I’d be surprised if all or most signaling behavior involved fear somewhere in the brain.
I said it was probably for avoiding punishment; some conformance behavior is approach- rather than avoidance-driven. Ideals that you go after because you admire them, not because you’ll be a bad person if you don’t. Note that part of the evolutionary punishment mechanism is also punishing non-punishers… we don’t generally see people being zealously evangelistic about truly positive ideals, only ones where there’s punishment involved. So we tend to see most of the problems with idealism when there’s an aversive component.
About the only cue I have for noticing them is picking up on reflexive emotional reactions that seem disproportionate to their cause, but these only tell me that a background operator is acting, not necessarily much about the nature of that operator. Do you know of any others?
A few off the top of my head:
The “push” test—ask what happens if you don’t get the result you want. Does it make you feel bad?
The “should” test—do you find yourself angry at others or the world because things should be different?
The criticism test—are you criticizing yourself or others for not living up to some standard?
The “yes but” test—have you arrived at some conclusion that seems reasonable to you, but you respond to the idea of implementing it with “yes, but...”?
The “afraid I’m” test—how would you complete the sentence, “I’m afraid I might be...”, with an emotionally-negative label?
(And yes, by the above tests, some of my not-too-long-ago comments on LW would qualify me for harboring such an ideal… which is why I took a little time off and then dropped certain subjects I was “shoulding” on, once I noticed what was happening.)
(And yes, by the above tests, some of my not-too-long-ago comments on LW would qualify me for harboring such an ideal… which is why I took a little time off and then dropped certain subjects I was “shoulding” on, once I noticed what was happening.)
I said it was probably for avoiding punishment; some conformance behavior is approach- rather than avoidance-driven. Ideals that you go after because you admire them, not because you’ll be a bad person if you don’t. Note that part of the evolutionary punishment mechanism is also punishing non-punishers… we don’t generally see people being zealously evangelistic about truly positive ideals, only ones where there’s punishment involved. So we tend to see most of the problems with idealism when there’s an aversive component.
A few off the top of my head:
The “push” test—ask what happens if you don’t get the result you want. Does it make you feel bad?
The “should” test—do you find yourself angry at others or the world because things should be different?
The criticism test—are you criticizing yourself or others for not living up to some standard?
The “yes but” test—have you arrived at some conclusion that seems reasonable to you, but you respond to the idea of implementing it with “yes, but...”?
The “afraid I’m” test—how would you complete the sentence, “I’m afraid I might be...”, with an emotionally-negative label?
(And yes, by the above tests, some of my not-too-long-ago comments on LW would qualify me for harboring such an ideal… which is why I took a little time off and then dropped certain subjects I was “shoulding” on, once I noticed what was happening.)
What subjects were those, praytell?