Slate for tons of details on this.  This is one of my favorite all time books.2.  That language and what we say and what we think has such strong control over our behavior and feelings.  In CG, Russ has you do experiment where you say to yourself " I can't raise my arms " while raising your arms.

These myths I think you see a lot in 20th Century writings and thinking and theories.  You see them in popular self-help books and teachers today in that they preach you can discard your past and start over fresh and that positive affirmations will have a great positive effect on you.  ( " I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and darn gone it, people like me " )

I think Albert Ellis's obsession with language and disputing irrational statements went overboard.  Ellis wrote whole books without using any form of the verb to be.  He worried that statements using this verb causes us to overgeneralize.  Like, " I am a lawyer (or teacher or engineer, etc.) "   or " I am a husband " .  He argued you are many things and just a lawyer or husband etc.  Or " I am a loser "   or " you are a loser "   or " he is a winner " .  He often argues that to be a loser means you have to lose 100% of the time and that we all win some and loss some.  True.  But I think he went to extremes on this. 

Also, Ellis sometimes write tying to use more action verbs - so instead of writing " She is depressed " he writes the much more awkward statement, " She depresses herself " On human nature, Ellis was so bad but still I think in some subtle ways it crept into in writings and thinking.  He had a super optimistic belief that we nutty humans can greatly reduce our nuttiness and so in a sense override our nutty nature.

Now, in CG, Russ says our minds will give you negative thoughts whenever we step into any kind of uncomfortable position or try to accomplish something that is new to us.  He says this is our nature.   This is human nature and the results of millions of years of evolution.  So in this respect, ACT does not deny the existence of human nature.

So, any thoughts?  Is this interesting?  Or is this boring the crap out you?  Let me know.  I may not get around to answering until after Monday.Cheers!