
Self-distancing can help you make better decisions - EndXA
https://effectiviology.com/self-distancing-rational-decisions/
======
torstenvl
Robert Sapolsky touches on this when discussing the effects of glucocorticoids
on the prefrontal cortex. A stressed PFC is not an executive functioning PFC.
When we're too close to an issue, we process with our periaqueductal gray (key
in pain inhibition) and not with the part of our brain more adept at
strategizing.

 _These stress effects on frontal function also make us perseverative—in a
rut, set in our ways, running on automatic, being habitual. We all know
this—what do we typically do during a stressful time when something isn’t
working? The same thing again, many more times, faster and more intensely—it
becomes unimaginable that the usual isn’t working. This is precisely where the
frontal cortex makes you do the harder but more correct thing—recognize that
it’s time for a change. Except for a stressed frontal cortex, or one that’s
been exposed to a lot of glucocorticoids. In rats, monkeys, and humans, stress
weakens frontal connections with the hippocampus—essential for incorporating
the new information that should prompt shifting to a new strategy—while
strengthening frontal connections with more habitual brain circuits._

R. Sapolsky, _Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst_ 130 (2017).

~~~
hhjjkkll
>When we're too close to an issue, we process with our periaqueductal gray
(key in pain inhibition) and not with the part of our brain more adept at
strategizing.

This must be what happens when you think of a funny comeback or joke several
hours after the opportunity to use it.

~~~
rzzzt
The Treppenwitz or l'esprit de l'escalier:
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/l%27esprit_de_l%27escalier](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/l%27esprit_de_l%27escalier)

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lame88
Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s
intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed
recently.

However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems
like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may
be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your
day to day work, and you might be eyeing stuff like Scala and Clojure with
dreams of a more fulfilling line of work. Perhaps the distanced rational self
would say no, you are well invested in this Java skillset, and these new
things could die out, or any new venture like this might not work out, so
stick with what you know. But perhaps you take the more emotional route and
say no, even if things pan out badly for me, i want a more fulfilling day to
day rather than writing so much repetitive code or whatever (no offense to
anyone happy with Java). And perhaps you land in a spot where you’re much
happier. Or hell, perhaps you really wanted to pursue music, art, etc.

It’s my conjecture, but perhaps it’s most concisely put as: the more you
distance yoursef, the less risk you tolerate, and you will take the safe path,
precluding the wild possibilities that are the spice of life.

~~~
swombat
I think you speak here to an important potential misunderstanding about self-
distancing. It shouldn’t be about eliminating emotions, it should be about
seeing them clearly.

Even the first example quote about LeBron makes the point... he says he
doesn’t want to make an _emotional_ decision... he wants to make a decision
that will make him _happy_.

Happy is an emotion too, and a totally valid goal. “Emotional” is really being
used as a shortcut to “unconscious”.

Even (perhaps especially) as inputs to the decision, emotions are valuable. If
you feel joy at the thought of learning Scala and Clojure, that’s an important
piece of information! If you feel depressed and apathetic when writing Java
code, that too is very important.

Make conscious emotional decisions, should be the take away here. And self-
distancing, to see your own emotions clearly, will help with that.

~~~
lame88
I had considered this but I felt my comment was getting too long, and I still
feel pretty opaque about it. And I might need to read the study itself to get
a clearer picture - the article didn't quite answer all my questions.

Basically I feel some friction between distance and self-awareness. It seemed
that this study was about choices and action, and that this technique is
effective when you have a clear picture of what you want.

But to me, that's the catch: knowing the subjective part of finding out what I
really want (beyond the immediate sense) is the hardest, and I feel that the
critical self-reflection that requires is something you don't want to be
distanced for (how can you understand yourself if you're thinking of yourself
as someone else? You can understand your patterns of behavior this way, but
that's a small piece of the puzzle). Hopefully this gets you to the point
where you come out with exactly that set of emotional criteria, and then you
can make well-reasoned decisions based on that, possibly using techniques like
distancing.

