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none
of all the effeminacy stuff in the good old days
“The squire always objected to their using carriages of any kind,
and is still a little tenacious on this point. He often rails against
the universal use of carriages, and quotes the words of honest Nashe
to that effect. "It was thought," says Nashe, in his Quaternio, "a kind
of solecism, and to savour of effeminacy, for a young gentleman in the
flourishing time of his age to creep into a coach, and to shroud himself
from wind and weather: our great delight was to out-brave the blustering
boreas upon a great horse; to arm and prepare ourselves to go with Mars
and Bellona into the field was our sport and pastime; coaches and caroches
we left unto them for whom they were first invented, for ladies and
gentlemen, and decrepit age and impotent people."
“The squire insists that the English gentlemen have lost much
of their hardiness and manhood since the introduction of carriages.
"Compare," he will say, "the fine gentleman of former times, ever on
horseback, booted and spurred, and travel-stained, but open, frank,
manly, and chivalrous, with the fine gentleman of the present day, full
of affectation and effeminacy, rolling along a turnpike in his voluptuous
vehicle. The young men of those days were rendered brave, and lofty,
and generous, in their notions, by almost living in their saddles, and
having their foaming steeds 'like proud seas under them.' There is something,"
he adds, "in bestriding a fine horse, that makes a man feel more than
mortal. He seems to have doubled his nature, and to have added to his
own courage and sagacity the power, the speed, and stateliness of the
superb animal on which he is mounted."
“ "It is a great delight," says old Nashe, "to see a young gentleman
with his skill and cunning, by his voice, rod, and spur, better to manage
and to command the great Bucephalus, than the strongest Milo, with all
his strength; one while to see him make him tread, trot, and gallop
the ring; and one after to see him make him gather up roundly; to bear
his head steadily; to run a full career swiftly; to stop a sudden lightly;
anon after to see him make him advance, to yorke, to go back and side
long, to turn on either hand; to gallop the gallop galliard; to do the
capriole, the chambetta, and dance the curvetty."
“In conformity to these ideas, the squire had them all on horseback
at an early age, and made them ride, slap-dash, about the country, without
flinching at hedge or ditch, or stone wall, to the imminent danger of
their necks.”
From the short story, “Horsemanship” in Bracebridge
Hall, written by Washington Irving in 1819;
quoted edition: 1877, MacMillan and Co., illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#horses_v_carriages_290407
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current
up-bringing in the west
Half the parents in many Western countries are not living together, nor are the children of these carers necessarily genetically homogenous.
It is generally thought that parenting is everything, parents being often
considered the most powerful influence in any family. However, this depends greatly upon the controls and community backgrounds.
“The theory [Judith Rich Harris] advances is that what influences behaviour is not so much the home or the family, or even the genetic make-up of a child, but the peer group in which they grow up.” [Quoted from timesonline.co.uk]
Reasonably, Judith Harris theorises that this is because the growing individual must learn to live in the present societal and environmental conditions, not those of past generations.
Of course, many societies have maintained adaptive behaviours over many generations. But conditions may often change radically; society is now in tumultuous change as it struggles to adapt to the exponential technological advances. Part of the incredible success of the rash of humanity presently colonising the planet is surely their extraordinary adaptability through learning and human behaviour. A mechanism favouring peer-imitative, fashion-following instincts is, therefore, a plausible genetic pre-wiring.
In my view, while Harris’s book is useful, there is a consistent error in
The Nurture Assumption, in that she over-emphasises peer group effect or influence.
Family, peer group, genetic make-up and other factors influence human behaviour. The influences on people,
and the young in particular, vary from person to person. Too wide a generalisation, a common human error,
undermines the sub-structure of her work.
In my opinion, the peer group is generally under-rated, and peer group
pressure is indeed very strong. The old-time attitude of “you don’t
play/mix with that family because they are not like us” is under
very great PC pressures. This pressure also exists/existed in ‘religious’
communities/schools.
My own observations regarding human behaviour have led me to a rule of
thumb:
Dull children/people need religion/rules, bright ones
need to understand.
However, this rule of thumb does not help much unless you can judge and
wean, and work out when to go which path.
Some have suggested that a society’s pool of ‘common belief’
is enough to teach and show society members how to behave adequately.
