I’ve been slowly working my way through Triver’s book Folly of Fools. Chapter six reviews the many amazing benefits that appear to arise from having people write about their troubles. For example: Writing about job loss improves one’s chance of reemployment. This sort of writing appears to be cathartic – people immediately feel better. More striking, at least in one study, is a sharply increased chance of getting a job. After six months, 53 percent of writers had found a new job, compared with only 18 percent of non writers. One effect of writing is that it helps you work through your anger so it is not displaced onto a new, prospective employer or, indeed, revealed to the employer in any form.
That review did not inspire confidence at all. I read about half of it before giving up and they didn't mention any specific randomized controlled trials of writing therapy in that time.
Similarly, the higher salaries of college grads don't tell us how much median income would increase if more people graduated from college. Some of the higher salary is due to being more productive, presumably, but some is just being more competitive for a limited number of high-paying jobs -- an educational version of everyone standing on tiptoe.
Forty-one of [them] volunteered for the study and were randomly assigned to either the experimental writing (N = 20) or the control writing (N = 21) conditions.
Why would the control group not be affected by the Hawthorne effect?
Admittedly, this is still a pretty small sample size, and not a huge p-value, so I'd like to see some replication before reading too much into the study. On the other hand, the writing exercise does not seem too high cost, so if I find myself unemployed, I think I'll probably try it...
Darn skippy. Building a website brings an insurance company more business. This does not lead to more insurance sold overall once every insurance company has a website.
Warren Buffett puts it this way. Once a few people stand on their tiptoes to see a parade, EVERYONE has to stand on their tiptoes to get an equivalent view of what they used to see without having to stand on their tiptoes.
I wonder if the results would be the same if those folks were invited/volunteered to say paint, or sculpt, or do public speaking, or teach someone something. I wonder how the percentages of unemployed people finding new jobs after they engage in writing vs doing any of the other things above look like .
Fundamental issues cannot be solved by therapy (writing is presented as therapy here).
Therapy solves issues in perception/behaviour, it does not rewrite the basic laws of the universe.
Jobs are tied to politics which is tied to the economy which is tied to energy which is tied to technology and population. Neither technology or population are perception/behaviour-driven mechanisms.
I am hypothesizing that when people mirror your emotions and you are speaking out your thoughts you have at once a complete picture of what you are thinking and feeling .. and you can easily correct yourself .. Writing, meditation and all other stuff is not the best tool for solving life's most basic problems.
from where I come from, on a daily basis, you interact with people of all ages and genders withing your circle .. each with their own separate set of strengths and weaknesses .. but when combined, their insight is often invaluable.
It is just that our cognitive apparatus is not well equipped to work by itself.
Even better than writing is to actually speak to a good active listener. When I mean an active listener, it is someone that will not jump right away with suggestions and judgements ..they might sometime mirror your facial emotions (all unconsciously) .. the listener must empathize, not analyze or sympathize .. its a fine line.
The problem most often is that either anger, fear or greed often short circuits your thinking.. when you face an active listener .. it helps to activate thinking back up again .. really people are amazing creatures and most of life's worries are best solved through face to face with true friends ..
Writing is a lengthy way of doing the same thing and less effective at that because you will still miss the biases .. remember most of your problems haven't even been reduced to language based thought ..
"I’ve been slowly working my way through Triver’s book Folly of Fools."
Did you once say you were a fast reader? The book is written in a popular style and isn't hard. (But it isn't particularly well-written and looks to me that it was done in a rush.)
"This suggests an easy way to increase employment, at least if the problem is employee cooperativeness and willingness to accept new jobs."
That's an infinitely big if. (Should be "at least if the problem *were*...")
"Forty-one of [them] volunteered for the study and were randomly assigned to either the experimental writing (N = 20) or the control writing (N = 21) conditions"It was a randomized control study.
Great - I added that to the post.
This meta-analysis is looking a lot more promising: http://psycnet.apa.org/jour...
That review did not inspire confidence at all. I read about half of it before giving up and they didn't mention any specific randomized controlled trials of writing therapy in that time.
Similarly, the higher salaries of college grads don't tell us how much median income would increase if more people graduated from college. Some of the higher salary is due to being more productive, presumably, but some is just being more competitive for a limited number of high-paying jobs -- an educational version of everyone standing on tiptoe.
Forty-one of [them] volunteered for the study and were randomly assigned to either the experimental writing (N = 20) or the control writing (N = 21) conditions.
Why would the control group not be affected by the Hawthorne effect?
Admittedly, this is still a pretty small sample size, and not a huge p-value, so I'd like to see some replication before reading too much into the study. On the other hand, the writing exercise does not seem too high cost, so if I find myself unemployed, I think I'll probably try it...
Hawthorne Effect
Disclaimer: writing about your job loss on your Facebook page is probably not as helpful.
Darn skippy. Building a website brings an insurance company more business. This does not lead to more insurance sold overall once every insurance company has a website.
Warren Buffett puts it this way. Once a few people stand on their tiptoes to see a parade, EVERYONE has to stand on their tiptoes to get an equivalent view of what they used to see without having to stand on their tiptoes.
I wonder if the results would be the same if those folks were invited/volunteered to say paint, or sculpt, or do public speaking, or teach someone something. I wonder how the percentages of unemployed people finding new jobs after they engage in writing vs doing any of the other things above look like .
Fundamental issues cannot be solved by therapy (writing is presented as therapy here).
Therapy solves issues in perception/behaviour, it does not rewrite the basic laws of the universe.
Jobs are tied to politics which is tied to the economy which is tied to energy which is tied to technology and population. Neither technology or population are perception/behaviour-driven mechanisms.
I am hypothesizing that when people mirror your emotions and you are speaking out your thoughts you have at once a complete picture of what you are thinking and feeling .. and you can easily correct yourself .. Writing, meditation and all other stuff is not the best tool for solving life's most basic problems.
from where I come from, on a daily basis, you interact with people of all ages and genders withing your circle .. each with their own separate set of strengths and weaknesses .. but when combined, their insight is often invaluable.
It is just that our cognitive apparatus is not well equipped to work by itself.
Even better than writing is to actually speak to a good active listener. When I mean an active listener, it is someone that will not jump right away with suggestions and judgements ..they might sometime mirror your facial emotions (all unconsciously) .. the listener must empathize, not analyze or sympathize .. its a fine line.
The problem most often is that either anger, fear or greed often short circuits your thinking.. when you face an active listener .. it helps to activate thinking back up again .. really people are amazing creatures and most of life's worries are best solved through face to face with true friends ..
Writing is a lengthy way of doing the same thing and less effective at that because you will still miss the biases .. remember most of your problems haven't even been reduced to language based thought ..
"I’ve been slowly working my way through Triver’s book Folly of Fools."
Did you once say you were a fast reader? The book is written in a popular style and isn't hard. (But it isn't particularly well-written and looks to me that it was done in a rush.)
"This suggests an easy way to increase employment, at least if the problem is employee cooperativeness and willingness to accept new jobs."
That's an infinitely big if. (Should be "at least if the problem *were*...")
Ah, good.
"Forty-one of [them] volunteered for the study and were randomly assigned to either the experimental writing (N = 20) or the control writing (N = 21) conditions"It was a randomized control study.
They were chosen voluntarily. Mightn't it just be that people who chose not to try the writing thing were less likely to try in general?