So there's definitely potential for harmony between the two steps. Trouble is,
it seems all too easy to skip or cut short that self-awareness part and go
right to the decisions, which is usually what is prompting us to go about
these efforts in the first place. So certainly, I can see how a technique like
this can help people make objectively better decisions, by some objective
criteria. But without that clear picture, applying distancing on its own seems
like it would make someone even more prone to neglecting their desires, since
they are separating themselves from the decision. But this is all conjecture
of someone having only read the article with little background in psychology
and being prone to making emotional short-term decisions all the time. Sorry
for the post length; since I feel so conflicted about it it was hard to really
distill my thoughts.

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maroonblazer
>Self-distancing is the act of increasing the distance from your own
egocentric perspective when assessing events and emotions that you experience.

It's odd that there's no mention of meditation as a way to achieve this
effect, since that's arguably its biggest benefit.

Put another way, as someone once said: Wisdom is the ability to take your own
advice.

~~~
riskneutral
I would go further and say that meditation is the only way to reliably and
truly actualize such a state of mind.

~~~
Vinnl
I consider self-distancing to be one of the things I'm relatively good at.
I've hardly ever successfully meditated, though. Furthermore, the article
mentions a couple of other techniques that appear to reliably help with self-
distancing.

I'm sure meditation helps, but I wouldn't rule out other options for achieving
this particular goal.

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TN1ck
I always imagine myself in a movie. What would I want the protagonist to do?
Usually leads me to be more outgoing and not staying at home.

~~~
reificator
But what if what you want the protagonist to do is a non-stop 80s montage?

~~~
munificent
You say that like it's a bad thing.

 _< turns up the Le Matos currently playing in headphones>_

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jddj
This reminded me of something which made it to the front page a while back
about how people came to a different result when they considered Trolley
Problems in their second language rather than their first.

But that article framed it as there being benefits to both the emotional
approach and the more rational approach, depending on the problem being
considered. This one seemed to discount the emotional baggage as totally
unnecessary.

Edit: found the article, and now I'm not sure that I read it on HN after all,
but for anyone curious (text is in Spanish):
[https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/06/18/laboratorio_de_felicida...](https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/06/18/laboratorio_de_felicidad/1529301994_058189.html)

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manigandham
This is called "detachment" in many areas of leadership like the military.

I'm sure everyone has personally experienced this, for example when giving
advice to others. It's usually very rational and practical because you're not
personally and emotionally invested in the events of their life.

~~~
teddyh
“ _We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still
hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re
already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to
function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without
compassion. Without remorse. All war depends upon it._ ”

— Speirs, _Band of Brothers_ (2001)

~~~
afarrell
If you don’t have a need to, I’m not sure that its useful or healthy to adopt
coping mechanisms that people use to endure the most traumatic experiences
possible.

~~~
teddyh
Just to be clear: I was certainly not making a recommendation. I agree with
you.

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kissgyorgy
This is such a simple and effective trick to think about problems involving
you. It's very easy to do, for example you imagine how somebody else who is
standing next to you can see you, like if you were that person. Sometimes I
imagine how my grandpa would see what I do if he still would live and he could
be proud of me or not.

~~~
billti
I figured out for myself a while back, that if I suspect I’m taking the “easy”
choice or making excuses for myself, if I imagine there was a great coach
standing next to me who knew my mindset & goals and had my best interests in
mind, what would he tell me to do right now. The right action will often
become surprisingly clear.

------
dawhizkid
This partially explains why many have epiphanies while on shrooms...you will
experience "ego death" that lets you think much more objectively about issues
affecting your life.

