Difference between revisions of "NOV 29"

From Alfino
Jump to navigationJump to search
(Created page with "==23: NOV 29 - 8. Some Obstacles to Happiness and Wisdom== ===Assigned=== :*Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves, C8, “Introspection and Self-narratives” (24) :*Possible subst...")
 
m
 
(One intermediate revision by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
−
==23: NOV 29 - 8. Some Obstacles to Happiness and Wisdom==
+
==24: NOV 29 - 6. Relationship, Community, and Happiness==
  
 
===Assigned===
 
===Assigned===
  
−
:*Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves, C8, “Introspection and Self-narratives” (24)
+
:*Csiksentmihalyi, Relationships and the Quality of Life
−
:*Possible substitute or addition from Wilson, Redirect (2011).
+
:*Tiffany, Kaitlyn, No One Knows Exactly What Social Media is Doing to Teens
  
−
===In-Class===
+
===Why Relationships Matter===
−
:*Chatter
 
  
−
===My Philosophy of Happiness and Wisdom Paper===
+
:*From Csiksentmihalyi:
 +
:*"A relationship that leads to order in consciousness instead of psychic entropy has to meet at least two conditions. [The complexity of friendships correlates with the complexity of our minds.  Big-brained creatures need complex interactions.]
 +
::*The first is to find some compatibility between our goals and that of the other person or persons. This is always difficult in principle, given that each participant in the interaction is bound to pursue his or her self-interest."  81
 +
::*The second condition for a successful interaction is that one be willing to invest attention in the other person's goals not an easy task either, considering that psychic energy is the most essential and scarce resource we own.
  
−
:*In this 8-10 page paper you are invited to construct an integrated philosophy of wisdom and happiness.  You should start by identifying topics and themes in the course that spoke to you.  You should also bring in personal frames of reference, such as faith commitments, that may inform your thinking even if they were not treated in the course.  The ultimate goal is for you to integrate your views on happiness and wisdom by thinking also about how they are related, but you may organize your paper into two main sections, one each on happiness and wisdom, and then try to bring them together in your conclusion.
+
:*Friendships don't always last, but while they are good '''they don't habituate''' - they are always changing and referenced to our lives.  Csik: Claims friendships don't habituate because people are always changing.  If you continue to share goals and investment of energy, the pleasure never dies (until you do).
  
−
:*Due date: December 15th, 2021.
+
:*From evolutionary sciences.  Our ability to invest in friendships is part of a complex evolved set of behaviors that do real work for us.  Behind the pleasure of friendship there is real practical benefit. Friends are potential cooperators in meeting life challenges.  (Story of friend with transactional view of friendship.) Real friendship are not transactional, but all friendships involve a feeling of reciprocity.
  
 +
===How Contemporary US culture poses challenges for friendships===
  
−
===Wilson, Chapter 8, Strangers to Ourselves, "Introspection and Self-Narratives"===
+
:*Advanced education and the careers it opens up often require cultivating a capacity for solitary work.  Knowledge work is often solitary (Academics have higher utilization of mental health benefits than other workers.)  - But also other kinds of work. (Tech jobs, jobs with lots of screen time.).  For highly educated Americans, establishing a career often involves moving several times without any context for the new environment than education or a job.  (Unlike our early contexts for friends - family, school with shared experience.)
  
−
:*Introspection -- flashlight metaphor -- Freud's metaphor: archaeology
+
:*Small group questions:
−
:*Wilson doesn't support these metaphors, seems sceptical that we get such clarity, thinks evidence supports a different view:
+
::*Do you think your transition from Gonzaga will pose challenges to forming new friendships and gaining satisfactions from friendships?  What are some of the things about your approach to relationship that are sources of strength or challenge in this transition? Do friendships (of various kinds) come easily to you?
 +
::*If you were advising someone who was moving to another city and was concerned about not having proximate friends, what would you say?  What would you ask them about their approach to forming friendships?  What strategies would you suggest to them for finding connection with others in a large town or city that is new to them?
 +
::*Is the cultivation solitude part of a contemporary strategy for happiness in US culture?
  
−
::*"Introspection is more like literary criticism in which we are the text to be understood. Just as there is no single truth that lies within a literary text, but many truths, so are there many truths about a person that can be constructed." 162  like wirting a self-biography from limited source information (or bad memory)
+
===Preliminary discussion of social media in your experience===
  
−
::*Introspection as personal narrative. Like writing your biography, but with limited information.  Agrees that there are “hidden” facts.
+
:*Do you have a generally positive or negative view of your own social media use?
 +
:*What, in your experience, have you learned about how to use social media positively, or, with less negative effect?
  
