Fascinating that Behrens reward game showed that humans were able to mentally model volatility at the level of an "ideal learner". But in the variation of the game where there was punishment instead of reward, non-anxious people still performed as "ideal learners" whereas anxious people's predictions became totally out of whack. In other words, the overly anxious mind temporarily lost its capacity to correctly formulate heuristics, which can lead to all kinds of mental chaos.
Personally, I remember that I was once in a job interview where I had to code on a whiteboard. I was so overwhelmed with anxiety that I was temporary incapable of completing simple coding tasks. In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid.
>In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid.
You don't need to experience "extreme anxiety", or even have a diagnosis, to experience this effect. Most people that are just learning how to drive a car will at some point experience how acute stress causes you to fail even the most basic tasks, things you would never predict that you would fail doing before you actually do. When I was learning how to drive, I repeatedly forgot checking the rear view mirror before switching lanes (even though I knew this was extremely important), because I was so focused on manual gear shifting. I would switch to the wrong gear or forget turning the turn indicator off, because my stressed mind would filter out the noise of the indicator blinking.
Some even believe that the "experience of driving" in itself is detrimental, and that "each exposure elicits an acute stress response, and that repeated exposures may act as a chronic stressor".[1]
I failed my first driving test for similar reasons! In fact, driving is the elephant in the room when it comes to common stressful activities. Even if you follow the rules, not everyone else will and you always need to be ready. In addition, the stakes are high... Lifetime odds of dying in a car crash are 1/102 (source: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...)
This is the exact reason I failed my driving test 7 times before finally passing (pass rate in UK is ~60%). It's hard to describe to people that it's not that you're necessarily bad at the task, just the anxiety causes you to react in a bad way.
I experienced this quite viscerally in my last job, where I had roughly a 40 minute commute in heavy traffic each way. On the surface, it sounds like nothing, but I feared for my safety every time and it worsened with each passing month.
There were several reasons I left the job, but this was at least 30% of it and I can tell you it significantly improved my mental health. For a while I had anxiety every time I had to drive, and it started well before I ever got in the car. A couple years later, I was able to handle several very long road trips and even did a stint as a rideshare driver with almost no issues-- the anxiety is pretty much gone now, it was nearly all due to that commute.
I worry that a lot of mental health issues are essentially situational and that we (as a society) put all sorts of barricades in place that make it difficult for people to shift their overall situations (the thing that will likely most benefit them).
I can remember interviewing at Google on a whiteboard, with an employee who was: disinterested, overly specific, and antagonistic. Left that building wondering which was less healthy: my anxiety or their culture.
It wasn't entirely clear to me if it was part of their culture to be overly dismissive of the applicants perspective and expectations in working somewhere or to intentionally test your reaction to contrived behavior..
But assuming behavior was contrived tests, why would you want to work for an employer that is tuning on who to hire by making sure they can abuse them in certain ways?
There's probably no sense in trying to fathom anything about why a company seems ugly when you can just move on.
Hah. First experienced this as a kid when helping out at my mom's jewellery shop for the first time. Someone bought something and I had to calculate how much cash to give them. I don't know why I wasn't using a cash register, can't recall. Anyway, I'm really good at math, yeah? One of the best in my grade, yeah? Then why couldn't I calculate how much money I needed to give the guy? I did this kind of subtraction problem in my head all the time. But I froze. I felt so stupid at the time. :) STOP STARING AT ME, I'LL GIVE YOUR MONEY, JUST WAIT A SECOND!!!! :) Funny thing is that he probably wasn't judging me at all, it was all just in my head.
It's the reason for procrastination as well. Well, it's one reason, there are some more but anxiety is a common one.
It's definitely my reason. I'm so afraid of failing I can't start working on a task until I'm more afraid of disappointing people completely instead of just partly.
In my case it's also amplified by ADD and rejection sensitive dysphoria. It doesn't matter how much I achieve (e.g. I have, converted from German to US grades, a 3.7 GPA), or what I do, it won't go away. So I just live with it.
In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid.
In a stressful situation your brain disengages the frontal cortex and falls back to an instinctual mode of operation. This mode is generally unaware of the modern world. In my own field of expertise sometimes divers with plenty of gas in their cylinder will tear their regulator out of their mouth. What’s happening? They are having difficulty breathing normally, panicked and the hind brain has said “there’s something in my mouth, take it out!”. Similarly pilots who fly aircraft into the ground, they have panicked and the hind brain has said “get to low ground ASAP”.
And after the fact everyone wonders “what we’re they thinking?” But the answer is, they weren’t thinking at all, they couldn’t.
This happened to me at Amazon the first time I visited HQ.
The interviewer was standing about six feet away intently watching for every mark I made, which made me freeze up and start rambling about stars shining, or something equally nonsensical.
Had similar experiences when trying to code in front of a boy I liked... I was a bumbling idiot. Similar thing driving with a guy I liked in the car - regular near crashes including spending some time in the wrong lane (admittedly in an ambiguous situation Tesla might have fucked up, too).
He must have been surprised by my sudden jump in intelligence when he got a girlfriend...
Personally, I remember that I was once in a job interview where I had to code on a whiteboard. I was so overwhelmed with anxiety that I was temporary incapable of completing simple coding tasks. In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid.