Internal Locus of Control

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Example?

Sure, no problem. It is hypothetical of course. Let's say Russia has a hostage and hostage negotiations fail. It is to risky politically to send a military strike team in. This person is of vital importance. What if the spy had to learn how to be a Russian and live Russia in order to get this person out? The spy had to pretend he was Russian to get the person of vital importance out. You're not a Russian but you pretend to be a Russian.

It may not be about saving someone's life either. What about acting for entertainment. There are historical movies in which people play various parts but they are not these people in real life but they have to pretend they are.

Or am I misunderstanding the pragmatics of what you're saying?

Of course one should not believe that 2 +2 =4 in the base 10 number system.

In both your examples the people are pretending to others but not to themselves. The spy is pretending to be Russian and hoping that actual Russians believe him but he is well aware that this is just an act and that he is not actually Russian. Likewise the actors know that they are acting (and so does the audience).

There is a significant difference between pretending to yourself that a false thing is true (and this was in the quote) versus pretending to others that a false thing is true.

I will give an exception to the rule that pretending to yourself is an unhealthy and bad idea. Suppose you- or more to the point, your child- has a terminal illness. The doctors may offer a therapy that has a 5% chance of succeeding and a 95% chance of failing. You agree to the therapy because a 5% chance is better than nothing. Here's where the lying to yourself can be a good thing. The person who mentally changes the ratios to something a lot more likely (whatever works for them, perhaps 50/50) has a better chance of the procedure actual working. The person who can succesfully lie to themselves about the odds of recovery (for themself or their child) can activate the placebo effect in themself or their child (since an ill child is likely to believe in recovery if the parent is also convinced).

http://thebrainbank.scienceblog.com/201 ... -the-mind/

This is a situation where pretending to yourself can save a life. It can save your own life (from time to time it has, see the link) and it can enable you to succesfully pretend to your child that survival is possible which allows them to activate the placebo effect for themselves.

And why not? After all, the slim chance does actually work sometimes. Recently a child was cured of HIV, previously that had never happened.

Last edited by Janissy on 05 Apr 2013, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

and when the child realizes he is going to die he will hate his parents for lying to him. He will take that hate to Eternity.

Some deal that is. False hope.

ruveyn

Except that the so called false hope can actually activate the placebo effect, leading to recovery. The conviction that you are doomed and that any hope is false can be a self fulfilling prophecy. Recently that self fulfilling prophecy has been termed the nocebo effect.

http://www.positivelypositive.com/2013/ ... ur-health/

Research has also shown that pessimists are more likely than optimists to take proactive measures to protect themselves, thus increasing their chances of survival in various situations. However, the failure to ever lie to yourself in any situation can also lead to or aggravate depression.

Some research on the health benefits of lying to yourself-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 43982.html


Of course there are situations where lying to yourself can be damaging. But the above article also gives situations where it is the healthier option.

But is "lying" to yourself a possible choice for everyone? It seems to someone who is lying to themselves, when it is suggested that they are lying to themselves will deny it. That must mean from their perspective their distorted view of reality isn't a lie. If it was a conscious choice to lie to oneself there would have to be awareness of making that choice. Awareness that you are lying to yourself defeats the whole purpose. You can't simultaneously be aware that something is a lie and believe the lie. To me that is a logical contradiction and a conundrum impossible to wrap my head around.

Therefore to me it seems like the act of lying to yourself is not a conscious choice which belays the argument that being an optimist in the face of overwhelming odds against you has anything to do with an internal locus of control. It seems to be something some people are born with. Yet because optimism is something our culture sees as desirable, the assumption is that the optimist chooses their disposition. We say people choose when we want to judge them and hold them responsible. Thus locus of control beliefs are about judgements and social control, not reality.

Thank You Jannisy. You help a lot.

You know what Marshall, I didn't think of this. You're right, if you believe something is true then how does one lie to himself? It is a contradiction. How is it possible to lie to oneself and believe a lie as truth? If one believes x is true then in his mind it is true. On the witness stand in a court if a person believes something is true when it is not they would not be accused of lying under oath. If lying to oneself is a conscious choice and he believes his own lie then why isn't he convicted of lying under oath? If he sees it as true then how is it truthfully a lie. How is he consciously lying?

You just pointed out another inconsistent belief that people in America have today. This is along the lines of this attitude and optimism fanaticism that I see in America today. These things are treated as though they're voluntary muscles to be moved and like Marshall I don't see how I can wrap my head around it. I don't understand it.

No. Pessimists can't do it.






You would think so but I have personally experienced (via doing it to myself) how a conscious choice can morph into an unconscious one as new deliberately chosen optimistic thoughts overwrite the negative ones and then the fact of consciously choosing fades in memory (is overwritten) so you only realize retroactively that's what you did (if circumstances change that make you come to this realization).

