Cat HicksMar 8
Look, it's a mess out there and you can react to that mess by deciding everyone else is a moron or you could react to it by deciding most people are trying to get by with a different context than yours and start working the problem. Those are your choices pretty much, can't choose "no mess"
Show threadCat HicksMar 8

To be clear: you can have grief about the mess!! Grieving the mess is also a human response. But you'll feel a lot more alone if your default is "I'm the only one who Truly Understands The Mess" and a lot less alone if your default is "my fellow humans must also be in versions of The Mess" and guess what

The default is a learned skill.

Show threadShannon Quinn Mar 8
@grimalkina Honest question: why is that the learned skill? Is there an evolutionary component there, or is that “I alone can fix everything” sociopathy beat into us that deeply from the start?
Show threadCat HicksMar 8
@magsol oh, BOTH povs are learned -- we have adaptive social cognition to help us situate in the context of our local cultures, which reward very different behaviors. I see it like, our beliefs in the social realm are fundamentally very malleable because that is an adaptive way for them to be for a social species. So yes, I think there's an evolutionary component to the malleability itself.
Show threadCat HicksMar 8

@magsol

This study on the early shaping of norms has some substance to fill out the picture I'm sketching

https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/116047611746509626

Show threadCat HicksMar 8

@magsol But I also mean learned in the sense that, we have found certain belief structures are productively malleable. When people are provided with more adaptive "virtuous cycles" to unlock better interpretations of others, it helps improve our adaptive behaviors

Good examples are:
- self-compassion (which ties to = compassion for others)
- anxiety interventions
- sense of belonging
- interventions on attribution errors (e.g., growth mindsets re: abilities--> performance)

Show threadCat HicksMar 8

@magsol So even within-individual over our lifetimes (not just between cultures) we see individuals get on more or less adaptive tracks. I am interested in how we increase prosocial behavior, so I like to remind people we can learn ways of thinking that measurably increase our prosocial interpretations and behavior :)

That makes the world function, materially, in a more prosocial way!

Show threadCat Hicks
@magsol but that malleability also means that other beliefs can be internalized: outgroup biases, fixed mindset and deficit attributions about others. These play a role in our biggest failures of empathy for others
Mar 8 at 5:40pmWeb