orthonormal comments on New Year’s Resolutions Thread - Less Wrong

8 Post author: MichaelVassar 30 December 2009 09:36PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 30 December 2009 11:10:30PM 7 points [-]

A public reminder: making a public commitment might be counterproductive to achievement, possibly because you start feeling too secure in the resolution and prematurely reap the fuzzies of expected good deed for the day.

Comment author: orthonormal 30 December 2009 11:47:09PM *  2 points [-]

On the other hand, based on Wiseman's survey, public commitments help more often than hurt with regard to New Year's resolutions. Possible reasons for the discrepant results include the hard-and-fast nature (Near-mode) of most New Year's resolutions, compared to the fuzzy properties (Far-mode) of many identity-related goals.