Scott Barry Kaufman

Well, the word "politics" has various connotations in general usage, and many of them don't describe the phenomenon I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is a cynical attempt at elevating one's zero-sum standing in a social group by showing conspicuous adherence to the group's purported moral orthodoxy. This[1] is good reading on the phenomenon. [1] https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ok-et-al.-202…

The article literally starts with this: "It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism..." For a more meaningful discussion of mindfulness, I recommend the "Mind The Mindfulness Hype" episode of The Psychology Podcast [1] . They dig into what the scientific method has to say to mindfulness, what studies have been made and what is missing, and what benefits can be realistically expected. And what's over the top hype. [1] https://www.scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/mind-the-mindfulness-hype-wi…

Everyone loves a quiz[0]. [0] https://scottbarrykaufman.com/lighttriadscale/

Perhaps I misunderstood the article, but taking a collection of anecdotes (n = 36) about highly successful people who took a wide variety of paths to success doesn't seem like a very good way to attack the concept of grit. For one thing, extremely successful people are likely to be outliers in many ways, and so it may not be wise to generalize their advice. It's unfortunate, because I think grit does have real issues: it seems that a large number of studies have found that it doesn't add anything over the existing concept of conscientiousness: http://scottbarrykaufman.com/study-alert-much-ado-grit-meta-analytic-s… http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/05/a…

Hmm, I would actually love (genuinely) to hear more. My impression is that standardized testing of Intelligence Quotient explains way way less than popular imagination & movies think. Studies like these [1] [2] get a lot of newspaper time, but they're largely rebuked on methodological or overreach grouns, and honestly, there's sweeping generalizations and then there's saying "Anything from California is automatically bad due to low average IQ". As well, the spread across ALL states is barely 10% [3] edit: Though, by that logic, USA should start mimicking everything we canucks do! I look forward to you adopting our universal health care and bilingualism and Her Majesty The Queen! :-D [4] 1: http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Psychological-… 2: https://theconversation.com/do-smart-people-tend-to-be-more-liberal-ye… 3: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-by-state 4: https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2019/01/11/ranked-the-25-sma…

No problem! Happy it was helpful. I learned about equanimity last year in a book I read about the science of self actualization, how to reach your unique potential. https://scottbarrykaufman.com/books/transcend/ cheers

I think this should work: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dual-process-… There's review paper coming from a more critical perspective in Psych Bulletin or Psych Review I was looking for, but I couldn't find it atm.

The pyramid does confuse and muddy the waters a lot. Scott Kaufman's post[1] on his "sailboat" metaphor unpacks the problem well: The familiar pyramid shape suggests that once we complete each step, we’re done dealing with that need forever. As if life were a video game, and once we complete each level, we unlock the next, with no looking back. It’s an appealing concept. It’s also a gross misrepresentation of the humanistic vision that propelled Maslow’s work. Maslow emphasized that we are always in a state of becoming and that one’s “inner core” consists merely of “potentialities, not final actualizations” that are “weak, subtle, and delicate, very easily drowned out by learning, by cultural expectations, by fear, by disapproval, etc.” [1] https://scottbarrykaufman.com/sailboat-metaphor/

If you want to read current psychological research on this I'd suggest this paper. It explores the personality attributes of people who virtue signal and what they have to gain from it in current society, and why that wasn't the case before. The personality types are Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy - also referred to as the dark triad. https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ok-et-al.-202…

The link to the paper there is also to a 3rd party -- https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ok-et-al.-202… I imagine because otherwise the journals wall out the actual content.

Too bad she was wrong (which is not a surprise when you read OP's description of her ludicrous research - so you criticize direct measurements of brain volume as biased and offer as a replacement... some facial measurements, of range-restricted unrepresentative samples, by someone with her own axe to grind in a statistically-meaningless stunt? wow) and her debunking has been debunked. We have enormous brain imaging datasets now and the connection between human brain size and and intelligence is borne out in every sample and is real: most recently https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Gideon-et-al.… (not to mention the more obvious between-species correlations and other within-species correlations, most notably recently in dogs: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-018-01234-1 ).

> There's just no empirical evidence for a dual-process model. I'm not sure the consensus is as strong as you imply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Evidence https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dual-process-…

Related - "Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Education, and Professions: A Meta-Analysis" - http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Macnamara-et-a… Gives some context for the kinds of fields where deliberate practice improves performance.

Full article is available online. They used a series of surveys to correlate personality traits to people that needed or created drama in the eyes of the surveyed. They then create a composite measure of the strongest signals amongst the traits. http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Frankowski-et-…

Full Article: http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Frankowski-et-…

From a meta-analysis: " The 20 studies included here were all completed between 2008 and 2013....Sample sizes of treatment groups varied between 7 and 36 participants, and control groups between 8 and 43" "net effect of n-back training on Gf outcome measures, about the equivalent of 3–4 points on a standardized IQ test" ie: very small groups, tiny effect. Sounds dubious to me, like much research in the social "sciences" Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory:a meta-analysis http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/au-et-al2014_n…

The paper referenced in the article is available here: http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Macnamara-et-a…

> paywall Google search for the title along with with 'filetype:pdf' is what is needed here... http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/trolls-just-wa… Enjoy!

If anyone is interested in further reading, the link references this Psychology Today article[0] which is a synopsis of The Tears of a Clown: Understanding Comedy Writers(2009)[1] by the same author. PT article also references Pretend the world is funny and forever: a psychological analysis of comedians, clowns, and actors(1981)[2]. Pretty interesting read. [0]https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/beautiful-minds/200812/the-tea… [1]https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Kaufman-Kozbe… [2]https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Aannas-archive.org+%22Pretend+the+…

I like Arthur Brooks. He seems to be a voice of reason in this crazy world. Having just read his recent book and both the books he mentions in the article, I actually started to understand what is being said here. On the first page of the Tao Te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation), it talks about the true source of understanding is darkness. > Free from desire, you realize the mystery. > Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. > Yet mystery and manifestations > arise from the same source. > This source is called darkness. > Darkness within darkness. > The gateway to all understanding. We can't teach kids nor ourselves to fear the world. We have to step into the darkness to gain clarity of who we are and what we are here to do. That's the only way to learn. This somewhat adds onto Scott Barry Kaufman's new ideas of self-actualization. Kaufman uses a sailboat as a metaphor in which the hull is security and the sail is growth. https://scottbarrykaufman.com/sailboat-metaphor/ Which reminds me of the famous quote: > A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67896.Tao_Te_Ching https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49625550-transcend