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peaigr comments on Motivation and Merciless Commitment Contracts - Less Wrong
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I'm really glad this was the first comment. While reading the post I kept thinking, 'OK, extreme commitment contracts are interesting, but why did peirce pick such a bad example? I'm pretty sure social anxiety doesn't work like that for most people.' Then I got to the conclusion.
Really, it doesn't even have to be disrupting your daily life. When someone says "I want to be less anxious," seeing a professional is way above merciless commitment to exposure therapy on the list of obvious things to try. Commit to doing that, if you want. (And if you're still really into the exposure therapy, start with making eye contact with strangers in public and maybe smiling. Build up small successes first, and it'll be easier to avoid the paralysis of feeling bad about bad feelings.)
What sort of professional do you see if you want to do some minor self-help thing like improve social skills?
Plus points if you can cite peer reviewed studies that indicate that said professional is effective at increasing people social skills.
Cognitive-Behavioral therapy (CBT) is very effective and there is much published research on it; I suggest you have a look (peaigr has linked a meta-study below).
I think under the definition of CBT of the study that peaigr mentions peirce, he's already engaging in CBT when doing his exposure therapy.
The study also says:
It basically provides no evidence that seeking a professional has an effect that's better than what peirce is already doing.
Furthermore the study is about raising the confidence of people who have a low baseline and peirce says that he already has an above average baseline.
The studies also seem to be measuring decreased social anxiety as a goal and don't measure the outcome of successful social interactions.
We're talking about social anxiety, not social skills; they are anticorrelated but one is not the same thing as the lack of the other. Someone might have no particular reluctance in interacting with others but still be unfun to be around (low social anxiety, low social skills), and someone else might instinctively flinch from social interactions but if they somehow overcome that (e.g. by drinking alcohol, or by the interaction being initiated by the other person, or by being already friends with them) their company is very enjoyable (high social anxiety, high social skills).
The ability to start social interactions is a social skill. It's not the only one that matter but it's a valuable one.
The goal that peirce persues seems to be to social skillbuilding. Tackling anxiety is just a means to get there.
Well, I'm not going to pay someone very much to help me make less awkward introductions. It probably depends on what exactly I want to improve, and why I can't do it with standard deliberate practice and research.
(I'm pretty sure this is common knowledge by now, but if it's a question of anxiety keeping you from doing things you want to do, cognitive-behavioral therapy has consistently been found to be more effective than other forms of treatment and placebo for anxiety disorders. Here's a nice 2010 review of meta-analyses--you don't actually have to create an account to view/download.)