−
::*Julian Barnes story: Ander Boden becomes aware of his love for Barbro due to his wife's accusation. In his reading, there isn’t really a “fact of the matter” about whether they love each other.
+
===Tiffany, Kaitlyn - No One Knows Exactly What Social Media is doing to Teens===
  
−
::*[Do we introspect too much? Should we be doing other things to
+
:*Independent evidence of increase in high school students experiencing "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness." 2011: 28% 2021: 42%.  But this trend may have started before the big increase in S.M. use for this age group.
  
−
::*Real Estate story -- Do we know what we want or do we sometimes “show” what we want?
+
:*Some Evidence:
−
::*Analytic methods (Ben Franklin method) vs. Intuitive or behavioral (Yogi Bera method)
+
::*Facebook papers - unscientific, but internal research.  2021: body image and teen perception of s.m. as cause. 
 +
::*Haidt's focus on teen girls may be plausible. 
 +
::*Study suggesting that feeling in control of you social media use may be an indicator variable of health use.
  
−
::*People are "too good" at giving reasons for their feelings, but not necessary accurate when they do.  They rarely say, "I don't know why I feel this way..."168. [Or, “I don’t know what I think?”]
+
:*Problems with the research.
−
 
+
::*Effects may dependent upon specific use patterns.
−
::*Analytic methods can change our experience (movie critic example, p. 166).
+
::*Study showing no correlation bt screen time and well-being in adolescents.
−
 
+
::*"Screen time" too broad a concept.
−
::*Major Claims:
+
::*Ecological fallacy - you don't know if people reporting poor mental health are the screen users.
−
:::*Somtimes we use faulty information to decide what our reasons for our feelings are.  Then, using faulty reasons, we actually may alter our feelings.  
+
::*As with TV viewing research, alot depends upon what else you are doing or not doing.  Time with friends or physical activity may have a protective effect.
−
:::*Introspection is a process of construction and inference, not “internal perception”.
+
::*Self-fulfilling prophecy.  Telling people its hurting them may cause them to believe that even if it's not true.
−
 
 
−
::*Study in which subjects in one condition analyze their relationships and in a control condition others don't.  Analyzed condition showed greater change in feeling.  Also, weeks later, subjects cite very different reasons for how they feel.  It's as if a story were being retold rather than objective reasons being located.  "availability bias"
 
−
 
 
−
::*In a related study, the unanalized condition predicted relationship longevity.
 
−
 
 
−
:*Which is the real you?  The analyzed or unanalyzed?  Wilson is saying that you shouldn't assume the analyzed is. Sometime the analysis changes the underlying experience (Vargas Llosa on watching movies with a rubric.)
 
−
 
 
−
::*Poster satisfaction study 171.  Note both results.  1. In general, analysis decreased satisfaction.  2. For people with aesthetic expertise, however, analysis matched prior feelings. 
 
−
 
 
−
::*Wilson's advice isn't to act on impulse, but to delay rational analysis, in some situations, let yourself say "Not sure how I feel"  -- gather external information and perceptions.  Those in the poster study who knew a lot about art didn't experience a change in satisfaction.
 
−
 
 
−
::*"The trick is to gather enough information to develop an informed gutfeeling and then not analyze that feeling too much." 172
 
−
 
 
−
:*Wilson's advice: try to become aware of ''implicit feelings, implicit motives''.
 
−
 
 
−
:*Major piece of "implicit feelings" research:
 
−
 
 
−
::*Schultheiss and Brunstein study -- determined implicit feelings (such as need for power or affiliation) and then asked subject to predict their happiness in being in a situation that is geared to stimulate those needs.  Subjects don't accurately predict impact of the experience (they are strangers to themselves). "Consistent with many studies that find that people are not very aware of their implicit motives, people who were high in the need for affiliation and power did not anticipate that the counseling session would make them any happier or feel more engaged than other participants." 174  But "goal imaging" and "prefeeling" changed that. “Instead, they were able to imagine a future situation well enough that the feelings it would invoke were actually experienced…”
 
−
 
 
−
:*Rumination -- definition 175 -- increases depression in depressed.
 
