Power posing can't fix all your problems. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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One listless day at my last full-time job (which was the kind of job where every day was listless, because it was a media company in a constant state of crisis and reorganisation), an email arrived from the CEO. Things were often stressful and frequently dull — the acute periods of anxiety that your job might just evaporate were, in a way, respite from the insistent anxiety that you weren’t even sure what your job was anymore. But you couldn’t say the CEO didn’t want the workforce to be happy.
We once had a compulsory company mass choir where we had to learn “Don’t Stop Me Now” in three-part harmony. Fun! And we had a talk from a mountaineer who had climbed Everest, which I assume was supposed to be an inspiring exemplar of determination in a hostile environment that is a bit like the current media environment. But I remember left me worrying about the frozen barrels of human waste just off to the side of the slides.
And then we had this email, which offered a guaranteed way of lifting our beleaguered spirits to new heights of productivity. All we had to do, it explained, was assume powerful poses, and we would become powerful! Out with slouching, in with wide-legged stances and chins held aloft. Astonishing, yes, but there was science to support it — as you would find, if you watched a 2012 TED Talk by psychologist Amy Cuddy, which has now been viewed over 60 million times.
Power posing, as laid out in a 2010 paper co-authored by Cuddy, is one of the great success stories of popular psychology. It didn’t hurt that it “fit neatly into the established self-help niche in American life”, as Jesse Singal explains in his new book The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can’t Fix Our Social Ills. And nor was it any disadvantage at all that Cuddy was a brilliant speaker with a powerful story of overcoming personal adversity (she recovered from a traumatic brain injury to achieve a PhD from Princeton, and then a job at Harvard). The power posing theory had almost everything to recommend it — apart from the solid basis in experimental science that it was claimed to have.
Hear Jesse Singal discuss his latest book with Freddie Sayers
The peak of power posing’s influence, in the UK at least, probably came at the 2015 Conservative conference, when George Osborne appeared on stage with his legs splayed as though he expected a train to run through the middle of them. By the time it was being offered to me as a corporate pick-me-up, its reputation was already on the skids. The two keys claims Cuddy made were that, compared to a control group, power posers saw increased levels of testosterone, and an increased propensity for risk-taking. A 2015 attempt at replication (that is, rerunning the experiment to see if the result stood) had failed; and then in 2016, one of Cuddy’s co-authors on the original paper disowned the findings entirely.
The apparently empirical effect the researchers had observed was actually generated by something known as “p-value hacking”, in which results are included or excluded until something that looks like statistical significance is achieved, and the work becomes suddenly of interest to academic journals (who, like everyone else, are much more excited by a sexily counterintuitive finding than no finding at all).
And so the story of power posing, and its journey from one paper that ought to have been challenged at peer review, to near-universal acceptance and an appearance in my work inbox, is a parable for the way bad ideas promulgate themselves — and a perfect example of the kind of bad idea that prospers.
Something like power posing appeals because it makes you feel like the success is a matter of volition. Reading about it at my sad strip-lit desk, in an email from the same address that had announced multiple rounds of redundancy, looking round an office haunted by the empty chairs of the ones who’d already gone, I did not feel any filip to my sense of self-command, however. I felt that I was being cheated, played, fobbed off.
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SubscribeThe critical race rhubarb is yet another way of attempting to make ordinary people feel guilty and give power to control freaks. The way to end it is to freely admit to conscious, never mind unconscious bias and to assert your belief in the superiority of Western culture and Christianity and your right to value your own people and civilisation, above all others, regardless of anyone else’s feelings, or facts.
Well said – particularly with regard to Climate Change.
Agreed – apart from the whole Christianity thing. It’s kind of an unhelpful monolith thats had its day, even if it has tried to change its foundations many times when they are repeatidly proved to be wrong…. but on the flip side those religions that havn’t are clearly even less helpful.
Christianity had an influential moral framework. We still have that, even if we are atheist scienists. There are other moral systems. Compassion and self sacrifice aren’t universally seen as virtues.
I’ve never been concinved that Christianity’s moral framework is really that differnt from many other cultures and religions moral frameworks. There isn’t, and never has been much of a correlation between Christianity and morality, and our morality seems to have improved as we have become less Christian.
