The Blue Dot Effect

Ever feel like the you’re not making progress on a problem, despite working endlessly on it? Well there’s a very clear explanation for that.

#markmanson #psychology #bluedoteffect

[beladendron]

"When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail."

[barbaralipari]

The thing is, if you are told by a person on authority that there is a threatening face to be found, and then you don’t find one, but you are reliably informed that there is one, you pick one that looks the most threatening out of the group. Even if, per se, you don’t think that the face truly is.

[aldenheterodyne]

Yup. Didn't know what that was called, but my therapist basically told me that's what was happening to me. I've felt like I was in danger for the vast majority of my life, and now that I'm safe, my brain just makes up reasons why I'm actually not safe.

[Tinyflypie]

You Tube is the only therapy I can afford. This was an excellent session.

[shakisyaboi]

“If you look for something hard enough, you will convince yourself that you have found it”
Applies perfectly.

[elizabethweigle]

This makes so much sense bc your brain becomes used to certain circumstances! It’s why when you leave an incredibly toxic situation, your brain has trouble being in the healthy situation bc your brain has formed all the pathways to survive the toxic situation that it doesn’t know what to do in the healthy situation

[tris]

It sounds like a fatigue response. As work becomes more monotonous, accuracy tends to suffer. It's why task switching and mental breaks are important. You can become so familiar with something that you can't see it anymore, and you're less likely to notice subtle differences or minor mistakes or discrepancies.

[k_gold]

This "study" (air quoted by the fact that the researchers forced them to choose criminal faces everytime) actually showed us the effect of confirmation bias, if they're told that something is wrong, they'll try to finr something that's wrong.

This is why courtrooms must always tell the witnesses "There's also a chance that none of the suspects shown here are criminals" because justice is not served by a lazy courtroom, it's served by a just courtroom

[AO-jmqo]

This seems more like the "if you ask someone to find something and they can't they'll pick the closest thing" effect

[DanniHaghighat]

I love these kind of shorts
They warn you about a mental problem and leave you clueless about the solution

[theinvisiblewoman]

This is why we do things like take breaks and self care. Sometimes you need to step away from problems and stressors and revisit them when you’re rested and secure. Then you suddenly have an answer and was wondering why you spent 2 hours or a month struggling with something a good nights rest and relaxation could have solved.

[StixFerryMan]

We look for patterns( threats to our survival primarily). So naturally, we are always looking for things that fall into whichever category we are ‘focused’ on. As we suffer less of whatever the subject is( let’s stay with threats for our safety), we don’t have a lowering of trying to detect it. This is why, the better our lives are in general, the safer we are as a society, we still see the same amount of dangers.
This is why, if you live in a place where wild animals and roaming bandits are a constant danger, you care little about things that don’t matter, but in a place where such things are no existent, you feel threatened if someone sits next to you on the bus or any of the other bs we see ppl complain about on Tik Tok and other social media sites.

[IbrahimDarCo]

the more self help content I consume the more I'm convinced that not trying is the best personal development tool

Edit: some people took this to mean being nihilistic and lying in bed all day. But my comment was more along the lines of Wu Wei.

[dougmelvin]

This is "when you deal in hammers, every problem looks like a nail" defined

[lolsteelz]

When I was young, my father always use to say, "A Hammer only see nails.". If you're focused on finding/see something. You're likely to find it. Even if it's not really there. . . A Cop sees criminals. A Nurse sees patients. A soldier sees targets. Even if there's none to see.

[codm_fire]

This is what i love about creativity, what may seem you as an absolute waste of time would seem as a stroke of genius for others.

[blanky]

This explains a lot for me. I never feel like I'm getting better with my mental health even though I've been working hard to take care of myself, but my friends and family have told me that they've seen positive changes. So interesting.

[kingconker]

I learned that people who have anxiety will always find something to be anxious about

[Wisdomforthehour]

I think it comes down to compromise. People begin to compromise and so they can't choose right from wrong, good from evil and so on.

[MarkToast]

It seems to me it’s just because they were primed with the idea that there were blue dots, threatening faces, unethical job proposals, etc. if they’re told to find these things, they’re going to assume those things are there, and pick the closest ones they can to fit the bill out of ever decreasing options