http://rejection.posterous.com/ - this is one person’s experience with it. I agree that sometimes it sounds iffy, but I think it’s useful for people who have that problem. When you say it sounds ‘scary’ do you mean scary to try or scary what could happen if everyone tried it?
By the way, you sound a lot smarter than the average 16-year-old. (I speak as one who also used to tell people online my age at the age of 16, in the hope I’d get such compliments :) )
I meant scary to try, although it would be terrible if everyone did it—what request could you trust they meant? I read a few of the blogs, and a common thread was when people unexpectedly said ‘yes’, the… what to call them?… wannabe rejectee would feel guilty for requiring them to go out of their way for something they didn’t really want. On the other hand, if you only ask for things you really want, it limits your options and usually has higher stakes.
Before my tangent gets too far lost, I’m bringing this up because I get way more guilty about things like that than the average, from what I’ve seen. It was a bigger problem when I was younger; I’d refrain from things that had a chance of being slightly inconvenient for someone—even if it was extremely inconvenient for me. I’m better about it now, have trained myself to feel less guilty (by literally catching myself when I am and considering it, then forcing it down), but it still shows through in many ways.
So I might benefit a lot from the program, but as I say it sounds like it could create scary situations—I deal well with more formal improv (theater sports, debating, chatting with close friends etc) but not with social situations I’m unfamiliar with, or with strangers/acquaintances. It also sounds a little new-age to me. I can see how it could work, but I can also see that it could compound fears through the uncomfortable situations, and that it could negatively effect relationships—seeing as for it to work best, they can’t know why you’re really asking.
Maybe it works for some and not others. I don’t know—I haven’t seen any research on it, just a few blogs (which are more likely to be written by those it worked for, I’d think). I’ll be interested to see how it works in the camp. It’ll be different there, though, with everyone knowing people are trying to get rejected. On that note, @Jasen: how are you going to work through that? Even if you make it ‘get rejected x amount of times during the whole camp’, people will be on the lookout for wannabe rejectees. It would be less ‘real-world’. And I’d think telling them ‘go ask that person for x’ would ruin the point of the exercise (as a buildup of willpower, confidence and social skill in self-motivated real-life situations).
In the end, despite all the above, I’d be interested in trying it out in a controlled situation like the camp—sure, I’d prefer it with nice research and such backing it, but I’d definitely be up for it anyway. And what other way are we gonna get those stats?
I know—that was a long explanation. I think I’m yes-no answer averse. ;-)
One of the most interesting and useful things that I noticed in my experience with exercises similar to rejection therapy were the frequency and variety of times that people responded in ways that I didn’t expect.
You mention feeling guilty for inconveniencing someone. What I noticed was that frequently I would be wrong about what people consider an inconvenience. Sometimes I would go up to someone and ask for something that I thought that at worst they’ll hate and at best they’ll be ambivalent about and I was completely surprised when that person was excited or interested in my suggestion. This really does happen and at first it is shocking. I think it’s actually had a pretty dramatic effect on how I look at and think about the world. This effect was not limited to strangers. This happened (possibly even more) with people I knew or were my friends.
I think one of the motivations for this exercise is to uncover these hidden win-win encounters. I was very surprised by how large the mismatch can be between what I expect the outcome to be and what it actually is.
I want to stress that I think it is important to ask for things that you are actually interested in. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, as described above, I was surprised by how often the answer was ‘yes’. If I didn’t ask for things I actually wanted then I just ended up inconveniencing and annoying myself. Secondly, the risk involved with asking for something that I actually wanted added immensely to the experience as an opportunity for personal growth.
I ended up learning that my picture of the world was just wrong and that I was missing a lot of opportunities that would be good for me and the people around me just because I was scared no one would care. Sometimes the best way to find out what people thought was to ask them.
Intelligence is notoriously hard to quantify, and I am slightly insulted by your generalization. Perhaps I know very unusual sixteen year olds, but I think maturity would be a better word to use in this context.
I would say as a rough guesstimate that intelligence as such (a vague concept admittedly) really has fully developed or close to fully developed in the early teen years. Knowledge keeps building.
But “smart”, which is the term Isaac used, colloquially is not limited to intelligence. For example the term “street smarts” refers entirely or almost entirely to knowledge, even to a kind of maturity, gained through a certain kind of experience.
Fluid and Crystallized intelligence (admittedly measured on IQ tests, which are not perfect to say the least) were both found to peak at age 26 by this study (for those who don’t know the distinction between the two types of intelligence, wikipedia explains it rather well). Fluid intelligence levels off between 16 and 18, increases slightly until the mid-twenties, then starts a slow, steady decline. Crystallized intelligence is similar, except it levels off in the early twenties, and decreases much more slowly, though the decrease still starts in the mid-twenties.