The moral framework is one of those cases where Christianity has been adapted in response to wider changes in morality, it has never led the way in terms of education, equality, or libralism. Not so long ago it had distinctly different rules for men and women, homosexuals, lied about contraceptives, the list is endless.
Well I mean really basic moral ideas, not positions on specific issues like homosexuality and etc etc. And I didn’t mean that christians acually live up to their morality. Some cultures value radically different things, especially past cultures like classical Greece, and that’s what I meant. I could be wrong though I’m not an expert on it or anything. I do intutively feel that christianity has been imprtant.
You are probably right – it has been important in codifying those moralities and usung the “fear of god” as a way to enforce them on people who had differnt moral outlooks. Its was a vessel for communication, not the route, and no longer has much of import to say,
Bertie, consider that issues like christianity, climate change, western culture and a few others are taboo for a significant portion of society, which is well represented in the Unherd comments section. Trying to argue about those issues here is not really the best use of your time.
Take comfort in knowing that the world has always changed, in spite of people like that, because they are eventually outnumbered. It is changing as we speak.
“Christianity” (which branch? It’s a complex living tapestry, not any kind of monolith) has never “tried to change its foundations”. The essence of Christianity is grounded in the New Testament, and in the person of Jesus Christ, and articulated in the Apostles Creed. Always has been, always will be unchanging in that regard. “Unhelpful” in what way? Most of our modern Western moral values derive from Christianity, including the innate value of the individual person. In what ways exactly has the Christian world view been “proved to be wrong”? You may not agree with it, but you can’t prove that it’s false.
As GK Chesterton famously said over 100 years ago, it’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It’s that it’s been found difficult, and so not tried.
You say that its
And claim that its not a monolith – its foundations are indisputable, a Christian can’t argue the point that Jesus wasn’t the son of god, by doing so it makes them not a Christian.
How has the Christian world view been proved to wrong?
These aren’t small issues – these are a fundamental change from – this is a fact, to this is a story.
As for proving that the new Testament is false, thats not my job its up to Christianity to prove thats its true, and as far as I’m aware there isn’t any and the closer people look the more problems they find.
Christianity (in the new teastament) has been tried, its been found to be a whole bunch of stories that may or may not be true but also are weirdly similar to older stories. Its just that those who require proof that its false cling to it – rather than asking the awkward questions.
These aren’t small issues – these are a fundamental change from – this is a fact, to this is a story.
Have to disagree with you. There has been no fundamental change from fact to story.
What happened was that the increasingly materialistic Western intellect reached a point where it could no longer comprehend spiritual facts. Facts of the natural world became the only facts accessible to the new natural sciences.
Thus content of the spiritual worlds was explained away as “fairy story”, fantasy or hallucination. Myth was devalued and psychologised; the meaning of symbol—properly, a living entity found in etheric realms—was changed to something purely external and material.
The good news is that our consciousness is at the beginning of another major change, which will see access to spiritual worlds being regained and spiritual facts understood once more, albeit in a more advanced and deeper way than before.
Even if what you say were true – which it may well be, the “deeper more advanced way” in which we are coming to understand spiritality is more akin to the pagan beliefs that were usurped and incorporated into the Christian mythology, than to the core Christian lore.
And you can disagree if you want – but I think the record is fairly clear that the core points I made were previously to be regarded as Fact, but have now been reduced to allagory
…were previously to be regarded as Fact, but have now been reduced to allagory
…reduced to allegory by whom? Agreed by some sections of academia, such as followers of Jung or some anthropologists or the cadres of Dawkinite orthodoxy. But beyond that narrow segment of society, I doubt many religious or actively spiritual people see spiritual worlds and facts as mere allegory. Further, I think great chunks of fairly simple, ordinary people still believe in, and/or have retained means of directly experiencing, various spiritual beings such as fairies, gnomes, etc. They just tend not to talk about it much, since it’s liable to be laughed at.
Even if what you say were true – which it may well be, the “deeper more advanced way” in which we are coming to understand spiritality is more akin to the pagan beliefs that were usurped and incorporated into the Christian mythology, than to the core Christian lore.
Yes, there’s a lot of truth in what you say. But no need to give it a pejorative colouring—”usurped and incorporated”.
Paganism predated all the religions, which comprise not just the monotheistic traditions but also other major religions such as Buddhism. According to Steiner, religion only began around 3000 BC when loss of the old inner group clairvoyance necessitated teachers henceforth bringing down revelations to be taught externally to particular peoples in specific places.