There are two colloquial expressions that describe this process:

Talk yourself into it

Fake it till you make it

Both of these expressions describe the process of consciously overwriting certain thoughts- in effect lying to yourself-until you reach the point that you are no longer conscious of making that choice. If somebody says you are lying to yourself you will deny it and you will believe that denial. But if circumstances change (such as in my upthread tragic example, if your child dies anyway) the overwriting will disappear and you will admit "I really believed it at the time but I was lying to myself".

Imagine a file folder in your computer. You consciously overwrite the files in that folder, replacing them with new and slightly different files. As time goes by you might even forget you did that (ok, I might, I have). You can't remember what the original files were and you can start to think these are the original files (I have actually thought this). Then your computer dies. All is lost! But no it's not. It turns out that you backed up your original files on some other medium (a flash drive?) before you changed them and you go to that backup and realize that the bacup files you made so long ago are somewhat different from the files you just lost when your computer died.

What a strained analogy. But hopefully you sort of get what I mean.

Over the years of reading posts on WP I realized that autism makes this overwriting process impossible. (Or at least that's how it seems from reading the posts.) There were some posts by people infuriated at the impossibility of following the common NT advice of "fake it till you make it". There were posts saying that Aspies could see reality and NTs lived in a haze of optimistic delusion (implying being unable to lie to oneself versus being unable not to). I think optimism and pessimism are inborn and not a choice. I think that this is partly how well somebody is able to overwrite previous thoughts including awareness of negative information.

There are AS posters who seem quite optimistic posting on WP (Callista seems pretty optimistic). But I notice a very pragmatic methodology to the optimism. Instead of overwriting the posters seem to do data mining and finding whatever data could possibly support a positive outcome to a situation. I lean more that way myself. I can lie to myself and believe it and have done so (even though this seems to an AS person like a logical impossibility) but usually I lean towards data mining and forage for whatever bits of data I can find to make myself optimistic about something.

I know this seems like a logical impossibility, but people do it. I think it comes down to neurology and the fluidity of thoughts. They aren't written in stone and they can be overwritten. I'm not sure exactly how this works but I've done it. I have lied to myself, forgotten that I ever did so and absolutely believed that X was the truth, and then circumstances changed and I realized I had been lying to myself. There are probably other believed lies that I deliberately implanted but am not aware of at the moment and I may die never knowing or something may happen so I realize these were deliberate implants.

I am giving you a headache trying to wrap your head around this. For a fun fiction example of how this could happen
watch Total Recall or read anything by Philip K. Dick (one of his stories was the inspiration for Total Recall). Philip K. Dick was absolutely obsessed with how peoples' brains could do this and he wrote many, many books exploring the theme.


Now that I think of it, there have been many posts about how AS people have much stronger episodic memories than NT people. I have witnessed it myself in my daughter. She can remember the minutiae of things that happened long ago and I am absolutely astounded at how she can remember such things. There have been many posts with people wondering how NTs can forget things so easily. Since this overwriting process absolutely requires that you forget you ever overwrote the original thoughts and therefore believe this lie you told yourself, it may be that Aspies don't ever do this because powerful long term memory makes the forgetting impossible. You can't believe a lie you consciously chose to tell yourself unless you forget the conscious choice. NTs do this. Aspies (and anyone with autism, so far as I can tell) never forget. Without the forgetting, there will always be the consciousness that this was a lie you told yourself.

It could be that superior episodic memory is why this is so inconcievable to AS people and so common to NT people. As a BAP (presumably) I fall somewhere inbetween and have only done it a few times (that I know of). It may all be down to the depth of episodic memory.

Last edited by Janissy on 05 Apr 2013, 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What abut optimists.?

All the time, but not all optimists (gone into in greater detail in my mega post upthread).

Pessimists or realists? Pessimists can be unrealistically negative, but it can't really be called "lying" if they're not fully conscious of their pessimism.


I don't think I've ever experienced that as a conscious choice, even when viewing it in hindsight. If anything for me optimism is like a cascade. If some small positive event occurs, I start to believe my odds are better, and if even more positive things happen they compound my positive expectations even more. Once something doesn't turn out I may realize in hindsight that I was perhaps too optimistic, but it was events and the accompanying emotions that set it in motion. At no point does it feel like there was ever a conscious decision to feel a certain way. Perhaps there was reasoning or rationalization, but the reasoning leads to the belief, not the other way around. Finding reasons to feel optimistic won't work if I don't think my reasoning is trustworthy. In other words I have too much doubt and skepticism for my own good.

Yet doubt and skepticism serve me well academically. I've always thought I was good at math and science because I'm incapable of fooling myself into thinking I understand something without really understanding it, thus I spend more time agonizing over details than others, yet do better in the end because I don't get tripped up as easily. What works great for truly understanding doesn't work great emotionally. I am too aware for my own good and this can make me feel nihilistic and depressed. I tend to do better when I'm focused externally, doing something, experiencing something, thinking theoretically, etc... than when I'm reflecting on myself. I think this is another reason why "positive thinking" doesn't work for me. Even telling myself "I'm awesome" doesn't work when I'm down, even if it could be the truth. The problem is focusing on myself will also bring up negative thoughts. American culture is obsessed with the "self" and "striving" and I don't find that helpful at all. I think it actually makes our society somewhat sick. Our culture tells people to be more self absorbed than is healthy.


The problem is I cannot consciously overwrite the files. They are simply pushed underneath a big stack where I can be distracted from their presence. The moment my immediate circumstances is not occupying my full consciousness buried files have the potential to come to the surface. I even notice this in my sleep. Sometimes something is bothering me a lot, but then I get busy with something else and momentarily forget about the negative thoughts that are bothering me. I go to sleep thinking pleasant thoughts only to wake up tense and bothered with some vague nightmare related to the crap I tried to forget.


Yea I do.


I'll check that out.



I'm not sure that I have superior episodic memory though. It seems more like my innate skepticism is the problem. That and my tendency to focus to a much higher degree.

I have another theory that some forms of "false thinking" are not true beliefs but a type of exaggerated expression, akin to venting. I know I do do this as do most NTs and aspires alike but I don't mistake it for honest belief. I think I must be fairly mild as I notice some people on here don't get it, take it literally, or find it offensive. I might be dramatically negative for humor just because I'm blowing off steam and don't really want to be taken that seriously. It seems to me that a lot of "positive thoughts" are just the reverse of this. They aren't intending to lie to anyone, they're just trying to keep the spirits up. It seems the Positive Polly's like saying platitudes and affirmations while the Negative Nellys go for black humor instead. Each clan's mode of coping annoys the crap out of the other, but it seems most aspies take platitudes literally and find them dismissive or offensive while most don't seem to mind sarcastic humor as much and can find more common ground with NTs there.

Well, I'm rambling on at this point.

Janissy, are you serious about this with NTs. NTs are able to consciously forget a lie they tell themselves. I do accept your theory but I can't wrap my mind around this. I have never been able to forget a lie I tell myself. How does one do this? This is truthfully inconceivable to me. Is this why when I question people about things that happened in the past as a,b,c when time passes they will deny it and say it is d,e,f. I've never understood this and I've always thought I was being bullshitted. In a sense, they are not bullshitting me at all am I correct?

Does this apply to other concepts out of the realm of lying to oneself? Do NTs consciously forget other things as well? This means if I want to make sure things are straight with an NT including my wife does this mean I have a certain window of time to do this in or otherwise they do not remember what I am talking about? Am I correct?

How do NTs do this? How do they have this talent? Why do we aspies lack this?

This is what happens with me. A certain incident happens and a month or 2 later there is a certain aspect of the incident I don't grasp. I have missing gaps in my understanding. How do I handle this with NTs?

I need to be able to do the same thing as well. For me, understanding the underlying theory behind something serves me the best. If I end up with a negative outcome I want to know what I did wrong and why? Fnord was able to serve in the military well. It would be awesome if he would tell us his techniques as to what he did to serve in it so well. His techniques may help us a lot. I could formulate a theory this way.

For whatever reason, he doesn't want to go into what he did and his theories. He spouts out the affirmations that do not tell me anything.

More often than not, "good intentions" are rationalized and reinforced by willful ignorance. While being initially misguided is an honest mistake, being constantly dismissive of anything that challenges your ideals is no excuse for self righteousness.

Life is inherently full of uncertainty. Although there's all sorts of definitions of good and evil, all definitions of evil involve selfish motives which willfully disregard others. The situation itself doesn't determine how well you're able to judge this for yourself.

The gray areas do blur the lines somewhat, but this doesn't mean the lines are blurry enough to consider insanity a momentary lapse.

You're asking for specific answers to vague and abstract questions. I don't know what type of answer you're looking for. I think you're overanalyzing and looking for a perfect answer or some kind of silver bullet to make sense out of all the vagueness. But anyways I'll try my best...

I think the faulty assumption you make behind the whole post is that if you don't absolutely see every contingency behind your knowledge then that will blur the line so much that you'll set yourself up for situations where you find dilemmas lurking behind every corner. There is no foolproof formula that foreshadows all contingencies. You just have to rely on your ability to judge as you go along.

As for internal locus of control in the US, I think the political spectrum measures locus of control and essentialism vs social constructivism more than anything else. It seems the further left you are, the more external your locus of control is and the stronger your belief in social engineering is. Likewise the further right you are, the more internal your locus of control is and the stronger your belief in essentialism is. So on top of the US having a very internal locus of control, there is also an essentialistic view on things like perseverance and morals. This is what makes it an inherent requirement. And how exactly does one pull himself by his bootstraps? Well the assumption behind that statement is that if there's a will there's a way. It isn't meant to be taken as a guarantee, but as something that stacks the odds in your favour.