But ‘common belief’ has not helped socialist countries, and
it is not helping much of the Islamic
world. The common beliefs have the extra requirement of sanity.
Some of the most able people I meet have been raised in more than one
culture, thus mitigating the ‘dogmatism’ of ‘common
belief’.
The West is suffering from a combination of throwing out the baybee with
the filthy bathwater, together with the ethical/moral degradation of
collectivist socialism.
The cult of celebrity as lauded by television and other media offers
role models that previously would not have been considered suitable examples
of wholesome, productive or even safe living.
Perhaps television’s influence should be attended to more, and
regarded somewhat as a peer group-type contribution. Carers are very
foolish in not controlling TV, especially
for the immature. It is yet another factor in the baby-sitter ‘culture’.
 |
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do
by Judith Rich Harris 
Free Press, 1999
ISBN-10: 0684857073 / ISBN-13: 978-0684857077
amazon.com
Pocket Books, 1999
ISBN-10: 0684857073 / ISBN-13: 978-0684857077
amazon.co.uk
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the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#youth_culture_uk_270407
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on compulsory ‘education’ (context killer cho)
“I sometimes think that practically every problem, inefficiency and
cruelty of our education system has at its root compulsion. People who
are forced into each other's society tend not to behave well to each
other. Wherever the doors are locked, be the locks visible or
invisible, those inside seem to revert to the hierarchy of the baboon
troop. There is still room for free will: most do no worse than learn
a few habits of obsequiousness or sullenness that can be shaken off.
Cho was not forced to become a mass-murderer. (In fact I see his own
claim to the contrary in his video as a sort of twisted
acknowledgement of this fact; the thought that "I don't have to do
this" had to be actively denied.) No, he was not forced to pull the
trigger - but force did play too large a part in his life. Imagine if
the doors had been open for the bullied Cho Seung-hui to walk away, or
if the adult Cho Seung-hui had been shown the door at the first sign
of discourtesy. Imagine this was the case not just for Cho Seung-hui
on certain pivotal occasions but for everyone on all occasions. Then,
I think, he would have learned differently.”
“the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species
with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be
further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many
individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a
standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is
its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.”
Henry Louis Mencken, 1924.
Link from a correspondent.
related material
on freedom and franchise - killing at virginia tech
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#cho_seung_hui_250407
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passivity and ‘courage’ - “football has been banned...because the ball is pointed”
“His research into courage led him to study soldiers' memoirs,
particularly from the U.S. Civil War, and what he found is that it is
difficult to predict who will behave courageously under fire. "One of
the things that features very prominently in these memoirs is that
people are always sizing up everyone else in the unit: 'Who's the
courageous guy, and who's the coward?' There are some tendencies but
they can never quite predict. The little nerdy accountant turns out to
be a great soldier and the barroom brawler turns out to just crack
when he hears gunfire.
“Another interesting finding was that courage is not inexhaustible.
Valiant soldiers can only be asked to go to the well so many times
before cracking under pressure. But, by the same token, someone who
fled battle in one instance could "deliver in spades in the next one
because he was so ashamed," Prof. Miller found.”
—
“[...] research has shown that people confronted with crises usually look
to those around them for cues on how to respond.
“ "Everybody is frozen in place," he said. "In our culture, we don't
want to cry wolf, we don't want to overreact." So instead, the
tendency is to read our neighbour's inaction as a sign that nothing is
wrong, and response time is delayed.”
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#pc_football_240407
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more riots in paris, socialists try to bury their heads - the auroran sunset
Last night [the linked article is in French] at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris, a Congelese illegal immigrant - who has been arrested 22 times previously, mainly for violent acts - jumped the barriers and was stopped by the station staff. He punched two members of staff and was eventually caught and arrested by the police.
Shortly afterwards ‘youths’ from the northern slums of St-Denis et al. descended on the stations to riot - supposedly protesting the ‘brutality’ of the arrest of the violent savage.
The ‘youths’ vandalised shops, drinks machines, advertising boards, ticket booths and barriers. they were eventually dispersed using tear gas.