Interestingly, the intelligence of people on the lower bound levelled off earlier (by about two years) than that of those on the upper bound.
http://rejection.posterous.com/ - this is one person’s experience with it. I agree that sometimes it sounds iffy, but I think it’s useful for people who have that problem. When you say it sounds ‘scary’ do you mean scary to try or scary what could happen if everyone tried it?
By the way, you sound a lot smarter than the average 16-year-old. (I speak as one who also used to tell people online my age at the age of 16, in the hope I’d get such compliments :) )
Haha, thanks Isaac.
I meant scary to try, although it would be terrible if everyone did it—what request could you trust they meant? I read a few of the blogs, and a common thread was when people unexpectedly said ‘yes’, the… what to call them?… wannabe rejectee would feel guilty for requiring them to go out of their way for something they didn’t really want. On the other hand, if you only ask for things you really want, it limits your options and usually has higher stakes.
Before my tangent gets too far lost, I’m bringing this up because I get way more guilty about things like that than the average, from what I’ve seen. It was a bigger problem when I was younger; I’d refrain from things that had a chance of being slightly inconvenient for someone—even if it was extremely inconvenient for me. I’m better about it now, have trained myself to feel less guilty (by literally catching myself when I am and considering it, then forcing it down), but it still shows through in many ways.
So I might benefit a lot from the program, but as I say it sounds like it could create scary situations—I deal well with more formal improv (theater sports, debating, chatting with close friends etc) but not with social situations I’m unfamiliar with, or with strangers/acquaintances. It also sounds a little new-age to me. I can see how it could work, but I can also see that it could compound fears through the uncomfortable situations, and that it could negatively effect relationships—seeing as for it to work best, they can’t know why you’re really asking.
Maybe it works for some and not others. I don’t know—I haven’t seen any research on it, just a few blogs (which are more likely to be written by those it worked for, I’d think). I’ll be interested to see how it works in the camp. It’ll be different there, though, with everyone knowing people are trying to get rejected. On that note, @Jasen: how are you going to work through that? Even if you make it ‘get rejected x amount of times during the whole camp’, people will be on the lookout for wannabe rejectees. It would be less ‘real-world’. And I’d think telling them ‘go ask that person for x’ would ruin the point of the exercise (as a buildup of willpower, confidence and social skill in self-motivated real-life situations).
In the end, despite all the above, I’d be interested in trying it out in a controlled situation like the camp—sure, I’d prefer it with nice research and such backing it, but I’d definitely be up for it anyway. And what other way are we gonna get those stats?
I know—that was a long explanation. I think I’m yes-no answer averse. ;-)
One of the most interesting and useful things that I noticed in my experience with exercises similar to rejection therapy were the frequency and variety of times that people responded in ways that I didn’t expect.
You mention feeling guilty for inconveniencing someone. What I noticed was that frequently I would be wrong about what people consider an inconvenience. Sometimes I would go up to someone and ask for something that I thought that at worst they’ll hate and at best they’ll be ambivalent about and I was completely surprised when that person was excited or interested in my suggestion. This really does happen and at first it is shocking. I think it’s actually had a pretty dramatic effect on how I look at and think about the world. This effect was not limited to strangers. This happened (possibly even more) with people I knew or were my friends.
I think one of the motivations for this exercise is to uncover these hidden win-win encounters. I was very surprised by how large the mismatch can be between what I expect the outcome to be and what it actually is.
I want to stress that I think it is important to ask for things that you are actually interested in. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, as described above, I was surprised by how often the answer was ‘yes’. If I didn’t ask for things I actually wanted then I just ended up inconveniencing and annoying myself. Secondly, the risk involved with asking for something that I actually wanted added immensely to the experience as an opportunity for personal growth.
I ended up learning that my picture of the world was just wrong and that I was missing a lot of opportunities that would be good for me and the people around me just because I was scared no one would care. Sometimes the best way to find out what people thought was to ask them.
Intelligence is notoriously hard to quantify, and I am slightly insulted by your generalization. Perhaps I know very unusual sixteen year olds, but I think maturity would be a better word to use in this context.
I would say as a rough guesstimate that intelligence as such (a vague concept admittedly) really has fully developed or close to fully developed in the early teen years. Knowledge keeps building.
But “smart”, which is the term Isaac used, colloquially is not limited to intelligence. For example the term “street smarts” refers entirely or almost entirely to knowledge, even to a kind of maturity, gained through a certain kind of experience.
Fluid and Crystallized intelligence (admittedly measured on IQ tests, which are not perfect to say the least) were both found to peak at age 26 by this study (for those who don’t know the distinction between the two types of intelligence, wikipedia explains it rather well). Fluid intelligence levels off between 16 and 18, increases slightly until the mid-twenties, then starts a slow, steady decline. Crystallized intelligence is similar, except it levels off in the early twenties, and decreases much more slowly, though the decrease still starts in the mid-twenties.
Interestingly, the intelligence of people on the lower bound levelled off earlier (by about two years) than that of those on the upper bound.