"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4a9406aa@news.povray.org...
> Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> >
http://www.cracked.com/article/85_6-bullshit-facts-about-psychology-that-everyone-believes_p1

>   I wonder why it is so common for people to reverse the direction of
> causality in so many things.
>
>   In the example in that page the most probable direction of cause and
> consequence is, indeed, that success causes high self-esteem. However,
> popular physchology has completely reversed this and claims that high
> self-esteem causes success. If you think about it logically, it really
> makes more sense in the former than the latter case.

I still would not so readily dismiss the latter. Success in general is hard
to quantify, so I'll focus on economic prosperity: On first approximation,
it's not hard to concude that risk takers will end up in a broader spectrum
than non risk takers as far as end wealth is concerned. While some will fail
spectacularly, some will succeed spectacularly as well. Now, assuming that
many people somewhat learn from mistakes and have more than one shot (not
unreasonable assumptions), that spread spectrum in most likelihood will bias
towards the positive in successive iterations.

In practical terms, if you continue to work for somebody else all your life,
you are not going to go bankrupt, but nor will you amount to much in the
end. If you, instead, go on to establish a business for yourself, you might
hit some rocky patches, but people who establish their own businesses will
amass substantial wealth in the end, certainly by the mean, if not by the
median. Establishing a business, needless to say, requires a high self
esteem, among other things.

High self esteem enables people to take real (or perceived) risks. Even when
we are not talking about entrepreunership, someone with a high self esteem
might apply for jobs that someone with low self esteem won't. Job
specifications are often exaggerated anyway, so a lot of times, seemingly
underqualified applicants get the prized job, even if it means them having
been turned down numerous times before. After all, you need to be accepted
only once, so such failures (that discourage people with low self esteem)
don't count. Same principle works with dating. And since happiness is mostly
about your relative status (job, spouse, house... etc) amongst your peers,
high self esteem can be a major contributing factor.

>   This happens all the time, in all areas of life. Just as an example,
> think about certain countries forcing democracy on other countries in
> the hopes that democracy will bring peace to that country. Again, the
> causality has been completely reversed here: It's not democracy which
> brings peace. It's the other way around. You need peace *first*, and then
> you might be able to build a democracy. It doesn't work in the other
> direction.

Prosperity is really what brings both peace and democracy. Democracy or
peace without prosperity is always on shaky ground, and while people may
revolt occasionally in undemocratic regimes with the mistaken assumption
that democracy will bring them prosperity, it almost never works that way
and they get caught in a cycle. Conversely, while we like to think that
western democracies stand on some kind of enlightenment, take away the
prosperity and watch the peace and democracy crumble. Democracy is basically
a fairly good regime for people who have a lot to lose.

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