Here’s what the socialist parties have to say:-
“Sarkozy has sown the seeds of this explosive situation over the course of many years” -- the Communist Party candidate
“The Sarkozian climate has produced tensions, atrocities, verbal violence and stigmatisation.” -- a deputy for Royal’s Socialist Party
The supposed ‘centrist’ Bayrou - actually just another socialist who is better at hiding that fact and is thus now challenging the more obviously idiotic Royal for second place in the polls - is, as usual, trying to have everything both ways:-
“There is a great malaise” amongst the French “who feel constantly stigmatised and targeted [...] and as if no one will defend them.” He proposes to return the police “to a role of prevention and support”, but we need to explain to the youths “that these incidents will backfire upon them”.
Meanwhile, the only serious candidate, Sarkozy, had this to say regarding the irresponsibility of the socialists:-
“We are the only country where is not considered normal to stop someone for not paying for a ticket.”
Oddly the best current candidate in the US Presidential race, Rudy Giuliani, had a similar approach when he was running New York:-
“First, he picked stations where fare-beating was the biggest problem, and put as many as ten policemen in plainclothes at the turnstiles. The team would nab fare-beaters one by one, handcuff them, and leave them standing, in a daisy chain, on the platform until they had a "full catch." The idea was to signal, as publicly as possible, that the transit police were now serious about cracking down on fare-beaters. Previously, police officers had been wary of pursuing fare-beaters because the arrest, the trip to the station house, the filling out of necessary forms, and the waiting for those forms to be processed took an entire day - all for a crime that usually merited no more than a slap on the wrist. Bratton retrofitted a city bus and turned it into a rolling station house, with its own fax machines, phones, holding pen, and fingerprinting facilities. Soon the turnaround time on an arrest was down to an hour. Bratton also insisted that a check be run on all those arrested. Sure enough, one out of seven arrestees had an outstanding warrant for a previous crime, and one out of twenty was carrying a weapon of some sort.” -- p144-5, The tipping point.
Of course, New York now has the lowest crime levels
for any major US city. Los Angeles, where Bratton, the police chief Giuliani
hired, went after New Year now has the next lowest crime levels for any
major US city. It is toleration of the behaviour of the savages, not lack
of toleration for that behaviour, that causes these problems.
end note
Very few serious books can be read in one day. That
should give you an idea of how well written this one is. It is full of
psychological facts and anecdotes that should be known to any salesman,
businessman or manager. There are some points where Gladwell seems to
confuse an average with individuals, but mostly the book is full of simple
good sense. Highly recommended  .
| The Tipping Point: How
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Abacus, pbk, 2002
ISBN-10: 0349113467
ISBN-13: 978-0349113463
$8.97
[amazon.com] {advert}
£6.39
[amazon.co.uk] {advert} |
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the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#france_riots_280307
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stopping pollution by stopping over-population
The best ways known of controlling population are
wealth and education (especially of girls). If you are in poverty, your children are your pension and national
insurance policies. Therefore, in poor and ignorant areas, the populations rocket, especially when there is modern
medicine (and clean water).
The Middle East is totally dependent on the West for food. Places in Africa are incapable of feeding
exploding populations.
You can not just enforce pollution controls, because the air does not recognise international
boundaries. You cannot really enforce standards under socialism.
You always end up with a feudal situation, as with Madsam’s socialist Iraq.
Socialism leads, by degrees, inevitably to megadeaths to unaccountable ‘nobility’ and
downtrodden peasants whose lives ares not worth a bent nickel.
That is why the West is attempting to set up cap and trade - a market in trading pollution. It is why the West is working to civilise the Middle East. It is why the West is putting increasing resources into moving out of the stone age.
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#population_240307
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kites don't kill people, people kill people! - the auroran sunset
Frank J notes a strangely ‘normal’ Islamic world occurence:
“I want to understand the cultures in the Middle East. I want to get along and not look down on everyone there, but, really, how do you turn a kite festival into a massacre? You'd think with all the killing over there that they'd be looking for ways to get a break from the violence, not new creative ways to turn the most harmless things into a bloodbath.
“So, it's at least eleven dead and over one hundred injured from a kite festival in Pakistan. This wasn't the first time either, as a BBC article says that nine were killed in the 2004 festival causing kites to be banned for a while in Pakistan. We all know that won't stop violence, though, as you can remove the kite from a man's hand but not the murder from his heart. He'll just get his hands on a pinwheel or a hula hoop and you have another massacre on your hands.”
