I'm not so sure about this. We all know the downsides of identity, but it seems to have its upsides as well - generalizing from one example, I know that I have a much better track record trying to change my behavior through "x is what a good {boyfriend|student|Green Team fan|Star-Bellied Sneetch|...} would do" than "x is a wise thing to do." (Although perhaps someone who self-conceptualized as wise would have an easier time.) My guess is that people who say (accurately, as far as I know) that Stoic philosophy has helped them benefited not so much from exposure to the advice that one shouldn't make one's happiness dependent on external circumstances (surely everyone has been so exposed) but from actually motivating themselves to do it by leveraging their identity as an adherent of Stoicism. Mutatis mutandis "rationalist," and so on.
Upsides of identity: It makes good ideas associated with it stick better.
Downsides of identity: It makes bad ideas associated with it stick better.
Hello all,
I'm working on a top-level post about how Stoicism is an instrumentally useful philosophy to adopt, and figured I should give other philosophies a fair shake as well. Does anyone know of any other philosophies out there that seem to be practically useful or otherwise provide strategies and thought patterns that have practical value? A solid grounding in experimental research is of course desirable.