Weekly I/O: How environment impacts our perception of future reward, Why disagreeable givers are better than agreeable takers, How to survive in the wild
#87: Environment and Discount Future Rewards, Disagreeable Givers over Agreeable Takers, Survival Rules of 3, 3 Reactions of New Technology, End of Melody is not Goal
Hi friends,
Greetings from San Francisco!
Here's your weekly dose of 5 bite-size learnings. I hope you enjoy it!
Input
Here's a list of what I'm exploring and pondering on this week.
1. People who grow up in resource-poor environments discount future rewards more than average because they perceive a shorter, more uncertain future.
Paper: Future Discounting by Slum Dwelling Youth Versus University Students in Rio de Janeiro
A study investigates the phenomenon of future discounting, the preference for smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones, among young people living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The study shows that slum dwellers, particularly men, tend to discount the future more heavily than age-matched university students, likely due to their perceptions of a shorter and more uncertain future.
Exposure to violence makes those who are primed with mortality cues more likely to value immediate rewards over delayed rewards and fall for cheap dopamine addiction like drugs compared to those who grow up in resource-rich environments.
Developmental context plays a crucial role in individuals' time preferences and decision-making, and we should challenge the traditional focus on affluent, developed societies in developmental psychology.
I first read this study from Dopamine Nation, where I learned that Addictive drugs can shorten our temporal horizon. Recently, I watched the movie City of God, which portrays violence and drug abuse in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. That film prompted me to revisit this study.
2. In the workplace, avoid the agreeable takers and embrace the disagreeable givers. Someone hard to work with is better than someone selfish.
Book: Give and Take
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, and Wharton professor, classifies workers on two independent dimensions: givers vs. takers and agreeable vs. disagreeable.
Givers help others and boost the team, while takers focus only on their own interests.
Agreeable people are friendly and pleasant, while disagreeable people are rough around the edges.
Interestingly, Grant found that being friendly doesn't mean someone's a giver, and being grumpy doesn't mean someone's a taker. Givers and takers both can be either agreeable or disagreeable.
The worst employees are disagreeable takers, but agreeable takers can also be deceptively terrible. They pretend to be helpful while actually hurting the company. They are the most dangerous kind of person to have in an organization.
While the agreeable giver may seem like the ideal employee, Grant says they sometimes avoid conflict too much. On the other hand, disagreeable givers, though harder to work with, can be the most valuable to an organization.
Disagreeable givers are more likely to fight for their beliefs, question the status quo, push for difficult but needed changes, and give honest feedback. Therefore, even if they are challenging to work with, they are critical for organizations that need to avoid complacency and improve.
I first learned about this from Meta's head of product, Naomi Gleit, on Lenny's Podcast.
3. Wilderness Survival Rules of 3: You can survive for 3 days without water, but only 3 minutes without air and 3 hours without shelter. Prioritize unblocking the airway and getting warm over finding water or food.
Article: Wilderness Survival Rules of 3 - Air, Shelter, Water & Food
The four levels of the Survival Rules of 3:
You can survive for 3 Minutes without air
You can survive for 3 Hours without shelter in a harsh environment
You can survive for 3 Days without water
You can survive for 3 Weeks without food
The most important thing in real survival situations is to focus on the immediate problem first.
For example, if you are facing hypothermia because your clothes are wet and cold, there's no need to worry about food. You may not be able to function after three hours if you're shivering and unable to get dry and warm.
4. People consider technology normal if it predates their birth, exciting if it appears during their prime years, and threatening if it arrives in their later life.
Book: The Salmon of Doubt
Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, describes our reactions to technologies in this set of rules:
Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary, and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
This reminds me of the first law of Clarke's Three Laws: "When a distinguished elderly scientist states that something is possible, they are almost certainly right, but when they state something is impossible, they are probably wrong."
5. "The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end, it would not have reached its goal either. A parable." – Nietzsche
Quote
One of my favorite variants of "The journey is the reward".
Output
Here's what I've published since the last time we met.
1. Emotional Freedom
On what's emotional freedom and why emotional freedom is a more direct path to happiness than financial freedom.
Recap
Try answering these five simple questions to review and reinforce what you've learned:
That's it. Thanks for reading. Please share which input you found the most helpful or intriguing. Just reply to this email with a number—it's quick and easy!
And as always, feel free to send me any interesting ideas you came across recently!
Looking forward to learning from you.
Cheers,
Cheng-Wei
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Interesting set of learning @Cheng!