He further notes that that you can add the phrase “Muslims are Offended” to almost any headline without it seeming out of place. Further, with any Middle East/Islamic world story, adding a body count to the headline would not look out of place. Here are some of his examples:
- “Children's Literacy Event Held in Saudi Arabia; 12 Dead
- “Smith's lover testifies on burial plans; Muslims are offended
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#kites_islam_070307
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i am amused by the growing wars among christianist and economic fundies on anthropogenic global warming
We have one lot of christianists who do the lilies of the field,
and want to concentrate on homos and abortion.
“The Reverend Jerry Falwell says
global warming is
"Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus" from evangelism to environmentalism.”
And another lot who want to go the stewardship of the earth route. Here is an interesting web-based video in five parts (chapters):
Is god green?
Then we have Nicholas Stern
suggesting there is profit and sense in cleaner energy, while the old filthy fossil fuel corps want their profits.
Then we have the likes of great scientists like Nigel Lawson [former UK finance minister] who jest hates them there
hippies ’n’ lefties. A great concern of the economic fundamentalists is that the
watermelons want to use AGW [anthropogenic global warming] as a means to bring in swingeing government regulations
to forward their socialist utopia.
It’s amazing to watch the idiots clutching at straws, rather
than showing much concern for the growing consensus.
Most of the items I find that are trying to contradict AGW trace back to
the filthy fossil fuel industry or bible fundies. For instance, a
‘open
letter/petition’ objecting to the Royal Society stance that the reasons for climate change are pretty well decided, apparently originates with ‘the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance’. The first signatory is Ian Clark, Scientific Advisor to the ‘Natural Resource Stewardship Project’, a group that is financed by “energy industry lobbyists”. A drop-down in the web page for the link for Ian Clark gives some background to other petition signatories.
Note -
Watermelon:
Green outside, red inside.
related material
anthropogenic global warming
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#xianist_global_warming_050307
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an upsidedown world - twisted logic for fitting the real world to left-wing dogmas
“An Upside-Down World
“Published February 23, 2007; Page A10
“LONDON -- "The other day Ken Livingstone, the mayor of my hometown of
London, organized a conference on Islam and the West. It was a
carefully rigged affair in which handpicked speaker after handpicked
speaker stood up and announced that the democracies were to blame for
the tidal wave of murder sweeping the world. To provide a spurious air
of balance, the organizers invited a few people who dissented from the
line of the Muslim Brotherhood and its British allies. Agnès Poirier,
a French feminist, was one of them, but she pulled out because
although there were no special facilities for Christians, Hindus and
Jews, Mr. Livingstone had provided separate prayer rooms for Muslim
men and Muslim women.
“She wanted to know: Does Ken Livingstone's idea of multiculturalism
acknowledge and condone segregation? It clearly does, but what made
this vignette of ethnic politics in a European city worth noting is
that commentators for the BBC and nearly every newspaper here describe
Mr. Livingstone as one of the most left-wing politicians in British
public life. Hardly any of them notices the weirdness of an apparent
socialist pandering to a reactionary strain of Islam, pushing its
arguments and accepting its dictates.”
They are both puritanical, authoritarian, millenarian cults.
“Mr. Livingstone's not alone. After suicide bombers massacred Londoners
on July 7, 2005, leftish rather than conservative papers held British
foreign policy responsible for the slaughters on the transport
network. ("Blair's Bombs," ran the headline in my own leftish New
Statesman.) In any university, you are more likely to hear campaigns
for the rights of Muslim women derided by postmodernists than by
crusty conservative dons. Our Stop the War coalition is an alliance of
the white far left and the Islamist far right, and George Galloway,
its leader, and the first allegedly "far left" MP to be elected to the
British parliament in 50 years, is an admirer of Saddam Hussein and
Hezbollah.”
Madsam was a National Socialist. The left hate it that another socialist has been removed.
“I could go on with specific examples, but the crucial point is the
pervasive European attitude to the Iraq catastrophe. As al Qaeda, the
Baathists and Shiite Islamists slaughter thousands, …”
Both cults believe the end justifies the means.
Both believe they have ‘ultimate truth’.
“… there is virtually
no sense that their successes are our defeats. Iraqi socialists and
trade unionists I know are close to despair. They turn for support to
Europe, the home of liberalism, feminism and socialism, and find that
rich democrats, liberals and feminists won't help them or even
acknowledge their existence.
