{"id":1980,"date":"2012-02-24T16:23:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T21:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=1980"},"modified":"2012-12-06T15:16:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T20:16:14","slug":"no-healthy-outlet-for-bad-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/no-healthy-outlet-for-bad-habits.html","title":{"rendered":"No ‘Healthy Outlet’ for Bad Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog<\/a>. \u00a0More details here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is part two of my response to Brian S. about my choice to give up free food during Lent. \u00a0The first focused on why I glommed on to Lent<\/a> in the first place. \u00a0Now we\u2019re addressing the substance of the change I\u2019m trying to make<\/a>. \u00a0Brian wrote:<\/p>\n

I disagree [that the feeling of having cheated someone is a bad pleasure to cultivate], or at any rate don\u2019t feel that you\u2019ve demonstrated that sufficiently. I could make the argument, as you almost do, that \u201cgetting one over on someone\u201d is a natural human feeling, and you\u2019re finding a healthy outlet for it. Or I could argue that what you\u2019re feeling isn\u2019t a sense of having outfoxed someone, but rather just a misinterpretation of your pleasure at getting something for nothing \u2013 since it\u2019s often the case that doing that does involve taking advantage of something, you\u2019ve been conditioned to associate the two implicitly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think the basic point on which Brian and I disagree is that I think these feelings are unsafe at any dose. \u00a0I don\u2019t want to channel this attitude differently, I want to burn it out of myself. \u00a0For me, there\u2019s no such thing as a healthy outlet for these impulses.<\/p>\n

We imagine that we have certain immutable\u00a0tendencies\u00a0or faults, so, if we have to express them, we should do it safely. \u00a0Punch a pillow, play a video game, do visualizations, vent to a friend. \u00a0One way or another, those flaws will surface, so you might as well be careful about their manifestations. \u00a0As a transhumanist, this kind of concession to my character depresses me, and, fortunately, the social science is on my side.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The ASL word for \u2018habit\u2019 looks like bound wrists for a reason. Choose your constraints wisely.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David McRaney, author of You Are Not So Smart<\/a><\/em>, did a nice rundown of the research on venting and catharsis<\/a>. \u00a0Here\u2019s a\u00a0representative\u00a0study by Bushman, Baumeister, and Stack<\/a>. \u00a0Subjects wrote an essay, and half were told their essays were great and half got back a comment that said \u201cThis is the worst essay I have ever read!\u201d \u00a0They got a little break before the next step of the experiment, and could pick an activity from a list that included \u201cplay a game, watch some comedy, read a story, or punch a bag.\u201d \u00a0And then they got to play a game against the person who had graded their essay.<\/p>\n

The game was simple, press a button as fast as you can. If you lose, you get blasted with a horrible noise. When you win, blast your opponent. They could set the volume the other person had to endure, a setting between zero and 10 with 10 being 105 decibels.<\/p>\n

On average, the punching bag group set the volume as high as 8.5. The timeout group set it to 2.47.<\/p>\n

The people who got angry didn\u2019t release their anger on the punching bag, it was sustained by it. The group which cooled off lost their desire for vengeance.<\/p>\n

In subsequent studies where the subjects chose how much hot sauce the other person had to eat, the punching bag group piled it on. The cooled off group did not.<\/p>\n

When the punching bag group later did word puzzles where they had to fill in the blanks to words like ch_ _e, they were more likely to pick choke instead of chase.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now here\u2019s the kicker: in another iteration of the study, the researchers found that if people believe venting is useful (in this case, they read an article to that effect) they\u2019re much more likely to choose the punching bag. \u00a0But, even though they think they\u2019re cooling down, they still score as much more aggressive in the competitions, same as the people who weren\u2019t primed to think venting would help.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Talking about blowing your lid, losing your cool, etc, reinforces a feeling of powerless over our actions and reactions. \u00a0We\u2019re managing them, not changing them, and, as the studies show, we\u2019re not managing them particularly well.<\/p>\n

So when I notice myself falling on bad habits<\/a>, I don\u2019t want to to write them off as a safe<\/em> manifestation of my faults. \u00a0I want to disrupt this feedback loop wherever I can and reinforce the habit of spotting this tendency and immediately trying to subvert it. \u00a0There\u2019s no safe dosage for\u00a0solipsism.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. This is part two of my response to Brian S. about my choice to give up free food during Lent. \u00a0The first focused on why I glommed on to Lent in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[112,86,73,77,181,19,18,80],"class_list":["post-1980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morality-in-practice","tag-authenticity-is-indulgent","tag-inculcating-morality","tag-kantianism","tag-lent","tag-offering-resistance","tag-radical-forgiveness","tag-transhumanism","tag-virtue-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\nNo 'Healthy Outlet' for Bad Habits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I'm one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. 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