Steiner taught very clearly that the age of religion has now come to an end. There can be no such thing as a genuine new religion—hence all the latterday cults which no sooner spring up than immediately veer dangerously off course and disintegrate.
As consciousness/conscience now starts to evolve into a new shared clairvoyance, the new “we”, all the delights of the old nature-loving are returning, garbed in their new attire of “conservation”, “planetary awareness”, Gaia, “climate change”, “ecological awareness”, etc. But these are becoming lived, shared experience, not mere abstract terms. Moreover, as a consequence of the intermediate religious phase, we shall have left the cruel, barbaric and degenerate aspects of the last days of paganism behind us, or so we hope.
So it is quite possible to be both a progressive Christian and a pagan type simultaneously. Best of both worlds!
The essence of Christianity is the Christ. That’s why it’s called Christianity.
i don’t think you can go much further than that in defining its essence. Most of the other criteria you cite are aspects of the traditional Christian denominations. You can find Christianity in much broader contexts than that.
The living Christ is not dependent on either the New Testament or the Apostles Creed, or any other external historical documents, nor on the authority of any earthly leader, notwithstanding the value these things have for many people.
Christ’s kingdom is not of this world
Most of our modern Western moral values derive from Christianity, including the innate value of the individual person.
While that is true, it’s important to be aware that establishing the value of the individual is not the end of the story. That evolutionary phase has reached its peak and in fact has now become overripe and out of balance. The new challenge confronting everyone is attaining to the new ‘we’ consciousness/conscience.
This crucial civilisational point at which we stand has been explained in detail by the modern Christian initiate Dr Rudolf Steiner. You can find much of his lectures and books online at RSArchive.org.
Well said. The essence of Christianity is the Christ. Perhaps Bertie B would consider reading a book by Frank Morison called “Who moved the stone?” It can be read or downloaded free on gospeltruth.net. The author set out to study all available texts, including from Jewish and Roman sources, with the intention of disproving the resurrection. Instead, his research led him to the opposite conclusion and he had to change the intended title.
I’m not a fan of critical race rhubarb, but there’s nothing very Christian about valuing your own people above all others. Such narcissistic arrogance would be the very antithesis of Christian values. Sadly, Christian practice seldom measures up to Christian theory, let alone to the values reportedly espoused by Jesus.
But you do value your own people over others. Given the choice, You are more likely to save your wife from a speeding car than a complete stranger.
What you say is true, but given the choice between people who have no expectation of preferential treatment (which most people’s wives would have) then I’m not more liekly to save a white person, or a Christian than I am to save a asian or a Jew.
Name one occasion when the UK police visited someone to “check their thinking”. Ever.
As for climate change, the evidence is now overwhelming, and it clearly cannot be corrected unless we do change our behaviour. I totally agree with your point that there shouldn’t be a free pass for the rich, who are the main cause of all this (not in a direct sense, but it was their pursuit of money without responsibility that led to where we are).
November 2019 – Harry Miller- ex police office in Humberside visited for re-tweeting another person’s comment. Told by Police officer that he needed to “check his thinking”.
Yes but that’s only a colloquialism for minding what he says, equivalent to telling him to watch his step. (You wouldn’t say, in that case, that the officer visited him to check his walking). It isn’t an offence, nor a reason for the visit.
Incitement to commit offences, and behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace remain offences, and often a low-key visit is the best way to deal with such things.
I looked up about about Harry Miller. There’s a telegraph article:
“PC Mansoor Gul told Mr Miller: “I’ve been on a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/24/man-investigated-police-retweeting-transgender-limerick/
It is not yet “1984”, not by a long shot. For a start, the limerick was probably cruel and unhelpful.
But still, you asked for an example and one was definitely provided.
Firstly Robert, you asked “name me one occasion when the UK Police visited someone to check their thinking – ever”, and I have given you one. Secondly if you research the incident it was not just a watch your step warning and no incitement to break the law took place but the case did end up in court as a freedom of speech issue. Thirdly, if you think it is OK for a UK Police officer to give someone a warning for what they are THINKING you and I are unlikely to ever agree on the subject of personal freedoms.
