
Impulsive Rich Kid, Impulsive Poor Kid (2015) - mercer
https://priceonomics.com/impulsive-rich-kid-impulsive-poor-kid/
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Fiachaire
Just a reminder: This article is an ad for a web crawler/content marketing
service. The purpose of the article is to be viral. Data is selected and
presented to that end. See especially "The Tragic Data Behind Selfie
Fatalities" which charts data from a particularly poor Wikipedia list and what
appears to be a google search.

~~~
ice109
I say this every time pricenomics gets upvoted - they only do content
marketing. I don't understand how people don't get it.

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itissid
CBT aka mindfulness these is just good tool to have overall. I have had my
share of bad experiences at my job from automaticity and adaptive, impulsive
response. Here is what I learnt from being mindful:

1\. When faced with making a choice, you _remember_ more vividly how the bad
choice hurt you last time. 2\. Put it another way, that promise I made to
myself after that big mistake is harder to break. Pertinently, the reasons
that justified the promise and the benefit of keeping it are also _more
lucent_. 3\. I tend to separate/check my emotional responses connected to a
thought connected to bad memories.

I could preach shorter sermons, but once I start I am too lazy to stop...

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charlieflowers
I was going to challenge you on saying that CBT is the same thing as
mindfulness.

Then I thought about it, and I think this is pretty insightful. CBT says
there's a split second after the stimulus where you get to choose how you will
think about the stimulus.

That's an awful lot like mindfulness, at least from a big picture standpoint.

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burke
Additionally, "mindfulness-integrated CBT" is a thing.

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raducu
Yes, it's called DBT.

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rsync
This is a cognitive blind spot for human beings - I am not sure if there is a
name for it.

Some examples:

"The steelers were winning the whole game - they only lost because of that
fluke fumble in the end zone when time ran out..."

"I was prepared and on-track for that job interview - if only the A train
hadn't had a malfunction that morning and made me late..."

"If I hadn't taken that wrong step at the end of the trail, I wouldn't have
torn my ACL ..."

These are bad conclusions.

Both teams played by the same rules and then time ran out and the other team
won and _it doesn 't matter how they won_. Future predictions should be based
on the win.

You were late to the job interview because you're a person that screws times
up. That's much more useful information than anything you could have
contributed at the interview.

I tore my ACL because my ACL was weak and was waiting to tear. If it hadn't
been that step, it would have been a different one at a slightly different
time.

This insistence (I am, myself, guilty) to look for exceptionalism in results
rather than accept the obvious data that are being shown to us is something we
need to become aware of - and avoid.

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imgabe
Actually, what you're proposing is a cognitive blind spot that is indicative
of depression. I forget what the name of it is, but taking every minor setback
or chance occurrence to be indicative of a fundamental, unchangeable character
flaw is a symptom of depression.

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xg15
I believe this is the psychology field of attribution theory, in particular
_fundamental attribution errors_ [1].

From the article, the parent's "alternate conclusions" seem to be regarded as
cognitive biases, while the "bad conclusions" are more objective and
psychologically healthy.

So congrats, rsync, if you're "guilty yourself", you're in good psychological
shape, according to wikipedia :)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

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gromy
> 1\. Recognize when their automatic responses might get them into trouble,

> 2\. Slow down in those situations and behave less automatically,

> 3\. Objectively assess situations and think about what response is called-
> for.

I recently realized I have insecure attachment and have been working on
overcoming it. The process I use is somewhat similar:

1\. Recognize when you feel anxious or insecure.

2\. Ask yourself what is causing it.

3\. Either fix it or accept it.

~~~
Animats
> 1\. Recognize when their automatic responses might get them into trouble,

> 2\. Slow down in those situations and behave less automatically,

> 3\. Objectively assess situations and think about what response is called-
> for.

Some martial arts training teaches that. The more defensive martial arts, such
as aikido, focus on that. Training in a defensive martial art might help
impulsive kids. It teaches them that lashing out blindly is a quick way to
lose, and that there are much more effective responses to an attack.

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valuearb
Pop psychology is the sweetest psychology.

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smokinhotdaisy
The moral lesson is to educate kids.

~~~
komali2
Educate them with what values?

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Banthum
The values which have, in the past, produced desirable outcomes.

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jimmywanger
That's begging the question.

Unless you state what you think are desireable outcomes, your statement means
nothing

Tautologically speaking, your statement just says "Do the things that we think
are profitable."

~~~
coldtea
> _Unless you state what you think are desireable outcomes, your statement
> means nothing_

Only if we start as some kind of visitors from Mars who don't know the earthly
ways.

Else, the "desirable outcomes" are pretty much agreed upon, at least for most
people: keep mentally and physically healthy, study, get a good job, support
your family, be good to others, don't be a criminal (as in TFA), etc.

~~~
komali2
>Desirable outcomes are pretty much agreed upon

I disagree.

> Keep mentally and physically healthy

Some families I know argue profit above all things, comfort above all things.
Morbidly obese families, for example, do not feel that physical health is an
important value.

>Get a good job

I know families that value finding welfare loopholes to facilitate a non-
working lifestyle.

>Support your family

I know people that very much _do not_ value supporting their family

>Be good to others

ISIS members do not value being good to non-Muslims. (they do not agree with
your values)

>Don't be a criminal

Members of gangs generally completely disagree with this.

Somehow the person you're replying to is being downvoted for suggesting,
essentially, that "people believe different things are important." Are we
going to seriously argue against that?

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kbenson
Thought this looked familiar. It's from 2015, and was covered here before[1].

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866632)

~~~
dang
Thanks; added.

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newsat13
Needs 2015 in the title. "Published Jul 8, 2015"

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thriftwy
I don't think that these impulsive people do a single wrong thing that lands
their in jail.

Rather, they are a constant nuisance to everybody around them, and eventually
it gets them in trouble. What they get locked up for is probably not their
first transgression.

They might not be criminals but they actively decrease quality of life for
everybody involved. The kind of behavior people tend to leave with high
school, and they should have left ever sooner.

I wonder if therapy will help them avoiding behaving like a bad apple, not
just avoid getting caught with their eventual out-of-bounds act.

~~~
frogpelt
I don't think you fully understand what growing up in a terrible neighborhood
entails. They aren't so much "a constant nuisance to everybody around them" as
they are acting like many who are around them.

When you grow up in the hood and your father is gone (dead, in jail, never in
the picture) and your mother is on crack and all of your friends and siblings
are in gangs and/or on drugs and/or selling drugs, changing your destiny is a
difficult proposition.