Anyways, I have an internal locus of control for the most part, but not to the extent where I believe everyone can just will themselves to be rich. The most important thing we have control over is our own thoughts and feelings. What gives us the illusion that we don't is our tendency to settle within our comfort zone. Now, I'm not saying you can just snap out of it but that our negativity is a product of what we habitually think and focus on and that we reinforce this negativity by settling for the devil we know rather than taking on the devil we don't.

In response to my incredibly long post about NTs overwriting memory and thereby forgetting about having lied to themself and thereby believing that lie. Too long to quote.

My initial answer which you quoted contained my theory that NTs have worse episodic memory than Aspies and therefore have an easier time forgetting things. This theory was based on observation of my daughter- who remembers many things I forget- and also posts on WP. Marshall doubted this difference in episodic memory. I looked in google for research papers that would show autism confers superior episodic memory but instead I found many research papers saying just the opposite, that in memory tests of episodic memory, NTs did better (matched for IQ). So that shot down that theory. But I did find something else.....
http://lifehacker.com/5867049/nine-stub ... by-science

It's an article debunking various myths about the brain. The myth that interested me was the one the one that episodic memory is accurate. In the debunking of that myth I found this bit:



Episodic memory is not accurate because people tend to remember the broad outlines of what happened but not the details and fill in the details later as a best guess. This made me think of something else I read often in WP posts and that actually is backed up by research. That is the fact (confirmed by research) that NTs are more likely to notice the overall picture of what they experience while AS people (Aspies and auties both) are more likely to notice the details, perhaps even at the expense of getting the overall picture. That made me spin a new theory based on that observation- that the reason NTs more easily forget (and thus can actually believe a self-told lie) is that NTs are more likely to remember their overall thoughts but not remember details. AS people are more likely to remember the details. Thus NTs are more likely (perhaps) to fill in the gaps (as the quoted research says) and those gaps will be filled in by the self-told lie and thus it will be believed. If AS people are remembering more details that would explain how believing a self-told lie would be harder or even impossible- the particulars of that lie would be a remembered detail. If the details are more noticed by AS people but the big picture is missed, this could also explain the research finding worse episodic memory (if they tested the big picture rather than very specific details).

That research also explains why people you talked to would absolutely believe that d,e,f happened when you remember the details that it was a,b,c. They remember what happened in broad outline but not the particulars but their brain filled in plausible particulars which were not accurate. They weren't bullshitting according to this research. They were filling in the details wrong. This research has had profound effects in the courtroom because it means eyewitness testimony is not 100% reliable. Defense lawyers have used this research to exonerate their clients.




According to that research----yes. That is exactly what it means. Now you are going to ask how long that window of time is but I have no idea. It probably varies from person to person.



According to the research it isn't a talent or even a conscious choice so much as it is a consequence of how memory works. If NT people are less likely than AS people to take in all the details in the first place and instead fill them in later with plausible versions, that means NT people will more easily forget the absolute particulars of what happened and more easily overwrite memories. If AS people more easily remember specific details (and that seems to be the case) that would also mean that those specific details won't be overwritten as readily. It looks like a consequence of top down versus bottom up processing. That's my theory of the moment.



Perhaps in the initial processing, you got the details and missed the big picture (and so are more likely to remember the details accurately while not understanding the big picture). That's bottom up processing. On the other hand, NTs will get the big picture but not the details and later fill in plausible versions of what they think the details might have been. This would lead to getting the big picture but also not being accurate in episodic memory. You would see those innacuracies and think they are an intentional lie but they are actually a plausible guess. That's top down processing. You have gaps in understanding (from focusing on details), they have gaps in details (from focusing on the big picture) but think they accurately remember the details because their brains have filled them in wrong (according to that quoted research). It would also mean that an NT could more easily forget the detail that the happy memory they have is an intentional lie they told themselves and instead remember the big picture (happy memory) and incorrectly think it is accurate and not a self-told lie.

The source of friction is obvious. They are frustrated at you for not getting the big picture. You are frustrated at them for being absolutely wrong in their memory of a key detail- thinking they are wrong as deliberate deception rather than faulty memory. They think they are right because the brain fills in the missing details but does not label that file as "guesswork" but rather as "accurate memory". Oh my. How to handle this? You can't count on people to remember accurately. The research says they won't. So maybe your best option is documentation and recording. Get things in writing or take photos or write things in your smartphone/laptop/whatever device you use for recording things. Today's technology makes it easier than ever to make accurate records. People misremember but machines don't.