dbphoenix
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According to Baumeister, The psychology of irrationality: Why people make foolish, self-defeating choices (2003), he concluded his survey with the following findings:
1. Under emotional distress, people shift toward favoring high-risk, high payoff options, even if these are objectively poor choices. This appears based on a failure to think things through, caused by emotional distress.
2. When self-esteem is threatened, people become upset and lose their capacity to regulate themselves. In particular, people who hold a high opinion of themselves often get quite upset in response to a blow to pride, and the rush to prove something great about themselves overrides their normal rational way of dealing with life.
3. Self-regulation is required for many forms of self-interest behavior. When self-regulation fails, people may become self-defeating in various ways, such as taking immediate pleasures instead of delayed rewards. Self-regulation appears to depend on limited resources that operate like strength or energy, and so people can only regulate themselves to a limited extent.
4. Making choices and decisions depletes this same resource. Once the resource is depleted, such as after making a series of important decisions, the self becomes tired and depleted, and its subsequent decisions may well be costly or foolish.
5. The need to belong is a central feature of human motivation, and when this need is thwarted such as by interpersonal rejection, the human being somehow ceases to function properly. Irrational and self-defeating acts become more common in the wake of rejection.
1. Under emotional distress, people shift toward favoring high-risk, high payoff options, even if these are objectively poor choices. This appears based on a failure to think things through, caused by emotional distress.
2. When self-esteem is threatened, people become upset and lose their capacity to regulate themselves. In particular, people who hold a high opinion of themselves often get quite upset in response to a blow to pride, and the rush to prove something great about themselves overrides their normal rational way of dealing with life.
3. Self-regulation is required for many forms of self-interest behavior. When self-regulation fails, people may become self-defeating in various ways, such as taking immediate pleasures instead of delayed rewards. Self-regulation appears to depend on limited resources that operate like strength or energy, and so people can only regulate themselves to a limited extent.
4. Making choices and decisions depletes this same resource. Once the resource is depleted, such as after making a series of important decisions, the self becomes tired and depleted, and its subsequent decisions may well be costly or foolish.
5. The need to belong is a central feature of human motivation, and when this need is thwarted such as by interpersonal rejection, the human being somehow ceases to function properly. Irrational and self-defeating acts become more common in the wake of rejection.