Well yeah. But, I have a feeling that limmerick was not much of a “contribution to the debate”. If you’re posting stuff like that, maybe a warning is appropriate. I think the police officer mispoke and was not trying to police anyone’s thoughts. He was responding to a valid complaint about a dirty limerick.
The subsequent court case held that Mr Miller had not broken any law and that the Police had been heavy handed. Mr Miller’s tweet I am sure may have been upsetting and crass but it was not against the law to make a poor “contribution to the debate” or to upset someone’s feelings. Police involvement in issues like this are worrying and challenging someone to “check their thinking” is not misspeaking it is an officer of the law overstepping the mark.
It was moderately worrying and quickly corrected. I agree with the outcome. I also think the police officer was not crazy to be concerned about incitment of hatred. It was borderline. And Miller won as you say, so this particular indident shows no problem with the systems we have.
That said Miller’s twitter acount is suspended. But twitter can do as it pleases, which is a separate topic.
Sorry, but I think this case is not „borderline“ at all. Miller is basically making a joke – at somebody’s (!) cost. That is no reason for calling in the police. I have seen an interview with Miller (New Culture Forum). Look, if you have stumbled into showing bad taste, it is bad enough to be met by no laughter or headshaking. To be called by the police could make anybody pale. Miller has my sympathy, even if I might not share his taste.
There is a lot of joking at somebody’s cost. Even doctors, lawyers and other honourable professions make jokes about people, even about their own clients. Good or bad taste – joking is much a matter of context. If therapists make jokes about their clients in their coffee-break, I think that is basically ok. I take it for granted that they remain serious in their profession and basically respectful of their clients. Twitter is a relatively new type of context. I take it that jokes on twitter only go to your followers. Norms and customs for a “private square” like Twitter may be somewhat uncertain.
There IS also something odd about changing your body. If I were to transplant hair from my head to my chest in order to get a more “manly” chest, somebody might laugh at me. But I should not call the police for that.
When Miller’s joke is being seriously discussed at all, I think it is because we have some underlying problems here. One of them might be about sanctity and another might be about gender. In the West we have lost most of common sanctity. The need for sanctity then pops up by any small or big group in society claiming everybody’s respect for their self-appointed “sanctities”. Second, gender could in fact be seen as a “natural sanctity” – a wonder made by evolution. (A joke suggesting that you are a man may be hard to take, if you are a woman.) But gender is not held high in society today, on the contrary. This loss of respect for something precious like gender, in combination with the general loss of sanctity, PEAK in the “sanctity” of the extremely rare transgender phenomena. We should however, reject this attempted taboo in order to remain free and laughing – in good taste or in bad taste.
It’s definitely borderline, that poem is just jeering at people. There’s no joke there. You’d get booed off stage in a comedy club for not being funny.
But that’s not illegal. It’s borderline because it’s not even trying to be funny. Not really.
I’ve looked at that limerick, and it seems little different to many a comment I’ve seen here. Would you welcome police visits to Unherd commenters who fail to contribute to the debate?
I saw it too, what I saw was a longer poem not a limmerick. It was insulting, and it was designed to be insulting. It was over the line. I would not expect unherd or anyone to publish that. It might be illegal to publish that, I’m not sure. I think that these comments we write here are, technically, published by unherd. So I’d expect them to delete it and that would be the end of the matter. It needed to be rephrased so that it wasn’t designed to be cruel. You could still keep any substative content while getting rid of the obnoxious, accusatory tone.
It’s true it had too many lines to qualify as a limerick, but that’s a technicality with no bearing on the issue.
And it’s true it would probably be deleted if anyone tried posting it here. I meant that the ideas are frequently seen here, though in politer form. To paraphrase the ‘limerick’: “Transgender women rely on silicone and artificial hormones, exemplifying male privilege.” Have we never seen such views here?
Those views would seem factually correct to me as I understand them, although I have not attended to it carefully enough to endorse something not explicitly said by me.
Jonathan Swift would never have been heard of if you had been able to set yourself up in his day- as you seem eagerly-prepared to do now- as some sort of ultimate arbiter of good taste. Rather than as a self-righteous little virtue- signaller who thinks himself worthy enough to shut down such discussion as he sees fit on behalf of all we lesser beings, that is. I wouldn’t regard you as an arbiter of when to put my bins out. As a matter of interest, what would I have to call you to provoke you into calling the filth to shut me down? I can think of many things I’d like to call you.
