What is 'increasing the need for itself' when it comes to self-help books? I don't know what that means. Buying more and more? How do you isolate variables enough in experimental design to separate out 'addiction' from 'increasing interest' in this case?
And what is the source of pleasure in self-help? The narcissism? The feeling of being less lost? How do you measure 'feelings of being less lost' as a variable and isolate it as an effect of the books and not from other processes that go on when someone is at a contemplative/reflective point in life?
Fake utility, perhaps - the illusion of progress. Like someone playing World of Warcraft who feels, deep down, that they are accomplishing something more than in their real life and as their real life degenerates in part due to WoW, feels ever more like playing WoW is a good idea.
"As Christopher Buckley (1999) writes, "The more people read [self-help books], the more they think they need them... [it's] more like an addiction than an alliance.""
'Addiction' strikes me as the wrong way of characterizing the relation.
Something that increases the need for itself sounds like an addiction to me. Or do you disagree that self-help books increase the desire to use self-help books?
What is 'increasing the need for itself' when it comes to self-help books? I don't know what that means. Buying more and more? How do you isolate variables enough in experimental design to separate out 'addiction' from 'increasing interest' in this case?
And what is the source of pleasure in self-help? The narcissism? The feeling of being less lost? How do you measure 'feelings of being less lost' as a variable and isolate it as an effect of the books and not from other processes that go on when someone is at a contemplative/reflective point in life?
And be... (read more)