“There were plenty of leftish people in the 20th century who excused
communism, but they could at least say that communism was a left-wing
idea. Now overwhelmingly and everywhere you find people who scream
their heads off about the smallest sexist or racist remark, yet refuse
to confront ultra-reactionary movements that explicitly reject every
principle they profess to hold.”
The objective is to bring down Western society. It has always been thus -
create chaos in order to prepare the ground for takeover.
“Why is the world upside down? In part, it is a measure of President
Bush's failure that anti-Americanism has swept out of the intelligentsia and become mainstream
in Britain.”
The leftists are primarily led by ‘intellectuals’ divorced from the real
world; impractical theorists, not practical people. To suggest such people are ‘intelligentsia’
is a comment on the detachment of ivory towers and imans. Such people never create anything useful.
“A country that was
once the most pro-American in Western Europe now derides Tony Blair
for sticking with the Atlantic alliance.”
The problem with Tony Bliar is he is a mediocre leftist. Fortunately for Britain,
there has long been a tradition of patriotism buried deep in the Labour party.
It isn’t his actions in Iraq that have undermined Bliar, it is his
socialism. Iraq is just an excuse.
“But if Iraq has pummeled Mr.
Blair's reputation, it has also shone a very harsh light on the
British and European left. No one noticed it when the Berlin Wall came
down, but the death of socialism gave people who called themselves
"left wing" a paradoxical advantage. They no longer had a practical
program they needed to defend and could go along with ultra-right
movements that would once have been taboo.”
Approximately one third of extreme socialists switch with great ease
between national socialism
and international socialism. The leftist ‘academics’ have laboured unremittingly to
confuse idiots by pretending national socialists were not real socialists, and were somehow and
ludicrously ‘right wing’. The Guardian newspaper still attempts to promote that big lie.
Remember much of UK socialism looked to Moscow for instructions
in past decades, while the two sects of the leftist cult fought for dominance in Europe.
“In moments of crisis,
otherwise sane liberals will turn to these movements and be reassured
by the professed leftism of the protest organizers that they are not
making a nonsense of their beliefs.”
It is another confusion to suppose there is any significant connection
between serious liberals and either socialism or Islam. Liberalism is the real enemy of both national
socialism and international socialism.This is yet another way in which the pseudo-intellectuals who have
infiltrated the second rate universities attempt to confuse the unformed minds of the inexperienced young.
Getting the Americans to miscall and mistake socialists for liberals is a very great victory for left-wing brainwashing.
The present commonality of interest between socialists and
jihadis will
last until they can, in concert, undermine civil society. Then they will be at war with one another.
“If, that is, they have strong beliefs to abandon. In Europe and North
America extreme versions of multiculturalism and identity politics
have left a poisonous legacy. Far too many liberal-minded people think
that is somehow culturally imperialist to criticize reactionary
movements and ideas -- as long as they aren't European or American
reactionary movements.”
Socialism is a reactionary movement.
“This delusion is everywhere. Until very
recently our Labour government was allowing its dealings with
Britain's Muslim minority to be controlled by an unelected group, the
Muslim Council of Britain, which stood for everything social democrats
were against. In their desperate attempts to ingratiate themselves,
ministers gave its leader a knighthood -- even though he had said that
"death was too good" for Salman Rushdie, who happens to be a British
citizen as well as a great novelist.”
Again, the end justifies the means. Underneath, there are no ethical or moral foundations.
“Beyond the contortions and betrayals of liberal and leftish thinking
lies a simple emotion that I don't believe Americans take account of:
an insidious fear that has produced the ideal conditions for
appeasement. Radical Islam does worry Europeans but we are trying to
prevent an explosion by going along with Islamist victimhood. We blame
ourselves for the Islamist rage, in the hope that our admission of
guilt will pacify our enemies. We are scared, but not scared enough to
take a stand.”
‘An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.’
Winston Churchill, 1940
It is just rank cowardice, nothing more seemly.
“I hope conservative American readers come to Britain. But if you do,
expect to find an upside-down world. People who call themselves
liberals or leftists will argue with you, and when they have finished
you may experience the strange realization that they have become far
more reactionary than you have ever been.”
much of the faux ‘anger’ at the United States of America is but a withered
fig-leaf for free loading.
related material
current m.e. geo-realpolitik
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#upsidedown_world_270207
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polling america on presidents and iraq - the auroran sunset
A Gallup poll asking which ‘minorities’ Americans would and wouldn’t vote for President:
- 53% wouldn’t vote for an atheist.