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mrmondo
Tried to get the primary source for the study behind the graphs there, links
through to a paywalled study - so I can’t find the sample size, methodologies
used, how the study was controlled etc... I’m not disputing anything - I am
however cautious of drawing conclusions from articles / posts without proper
citations and primary source data. Paywalled study:
[https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0035173](https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0035173)

It is promising however that this blog as a section on logical fallacies,
without going through more articles I can’t comment if they adhere to avoiding
them or not, still - good to see.

~~~
gwern
Google Scholar pulls up many PDFs of it:
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=18169154965353534...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=18169154965353534314&hl=en&as_sdt=0,21)

------
winchling
_> The researchers then measured participants’ self-distance during their
recollection of their past experiences_

How exactly did they perform this measurement?

------
dominotw
> self who is analyzing the event is considered to be distinct from the self
> who experienced it

I have hard time following this, how can there be two selfs in a single mind.

Is the observer more nobler entity with higher self restraint than the entity
being observed who is more emotional and lower self control?

~~~
derefr
One of the goals of mindfulness meditation is the "realization" that your
stream of consciousness—the output of the "self who is analyzing the event"—is
essentially just a sensory stimulus like any other. There is an agent in your
head, thinking—an agent you have raised and constantly train and identify with
very much, sure—but then there is you, separately, _observing_ that thinking
coming _out_ of that agent. You, the thing that experiences qualia, would
still exist even if that agent didn't! You just wouldn't be able to ponder or
focus-on or decide-to-react to anything; only to passively sense and
experience things as they happen. From your perspective as the perceiving
agent, it'd just seem that a sense was shut off.

Once you have this perspective, you become aware that you don't have to
identify with the thoughts coming out of the thinking-agent, or even to listen
to them. You, the perceiving agent, can "tune out" the thinking agent's train
of thought, just as well as you can tune out a five-year-old babbling in your
ear. (And, helpfully, the brain has feedback mechanisms that make tuning out
the thinking agent cause it to "speak" less. Unlike the five-year-old.)

~~~
dominotw
> you don't have to identify with the thoughts coming out of the thinking-
> agent,

I really have hard time with this . What is the difference between thinking
and perceiving agents. Both entities are doing thinking and perceiving. One
seems to be passing some sort of value judgement on the other self. Why would
some thoughts be "invalid". They are coming out of you for a reason, why
should those reasons be ignored.

How precisely is the self( the one we are strongly identifying with) coming up
with validity criteria for other self's thoughts. Surely its your own
ambitions. right? eg: Ignore the thought of eating icecream.

Wouldn't this process create some sort of constant internal conflict where two
self are fighting and passing value judgement on each other.

~~~
pacifika
Something that happens in daily life can invoke emotions but it doesn’t mean
one has to react with an immediate emotional response. Instead accept the
input for what it is and choose how to act on it.

It’s rational versus emotional

~~~
dominotw
shouldn't unifying those two be the goal, instead of creating more distance.

I don't see how having a constant internal conflict between two selfs is a
good idea.

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scarygliders
Huh. I've known this as "standing back from oneself" \- I've naturally used
this technique for a long time when assessing a customer's
situation/requirements.

Also comes in handy when assessing... onself, and one's needs and
requirements.

------
revskill
I used to do that. But people are dangerous, they just want to take benefit of
others. So in some cases, if you self-distant, you won't see what could affect
you, as outsiders are just outsiders.

A balance is needed, self-distant is not enough to deal with people.

~~~
obstacle1
I'm not sure you mean the same thing by self-distant as what the article is
talking about.

It seems like you are talking about altruism, or looking at situations with an
eye towards acting selflessly. Taking actions that will benefit others without
regard to how they affect you.

The article is talking about visualizing a situation from a third-person
perspective, so that "you" are an object to be analyzed in an emotionally
detached way. Rather than viewing a situation from "your" perspective. The
idea is looking at your 'self' as some other person helps you to detach from
the emotions you feel internally. And this leads to making decisions based on
reality rather than how you feel.

All the factors that might lead to you being exploited by other people are
still visible when you self-distance. You can still see the co-worker waiting
in the wings to throw you under the bus. But rather than _feel_ the discomfort
and rage of knowing that the person is after you, you see objectively how you
stand in relation to that person. This makes it less likely that you will take
impulsive actions driven by instinct, and more likely to take a well-reasoned
path that minimizes the likelihood/impact of being exploited.