OK Cyril. I think the council is the arbiter of when you should put your bins out, so check with them.
Even if what you say is true about the content of the ‘limerick’ …speech that is deemed ‘cruel’ is still not a criminal offence..
Well inciting hatred might be a crime. I’m not a lawyer. It’s not sensible or necessary is what I think.
I totally agree with you Colin that Mr Miller’s actions were not necessary or sensible.(Describes the whole of Twitter in my opinion). However the point of discussion here is that they were not unlawful (as they did not incite hatred as the judge confirmed) and Police involvement was unnecessary and worrisome. If we are to maintain any sort of democracy we cannot police personal thought.
That’s what the court found. I can’t disagree with them when they have given it serious thought and I haven’t. But I also think Miller, or certainly the person who originally wrote the poem, may have actually been “inciting hatred”. Not because of what was said, but because of how and why it was said. We can and do police that, all the time. You can’t scream “**** off” in old ladies faces in the street and claim it’s ok becaue we shouldn’t police personal thought.
“But I also think Miller, or certainly the person who originally wrote the poem, may have actually been “inciting hatred”. That is the very point Colin. You cannot police thought because you cannot possibly know what they were thinking! And proving it is even more impossible. If you base someone’s guilt on what YOU think they were their motives we will all be guilty because it will only take a complaint to make us so. Try reading Gulag Archipelago to see the real world effects of this approach.
It is possible to figure out why people do things you know. And if they say something with a malicious intent that has no other value, then that ought not to be protected speech.
I’m not advocating policing of thought. That is something you are discussing that has nothing to do with me. I am saying that it is right to proscribe certain speech. We all believe this. Clearly you can’t tell a blind man it’s safe to cross a road when you know it isn’t, and watch him get hit by a car. If it can proved you did that, you go to jail.
So it’s a question of what speech is acceptable. I think miller was in the right and the cop should not have called him. However it was borderline. In Miller’s shoes I would not be proudly giving media interviews.
Limerick.
If you can you debate with screaming male harpies demanding to be addressed as women..bully for you.
I can’t say I have much interest in debating them. I cannot say things that I know aren’t true, even if it meant losing my job. It is my job to be accurate on matters of science. I trained my whole life to be a scientist. I’m not going to say some guy is female who is clearly male. So I say nothing. And that is ok, we are all “saying nothing” in public till it’s a bit safer.
But I don’t see how insulting them is helpful. It isn’t helpful it just provides them with ammunition. Look at CYRIL there. He’s not going to get anywhere acting like that is he.
So I say nothing. And that is ok, we are all “saying nothing” in public
Your “I’m not going to say some guy is female who is clearly male” seems to be saying exactly what you claim you won’t say.
Well i am posting it under a pseudonym. So I’m not really saying it.
Miller was retweeting a limerick (which wasn’t a limerick), under the pseudonym HarryTheOwl101, so he wasn’t really saying it either.
That’s true and he was only retweeting it, he didn’t actually write it.
But he gave you an example of the thing you said never happens happening, and there are many others on record.
Which is totally creepy and not a thing the police should be doing in a free society.
An “retweeting” an innocuous comment were neither of these things.
No, the best way for the police to deal with this thing that actually happened would have been to mind their own business and stick to investigating and preventing actual crimes.
That is what Humberside Stasi said to Harry Miiler- on his own word, both on the record and as a former police officer. “Check your thinking.”
The “overwhelming evidence” of Climate Change was achieved by not allowing views of scientists, who very much disagree. Many Climate Scientists say that CO2 is a minimal contribution to warming . BBC policy now is not to allow to give a platform to “controversial scientists” . Professor Curry had to give up her position at university after pressures from her peers. She compared man made CO2 to a hair on an elephant’s tail (meaning all the contributing factor of Climate)
The general blocking of the climate change debate means people at Davos can make generalized ‘We must save the world’ statements but still not deal with issues at a local level. We have to go green , give up gas boilers , pay a fortune in heating bills but noone can object to continuous building on a finite area of land. These saviours of the world can also practice ‘do as I say ,not as I do’ as they fly around the world spreading the word.
I’m not denying Climate Change – I’m denying that my actions (as an individual) can have any meaningful impact on it. The old mantra of “Reduce”,”Reuse”,”Recycle” has been converted by advertising into a simple case of “its alright if you can recycle it”, packaging even has labels that say “Not yet recycled” as though that somehow makes it OK.