- 43% wouldn’t vote for a homosexual.
- 42% wouldn’t vote for someone 72 years or older. McCain fits this description.
- 30% wouldn’t vote for someone married for the third time. Giuliani fits this description.
- 24% wouldn’t vote for an Mormon. Romney fits this description.
- 12% wouldn’t vote for a hispanic.
- 11% wouldn’t vote for a woman. Hilary Clinton fits this description.
- 7% wouldn’t vote for a Jew. Leiberman fits this description.
- 5% wouldn’t vote for a black. Obarmy fits this description.
- 4% wouldn’t vote for a catholic. Giuliani fits this description.
The linked page has many more details, including numbers broken down by party and other factors. Some of those low numbers seem seriously implausible - remember that people are known to lie to pollsters when they think their opinion might be too ‘controversial’. For example see this from another poll:
“Seventy-nine percent (79%) of American voters say they're willing to vote for an African-American presidential candidate. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 55% believe their family, friends, and co-workers are willing to do the same.
“Earlier, we asked a similar question about voting for a woman and found similar results. Seventy-eight percent (78%) say they'd vote for a woman but just 51% said their peer group would do the same.”
Meanwhile, Public Opinion Strategies has an interesting poll of American opinion of the Iraq ‘war’, with some very detailed questions and some rather confused answers!
First, there is usual 67% who think “the country is generally on the wrong track”, 60% who disapprove of Bush’s job performance and 51% who disapprove of Congress’ job performance. Then we get to the more focused questions, and the answers start to change:
- 50% say we should stay in Iraq until the Iraqis can manage their security on their own... but 57% support finishing the job in Iraq - keeping troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control/security!
- 59% say a precipitate withdrawl from Iraq would damage US reputation more than seeing the job through.
- 56% want to stand behind the President despite some reservations about his handling of the Iraq situation.
- 53% think Democrats are going too far and too fast in pushing for a withdrawl.
- 60% think “Iraq will never become a stable democracy”, but 53% disagree with the statement that “Victory in Iraq, that is creating a young but stable democracy and reducing the threat of terrorism at home, is no longer possible for the US”!
- 57% think Iraq is a key part of the war against terrorism.
- 74% disagree with the statement “I don't really care what happens in Iraq after the US leaves, I just want the troops brought home”.
There is obvious confusion engendered by the fossil media and moonbat left dishonestly trying to claim that the Iraq situation is hopeless and that we are losing.
However, it seems that the American public do not go along with the Democratic Party leadership’s irresponsible attitudes. This should cause the irresponsible left increasing difficulties, as it becomes harder and harder to hide the fact that we are slowly winning in Iraq.
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#polling_america_220207
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don’t praise kids for being clever 
“Scholars from Reed College and Stanford reviewed over 150 praise studies. Their meta-analysis determined that praised students become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy. The scholars found consistent correlations between a liberal use of praise and students, shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.
“Dweck's research on overpraised kids strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern—they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down. A raft of very alarming studies illustrate this." ”
[Quote taken from p.4 of linked article.]
As the article states, the supposed ‘research’ on ‘self-worth’ has long
been known as leftist pseudo-science.
In my view, over-praising is just as dangerous to adjusted
realism as other forms of abuse like violence. The recipients of such treatment
often have an exaggerated sense of entitlement, they do not have to work for anything.
A common response of children to parents who use uncritical positive
reinforcement is that the parents do not care about them. My impression is that, for the children, it is like being in a fog with no real feedback.
Once the pattern is established, it is extremely hard to
break. It is like an addiction; for example, with over-praised people they constantly
attention-seek. The term praise-junkie is also coming into common usage, this
is a form of dependancy which interferes greatly with the maturation process.
The best you can do with over-praised children or adults is to just keep being real to them,
and sometimes they will react to the solidity. But even that reaction is usually temporary. Such people learn to trust nobody because, effectively, they know that their ‘carers’ are lying to them.
This distrust is widespread in modern society, and a major cause of its present problems.
Link suggested by DVH
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour0702.php#spoilt_child_160207
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