------
scarejunba
Someone gave me a tip to being CTO: consider what the ideal CTO would do here
and see why you can't. Surprisingly, I found it effective. Odd but I'm not one
to throw out a functioning tool.

------
datalus
I'm in the midst of a major decision... Just quit my job with a year of runway
and I'm either considering putting that towards graduate school abroad or
settling down, finding a better job, and buying a home. My emotions tell me to
go study, but my rational mind tells me to settle down and buy a home.

~~~
module0000
Rational advice from a complete stranger; settle down, study, and consider
buying a home. Buying a home can consume a year of runway quickly depending on
how you go about it.

~~~
verelo
I like this advice. Unless you have a very large capital base, houses are a
great way to reduce your optionality in many ways.

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return1
I wonder if return1 can benefit from this. He also wonders if it helps other
people to refer to them in the 3rd person.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4FxhUA0SKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4FxhUA0SKM)

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nurettin
Isn't this related to how often we find people closer to the psychopathic part
of the mental spectrum in leadership positions ? That distancing themselves
from suffering and emotions of others comes naturally to them ?

------
andrewkslv
AA members (Alcoholics Anonymous) or any addicted people are doing the
opposite. They talk about drinking, they're celebrating round dates. I think
the approach in the article is more effective for them.

~~~
spaceprison
With all due respect, you're wrong.

In AA there is celebration around milestones (first days, then months then
years of sobriety) and there is some discussion of past drinking. You'll often
see a lot of both in movies, newcomer meetings or early treatment.

But substance abusers are selfish so a core function of working an aa program
aside from trying to help others quit (objectively using ones own experience
to help another) is actively taking inventory of past and present resentments,
fears and selfishness to determine "what was/is your role in X?" and then
making an amend to correct the wrong.

------
edmundsauto
This is similar to Kahneman's "take the outside view" advice. It helps us
distance the decision from our (self-)imperceptible biases.

------
Dowwie
You may find it worth the time spending an hour reading through the work done
by Yaacov Trope in this space, some that are referenced in the article

------
Kable54
What a great concept, article and discussion.

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holri
They key is to understand who you are. That is more difficult than one might
expect.

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rotrux
This platitude paints a very shallow picture of human decisionmaking.
Tecnically, eating oranges "can help you make better decisions" because
getting scurvy is distressing.

Looking at yourself like an alien is not a catchall which will lead you to
make 'better decisions.'

------
girzel
This feels like Western science finding its own way towards the lessons
already learned by Buddhist meditation. A lot of the same ideas, framed quite
differently.

~~~
checker659
Over 2000 years back at that

------
sonnyblarney
This is really a powerful and understudied phenom that's very well exemplified
in a very simple form of advice I once read concerning making decisions, self
assessment:

Instead of thinking "what should I do in the situation?", consider "what
advice would I give myself in this situation?"

It's almost a trivial differentiation, and yet, if one applies this concept
immediately for any reason big or small, one will be astonished at how the
_answers are different_. It's really amazing.

It's hard to put data behind it, but if you just try it, I suggest you'll
probably see a difference as well. I can't think of any other psychological
technique which yields 'results' (at least in terms of having different ideas
given framing) for basically zero effort or practice. It's not even a 'learned
skill', it's just framing. It's amazing.

I suggest more intellectual people, who might be more deep in their own
thoughts, might make even better use of this than more gregarious 'in the
moment' people who's attention is in the 'here and now'.

~~~
fma
Often times when faced with a tough decision, I pretend I have a friend in the
exact same situation and I think about what advice I without give them. It
would actually take the form of a conversation and is quite productive.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Yes, that's it. So simple, so powerful.

------
bitforger
As I read this article, I thought to myself, "oh, this must be why we must
make such good decisions, huh?"

