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Would almost write this post myself - btw does 'rah' mean 'yay'?
Yep, pretty much, it's a rallying cry type of thing
In response to
Willpower Depletion vs Willpower Distraction
An even more recent study has failed to replicate the glucose effect entirely, too: Lange, F., & Eggert, F. (2014). Sweet delusion. Glucose drinks fail to counteract ego depletion. Appetite, 75, 54-63 <-- This one also has an interesting survey of the methodological flaws in similar studies.
Also, there's some evidence (still preliminary) that ego depletion effects decline with age: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0026351 <-- free access paper if anyone wants to read it. It basically looks at a meta-analysis by Hagger done about 2010? I think, and shows a significantly higher effect for younger people (which, being psyc and reliant on college students most of the time, is most of them) - then conducted their own study and found the same (using groups of <25 vs. 40-65). Since 25 is approximately when the pre-frontal cortex is fully finished maturing, maybe the effect has something to do with that.
Also, in terms of the 'out of willpower' and giving up thing... several studies have shown that with sufficient incentive (money, being told the research will help develop Alzheimer's therapies) the ego depletion effect goes away (but then comes back triple-fold on a third non-motivated task). Also, people tend to conserve willpower when they expect to need it later. So you don't have to give up, it might just be a bit harder - but if a few dollars (literally what it was) can motivate someone out of it then you can probably motivate yourself out of it for anything important. This is where the muscle analogy comes into play, like an athlete resting for a big match then pushing through discomfort during it.
^Ref for the last paragraph: Muraven, M., Slessareva, E. (2003). Mechanisms of Self-Control Failure: Motivation and Limited Resources. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(7), 894-906
All in all, I'm not convinced one of those things is going on, because there's no explanation there as to why they would happen more for a task that requires self-control than one that doesn't. Most ego-depletion studies match up tasks to make them the same domain, often the same length and tediousness. Why would a task requiring more self-control give you more physical discomfort, hunger, thirst or indignation? The anxiety about willpower depletion I can get behind, but that's only for people who know what they're being tested on.
In response to
Open Thread, May 12 - 18, 2014
So recently I've been philosophizing about love, sex, and relationships. I'm a man, and I experience lust much more often than love. However, it seems like long-term relationships are better than short-term relationships for a variety of reasons: consistently having sex through short-term relationships as a man requires that you spend a lot of time chasing women, and I've read about many mental health benefits that come with being in a loving relationship that I assume don't come in to play if you're only having short-term relationships.
I'm a outgoing, masculine, fairly neurotypical guy, and I can get dates with women by putting in time and effort. However, it's rare for me to feel substantial intimacy or connection with them. So my question for LW is, how can I hack myself to be more loving and get infatuated with women for their personalities and the subtle feminine things they do instead of their overtly sexy aspects? E.g. one idea (rot13'd to avoid contaminating you with my ideas): gnxvat rpfgnfl.
One of the ways of building intimacy or closeness, which is a key component of companionate love (the type you seem to be going for here, have a look at the research on passionate vs. companionate love if you're interested) is self-disclosure that is responded to by one's partner with warmth, understanding and supportiveness.
You can spend a lot of time doing things together without having this self-disclosure: to get it, you need to want to disclose/hear more about the other person, and preferably have dates etc. where you spend some time just talking about whatever, in private, about your pasts or your thoughts - things that might lead to self-disclosure.
So first step, set up these situations. Second step, talk about your past and your thoughts and try to be open - be trusting. Relate random conversations to things you hold close to you. Third step, if your partner opens up to you, make sure to respond supportively and engage with it, and not brush it off or turn the conversation to less close topics.
Which is not to say you should do this all the time, fun dates and silliness and dancing in a club way too loud to talk in are good too. But with any luck, adding a bit more of this in will help you feel that connection and intimacy.
In response to
May Monthly Bragging Thread
I completed my statistics internship, and got strong all-around compliments from the audience on my presentation, and my adviser on my report.
I succeeded in being selected for a consulting job after a long interview/testing process, and taught myself how to do competitor research, to good feedback from my team.
I asked two people to be references (this doesn't sound like a big one, but it was probably the hardest thing on this list for me - I've always felt really uncomfortable about asking for this) and they both said yes, they'd love to.
I integrated HabitRPG into my everyday life, and since doing so (about a week ago) have achieved all the daily habits I'd previously been inconsistently working on for months (including habits about when to turn screens off, when to go to bed and get up, exercise and other health things) at least 5/7 of the time, and have been feeling much more productive in general.
My stats tutee went from failing her course to getting 80% in her most recent test.
In response to
Meetup : Christchurch, NZ Inaugural Meetup
I'll head in soon; will have internet there so if you get lost, feel free to PM me. Anyone is welcome to come, see you all there :-)
In response to
Meetup : Christchurch, NZ Inaugural Meetup
Indeed, be good to have you there. I don't think many of us will have attended one before, but if this goes well it will hopefully become a regular thing
In response to
Meetup : Christchurch, NZ Inaugural Meetup
Do you have planned articles for discussing? How late do you plan on going?
Hmm... perhaps How to be Happy - I can bring along my positive psyc textbook to supplement it and it's something everyone should be able to contribute to whether they've read the article or not. No need to stick too closely to it though, I think for the first meetup fairly free discussion could be more fun, to see what everyone's interests are.
I'd guess it will go about 3 hours, but we'll end when things naturally close, and if anyone needs to go earlier that's fine.
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This seems to be an extremely powerful method for handling decision fatigue - it's one of the few (maybe the only?) things I've seen on Less Wrong that I'm going to start applying immediately because of the potential I see in it. On the other hand, I doubt it would be so effective for me for handling social anxiety or other emotion-laden situations. A voice in my head telling me to do something that I already know I should do won't make the emotion go away, and, for me, the obstacle in these sorts of situations is definitely the emotion.
Exactly my experience - it helps with making little decisions throughout the day and staying productive, but when it comes to ones I'm reluctant to make... no matter how many times the little people in my head go 'this one!' the issue isn't cleared.