If you put something in your recycling you have already failed. Climate change will not be tackled by us all seperating our cans from our paper when busninesses have a free reign to use what ever materials and packaging they like.
The only way to tackle it is to legislate, to level the playing field to make it compulsary to use recyclable materials, to fine company’s for using excess materials, etc, to invest in technology (rather than HS2), such as carbon capture
Climate change will not be tackled by us all seperating our cans from our paper
Few who take climate change seriously would claim it does. In some cases, recycling has a bigger carbon footprint than using virgin raw materials – lithium batteries, for instance. Of course advertisers wish to obfuscate the issue; that reflects on advertising more than recycling or climate change.
“As for climate change, the evidence is now overwhelming” That the weather changes naturally as evidenced from the old sea cliffs behind my house, the old medieval port at the end of my garden and now at least 5m above sea level. The highest recorded high tide on record BTW in my town was in 1937.
I am not selling my house just yet…..
Are you seriously using small anecdotal observations taken looking out of your own windows as a rebutal of Climate Change?
At one time the coast was about 100 miles from my house. It is currently about 300 miles. These are not ‘small anecdotal observations’ but clear evidence that temperature and sea level vary over time without people to cause it. Climate stasis is a dead earth at absolute zero.
Regarding Climate Change, most people know that climate is in constant change because of the sun. The vociferous minority think it is entirely anthropomorphic, and the evidence for that is not overwhelming.
The majority of vociferous climate warriors derive a good living from it, the eco industry pays good wages.
You misspelled underwhelming.
See reply below..
Harry Miller was interviews by Triggernometry and described his experience.
It is probably still on YouTube .
Calling on banks and governments to cease investing in fossil fuels is placing the onus on ordinary people to change their behaviour?
Experts said about 40 years ago that deprived youngsters lacked ‘self-esteem’ and needed their confidence building up. As any teacher knows the troublemakers sit at the back trying to disrupt the class while doing no work themselves. The only way to get back control is to stop their bumptious behaviour. In the general world we have kids killing each other for ‘disrespecting’ each other and this violent over-confident behaviour plus the breakdown in family is encouraged by some politicians -who then make sure they don’t live anywhere near these areas.
I don’t think there’s any grand conspiracy, it’s just that people are lazy and impatient so they want quick fixes. Add in the hyper politicization of everything these days and the desire becomes turbocharged.
To respond to the presence of racism by saying that erasing tribal bias requires reprogramming the whole of the human mind and, as such, won’t happen overnight is difficult when you’ve got Burning, Looting Mob demanding instant action. Up steps the unconscious bias test that can be done in a few minutes and costs nothing. This allows companies to claim that they are doing something when, in fact, nothing is happening at all.
Guess what, running a business is hard enough without having to solve racism, sexism and homophobia into the bargain. We are expecting far too much from companies that just want to deliver their goods or services to the world and make a living doing so. How is a middling retailer supposed to solve all these problems? They can’t but they have to make it look like they are trying otherwise they’ll get lynched.
We are expecting far too much from companies that just want to deliver their goods or services to the world and make a living doing so.
I empathise with your practical difficulties. While you sincerely just want to sell goods or services and make a living, though, you are not being realistic: you are dealing with other human beings in doing that business, and the minute you have people, you get complexity and messiness and ugly loose ends which cannot all be neatly tied up.
Having said that, I tend to agree that a lot of the so-called “help” offered is ineffectual, and some of it has gone right over the top into an enforced groupieness that would put Chairman Mao to shame. Let’s see a lot less “team-building”; replace it with a more relaxed, simpler expectation of consideration for others and basic common sense and good manners, and I suspect you’ll achieve better results.
But having said that, it also seems clear that modern business ethics have taken a real dive in many companies, so some sort of effective sanctions are needed for hopeless bosses as well as useless workers.
Agree about the “no grand conspiracy.” The last paragraph of the review is really silly. Whether you want change or not, change happens. What people want is a modicum of control over the inevitable changes. Much of life is competitive, and evolution no doubt favoured those who looked for new strategies. Besides, we also seek stimulation, and new ideas, like new ways to dress, provide that. So both are ephemeral
Never underestimate the credibility of the pubblic, and that includes the TED talk audience.
