Knowing and Nudging Terroir Part 2

Seeing and Doing

I suspect that we may experience consuming media and doing the thing as indistinguishable because our mirror neuron network, or module, makes it feel that way to us. Do I have any proof of this? The short answer is no. We do, however have some decent experimental evidence that we are definitely more confident that we can accomplish something if we have watched an expert doing it in a video. 

Flickr.com: L. Filipe dos Santos

The Harvard Business Review article, that references the six studies on this topic, suggests that there are three steps for correcting for the illusion of your own ability to reenact a skill just by watching an expert at work in a video:

1.     Set aside time to practice

2.     Start small

3.     Engage in mixed practice

Interestingly, the author highlights in step one that reading and thinking, along with watching the video, are less likely to conflate a person’s sense they can achieve the task than when viewing the video alone. I would go one step further and suggest that writing (taking notes) is particularly useful as it connects additional motor-memory links in the brain that will get you away from the overly optimistic aspects of monkey-see/monkey-think-they-can-do. When the author speaks of “mixed practice” they are suggesting that trying the task a bit immediately then revisiting the video to catch more nuance is a good way to avoid over confidence as well.

We also know that if we set a goal and then share that goal with others it seems to lower our chances of achieving the goal. And most studies on this phenomenon suggest that speaking about your goal to others seems to create a sense that you have already achieved it when what you really need to be doing is getting to work on breaking down the steps you will take for reaching the goal you have set.

The key for overcoming this goal setting vs. achieving conundrum, according to a review of 94 independent tests, was to form an implementation intention. An implementation intention is the spelling out of the when, where and how of goal striving in advance. And it appears as though a big piece of this implementation intention is the advance identification of how you will shield your goal pursuit from unwanted influences.

Intentional Consumption

I do not want to suggest that there is no place for watching a YouTube video as you would a Netflix or TV show – not all content we consume needs to have a purpose.

However, I would say there is space to approach content consumption more consciously at times and to do so in particular when you are looking to improve some facet or part of your life.

Learning About Your Terroir

But before we even consume content for the purpose of perhaps learning how to improve some facet or part of our lives, we need to do some preparation work: 

1.     Evaluate self as concept and self as habit.

2.     Determine whether self as concept has harder or softer borders.

3.     Determine how much self as habit must be upgraded.

4.     Prepare for the plan.

These steps are designed to help you spend time getting to know the existing human terroir that is you today. And the point of doing this first is to be able to build out a plan for change that best suits who you are.

Self as Concept and Self as Habit

What we think we know about ourselves is often more rigid than perhaps what is maximally possible for us to be. It is also, very commonly, outdated. Our personality traits, the facets of ourselves we often treat as solid, are much more environmentally influenced than we recognize.

I am going to delve into the work of Kathy Charmaz, a researcher and occupational therapist who developed a qualitative framework of investigation within the social sciences: constructivist grounded theory. While her qualitative framework is very interesting in its own right, I am more interested right now in her research and work with chronically ill patients.

Most people think of habits as traits of individuals. However, habits are also social. They are derived from cultural rhythms and are founded in collective actions. They arise in everyday activities, and are patterned through relationships as well as routines. A person’s habits are affected by other people. They form the foundation on which social life is constructed. Over months and years, individuals may develop taken for granted ways of handling their lives and of living and working with others. They often remain unaware of long-standing habits until they become problematic. Moreover, establishing new habits consistent with new or increased requirements of illness may disrupt relationships on which old habits were predicated.

According to Charmaz, self as concept and self as habit are related, but not exactly the same. The self, both habit and concept, is built upon processes. Events and experiences shape the self and these accrue over time. 

The self then is continually in process, and continually developing. A potential for change and redefinition of self is contingent upon experience and how people interpret it.

Researcher Ralph Turner described self-concept as an organized set of definitions of self, sentiments, values, and judgments that people have to describe themselves. It is basically how our mind decides to assess, interpret and generate meaning from events and experiences. We decide whether our habitual modes of responding to and about ourselves and others are either part of who we are or counter to who we are. If we are rude and cranky when we have not had enough sleep, we may keep this behaviour out of our self-concept definition on the grounds that it is counter to how we usually behave.

We tend to view our self-concept as our “true selves,” however, that can quickly be undermined either by someone close to us pointing out the discrepancy between who we say we are and how we act; or perhaps when life circumstances change our ability to act in ways that are aligned with our self-concept.

There is the self that is an enactment (habit) and then there is the self that is how we interpret that enactment (concept).

Habits of the past become visible when they no longer work. Yet habits can change. Habits can become a bridge between self as process and self-concept as a stable object. Developing new habits contributes to the self as process and the reconstruction of identity after loss or change.

Back in 2014, when I had the great pleasure of chatting with Dr. Tim Walsh at an eating disorder conference in San Diego. He spoke, after 30 years of learning from his patients, of his sense of eating disorders as habits: their intractable nature develops within a very short span from the onset of food restriction to the avoidance of food becoming an ingrained habit.

Is one habit sticky for one person when compared to another because there is a distinction in their self-concept? Perhaps. In our society diet and exercise are viewed as expressions of personality traits and behaviours we admire: conscientiousness, discipline, delayed gratification, striving for a goal, and the deep societal adherence to self-direction and individual responsibility for health outcomes.

However, I think in the case of eating disorders, pretty much everything is hijacked through the misidentification of food as a threat but perhaps if the food avoidance is also strongly aligned with a self-concept of being disciplined and in control, then that gives the habit a boost to being further reinforced and ingrained.

In Part 3 of this series coming up we will look at one of Kathy Charmaz’s case studies in a bit more depth and define what a hard or soft contour or border around your self-concept might be and whether it is relevant in how you plan for behaviour change and improvements.