Are you causing more harm than good with feedback?

[@dovos8572]

this isn't where i expected this to go. well i should have expected it. i thought it was more about social media. about the feedback talked about in the video. there are different types of "you did this/that wrong" feedbacks. the ones that feel really bad are the ones that only point out the obvious fault that the person already knows. "you missed the goal/you fell down" stuff. you don't need to give feedback when the person in question already knows the all the possible feedback that will come from you. it is mostly seen as a waste of time and focus and leads to even more frustration and bad mood. then there is feedback that actually get's the person to work on something that he didn't know he needs to consider or something the person can't see/know if they did it right or wrong because it isn't something that can be seen or felt on your own because the focus needs to be somewhere else. for example in archery it is quite common to accidently overrotate the left arm or the hip or stand slightly skewed to the target. it isn't exactly important but it is bad form and can lead to other bad habbits and light loss in accuracy. another thing some don't know is that it matters where the bow string is in front of your eye while you hold the drawn bow. the first few weeks i was learning i didn't know that this was quite important thing you need to keep focus on as it changes how the archers paradox behaves. after my coach pointed that out my accuracy got quite a bit better within a few shots. good feedback is also not done after a big fault but when the other stuff worked a few times without fail. pointing out a bad habbit without downtalking their accomplishment is then accepted easier and gives them the next goal to work on. the thing i first thought the video is about is the absolute flood of "feedback" in social media where everyone and their parents is talking like they are the leading expert in the subject/skill in question and make neutral comments look like the worst feedback you can get because we tend to see neutral also as bad if they are inbetween bad comments. so giving bad or mindless feedback can be seen as really hateful if it appears inbetween other similar feedback. some call it the normalisation of hate comments on the internet while they ignore that many comments need context to be seen as good or bad and could just be worded in a way that let's the meaning open to the reader. sure we do have a hate mob out of a few hundred people and a ai bot net that walks from one drama to the next but most comments they show are often quite "neutral" out of context and even with context it is open to interpretation.

[@whisperingleaves]

There are a few issues with the data represented here and in the presented research. The population you are referring to are basically of a narrow culture/baseline, which changes how things are handled and perceived, and you have the same issue with the research being reviewed. So to read my comment properly, you'll need to wipe clean your mind of pre-conceptions implanted by those "influences", otherwise, you'll just muddle yourself. Firstly, there is no such thing as a generic pattern that can be used on every person, we are all influenced both by our current culture, as well as our current habitual thought processing when handling situations. e.g. Your mum flies off the handle often and gets into arguments with you. You are now more likely to fly off the handle and get into arguments with your peers, just due to the fact that you've "learned" a pattern of behavior. This has nothing to do with fear response, or positive reinforcement, it just means that result is an "option" to choose when reacting to a situation (whether it makes sense or not). Your life choices are answered by "learned" or "instinctive" reactions to situations, of which becoming an adult, means to "learn" from those situations to form some kind of improvement. (Although there is no guarantee the learned thing "is" an improvement, take anti-vaxxing for example). To improve one's cognitive abilities, you can do the following things: (This varies from person to person, some may not have the ability to do certain things, and would need to find a way to workaround it) 1. Change the perception of reality 2. Change the emotional responses to certain stimulus 3. Reprogram certain actions for certain needs Change the perception of reality In programming, and especially in big data processing, it is safer to assume that starting out you will be wrong 99% of the time. In this circumstance positive reinforcement is pretty useless, and the most effective thing to learn is that every action you take, there should be an alternative action, and a way to walk it back to safety (as breaking a multi-million data processing flow is kinda expensive). So learning the entire environment is hostile, and that caution is imperative, you quickly lose the "snowflake" tenancies over time, of wanting to be praised and coddled by someone. If you land in trouble, you quickly troubleshoot your way out of a situation, and also your natural default is not (I AM the BEST, I DESERVE the BEST. Which you see in sports often, when some idiotic athlete loses against an opponent, and then does underhanded things to undermine the other's achievements by saying they are a man (when they are a woman) or something along those lines. Which they do because they pre-assume they are the BEST, and cannot accept they are not). Change the emotional responses to certain stimulus Humans are extremely adaptable, for example you can see military men blowing through hoards of people without breaking a sweat, whereas a person take a single life might vomit and flounder to the ground, helplessly. (Obviously this is an extreme example, but you get the point). When acting as a "Support" worker in a business, every single case you work on is a "problem", so 100% of your day is now filled with 100% negative styled requests, there are no such things as "sandwiched" support queues, where you get 2 positive cases and 1 negative case in between. So why do support workers not all throw themselves out the window? It's because their emotional response to the "negative" changes over time, and the work culture "in" support environments are to welcome problems, not abhor them. You can see the difference in behaviors across the spectrum, when you see a person break down crying cause they can't figure out how to use a smart phone interface, versus someone who see's a complex novel problem and sees it as a challenge. Choosing to "weaken" or "soften" the blow is a very western culture type thing, and it has terrible effects on culture itself recently, with detriments all across society. And even more weird is that research sometimes takes place within this remit, which reinforces this behavioral pattern by labeling it as "normal" or a "typical human response", when it is not. Reprogram certain actions for certain needs The human body is very capable in so many ways, you can: - Learn how to trigger a heightened response, releasing endorphins and adrenaline at will (even just sitting in a chair) - Learn how to perceive a problem, such as finding issues and challenges being akin to receiving a birthday gift (and not to feel depressed about it) - Learn to perform efficiently for periods to save energy for burst movement or brain activity Every single person can be programmed, and program themselves, everyone has different limitations, but everyone can do this in their own way. ---- As you can see from above, lots of research and talks, and discussions on this topic can end up stifling a person, as some start to believe they are "incapable" of change outside of the set boundaries placed on them. And your discussion of the topic is half stifled and half learning that these methods are just "one option" of actions to choose from (And the action itself isn't even that effective). The most effective thing you can do is learn about your perceptions and boundaries, and it'll make it easier when coaching people, to learn "their" perception and boundaries and encourage them on their own paths.