The race thing has only two flawed assumptions: 1 that the natural or normal or healthy default position is to love everyone equally (this is a legacy from Christianity, although Christians question it rather more than post-Christian atheists do) and 2 that racism (if it exists at all) is a stable characteristic, so that a racist not only hates all other races, so if one knows that if someone doesn’t like black people, one can be certain that he dislikes Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, Inuit and so on, and that he will be the same tomorrow and next year without treatment. But what if it isn’t like this at all?
There is a Grand Conspiracy! It is by the global elites to return us to Feudalism. Their tools are all written in the Frankfurt School 11 points, and we are all living them. They want to shatter society to individuals at odds, destroy the Family, it is pure 1984.
The corporate-pop-psychology world is full of sleight of hand. A classic is to get a group to do a new task – which normally doesn’t go well. Then give them a pep-talk or trust exercise or whatever it is that is being sold. Then repeat the task et voila, a better outcome.
Strangely enough no-one buying the ‘training’ seems to notice that doing something the second time is pretty much guaranteed to have better results than the first time due to simple learning effects, without needing the smoke and mirror stuff in the middle. The stuff in the middle could just be going down the pub and it would still work.
An odd thing Is I can stare virtually anyone down. I just innocently lock my glaze on theirs and hold it, and everyone finally breaks and looks away. I only do this if someone in authority is trying to push me, and it does set the dynamics of the situation strongly. Once you have been stared down you feel you have lost the power, and I see I have increased mine.
Pop-psychology? No, it is very powerful.
Perhaps most people feel that life if a bit crap because life is a bit crap?
Life is CRAP IF YOU TREAT IT LIKE IT IS. Life is very interesting if you bother to check it out. The problem is host humans have been raised with zero intellectual curiosity, and so existence, other than pleasure and avoidance of pain, has no intrinsic value.
Most “pop” psychology isn’t psychology at all. Real psychologists cringe at it.
But there are a lot of apparently psychological techniques that aren’t well-founded in science either. I wrote a book about how this works in the correctional field: Bad Psychology.
There’s a fair bit of it in clinical psychology too, but far more in the pop fringe. Remember that anyone can call themselves a “psychologist” of unspecified type (in the UK), without any qualifications in anything. There is only legal regulation for specialist titles, such as Forensic Psychologist, Educational Psychologist, or for the generic Practitioner Psychologist.
Truth is posture and your physical presentation does have an influence on how others see you, this can be seen in being able to control others behaviour or giving a favourable impression. ‘Grit’ is another word for self-confidence and perseverance, which is incredible important in life decisions and mental helath. Some may be nature and some through nuture but helicopter parenting and the stifling of independence has been seen to have a negative effect, which them led to the term ‘Grit’.
For anyone at the bottom of the heap, say, poor farmers in Africa, or Asian garment workers, the idea they could improve their situation by standing with legs wide and chin up is laughable.
Having a great deal more than a passing acquaintance with serious criminals, and after 25 years of practice in forensic psychology, I’m not sure I entirely agree. There are many small studies showing many different things. Most of these are probably dross and can be disregarded. Frankly, most small-scale studies are. In general, though, studies do show that low self-esteem in young people increases the likelihood of their committing crimes later. There is a minority that appears to have unwarrantedly high levels of self-esteem, on which their miserable lives and constant sojourns in prison have little impact. These are generally known as “psychopaths”, but there are very few of these, even in the prison system. And it’s not that they don’t get caught. They do, again and again, but it doesn’t impinge.
I’ve always felt the self-help industry is pure snake oil, sold by frauds to the gullible and the narcissistic, who spring to life at the mention of the word “You”.
Snake oil at least purported to cure actual maladies.
This problem is actually much larger than just psychology. Something like 15% of all medical journal articles fail replication. I just finished a great book called “Science Fictions” that documents p-hacking, selection bias, and plain old-fashioned made-up data in a great many fields. The author was a psych PhD student who noticed that he couldn’t replicate a shocking high percentage of published studies when he tried.
I am reading it now. Shocking. I will never again believe anything about behavioural studies published by a ‘psychologist’.
It depends on the crime I guess, a drug addict who steals all the time is unlikely to have a high opinion of themselves, whereas the notion that the drug dealing thugs who plague my hometown have a dearth of self-esteem is laughable.