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.