−
 
 
−
::*Pennebaker Study -- subjects write about negative experiences from their lives and it makes them happy.  How to explain this?  How is it different from rumination?    -- Wilson claims that it's because writing involves construction of a meaningful narrative.  Our natural bias toward life kicks in.
 
−
 
 
−
::*Doesn’t want to suggest that Pennebaker’s method and psychotherapy are interchangeable.  Good random control studies show that psychotherapies are effective. But they might both involve changing our narratives.
 
−
 
 
−
:*One lesson from the chapter: 
 
−
::*Be careful of the reasons and stories you use to narrate your experience.  You might actually conform your experience (feelings) to the narrative.
 
−
::*But the positive side of that . . . Could you prime someone (yourself) to write a wise or happy narrative?
 

Latest revision as of 21:04, 29 November 2023

24: NOV 29 - 6. Relationship, Community, and Happiness

Assigned

  • Csiksentmihalyi, Relationships and the Quality of Life
  • Tiffany, Kaitlyn, No One Knows Exactly What Social Media is Doing to Teens

Why Relationships Matter

  • From Csiksentmihalyi:
  • "A relationship that leads to order in consciousness instead of psychic entropy has to meet at least two conditions. [The complexity of friendships correlates with the complexity of our minds. Big-brained creatures need complex interactions.]
  • The first is to find some compatibility between our goals and that of the other person or persons. This is always difficult in principle, given that each participant in the interaction is bound to pursue his or her self-interest." 81
  • The second condition for a successful interaction is that one be willing to invest attention in the other person's goals not an easy task either, considering that psychic energy is the most essential and scarce resource we own.
  • Friendships don't always last, but while they are good they don't habituate - they are always changing and referenced to our lives. Csik: Claims friendships don't habituate because people are always changing. If you continue to share goals and investment of energy, the pleasure never dies (until you do).
  • From evolutionary sciences. Our ability to invest in friendships is part of a complex evolved set of behaviors that do real work for us. Behind the pleasure of friendship there is real practical benefit. Friends are potential cooperators in meeting life challenges. (Story of friend with transactional view of friendship.) Real friendship are not transactional, but all friendships involve a feeling of reciprocity.

How Contemporary US culture poses challenges for friendships

  • Advanced education and the careers it opens up often require cultivating a capacity for solitary work. Knowledge work is often solitary (Academics have higher utilization of mental health benefits than other workers.) - But also other kinds of work. (Tech jobs, jobs with lots of screen time.). For highly educated Americans, establishing a career often involves moving several times without any context for the new environment than education or a job. (Unlike our early contexts for friends - family, school with shared experience.)
  • Small group questions:
  • Do you think your transition from Gonzaga will pose challenges to forming new friendships and gaining satisfactions from friendships? What are some of the things about your approach to relationship that are sources of strength or challenge in this transition? Do friendships (of various kinds) come easily to you?
  • If you were advising someone who was moving to another city and was concerned about not having proximate friends, what would you say? What would you ask them about their approach to forming friendships? What strategies would you suggest to them for finding connection with others in a large town or city that is new to them?
  • Is the cultivation solitude part of a contemporary strategy for happiness in US culture?

Preliminary discussion of social media in your experience

  • Do you have a generally positive or negative view of your own social media use?
  • What, in your experience, have you learned about how to use social media positively, or, with less negative effect?

Tiffany, Kaitlyn - No One Knows Exactly What Social Media is doing to Teens

  • Independent evidence of increase in high school students experiencing "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness." 2011: 28% 2021: 42%. But this trend may have started before the big increase in S.M. use for this age group.
  • Some Evidence:
  • Facebook papers - unscientific, but internal research. 2021: body image and teen perception of s.m. as cause.
  • Haidt's focus on teen girls may be plausible.
  • Study suggesting that feeling in control of you social media use may be an indicator variable of health use.
  • Problems with the research.
  • Effects may dependent upon specific use patterns.
  • Study showing no correlation bt screen time and well-being in adolescents.
  • "Screen time" too broad a concept.
  • Ecological fallacy - you don't know if people reporting poor mental health are the screen users.
  • As with TV viewing research, alot depends upon what else you are doing or not doing. Time with friends or physical activity may have a protective effect.
  • Self-fulfilling prophecy. Telling people its hurting them may cause them to believe that even if it's not true.
Retrieved from "http://wiki.gonzaga.edu/alfino/index.php?title=NOV_29&oldid=27470"