Dear friends, I am Miao Baoping, a psychological counselor. Starting today, we will read the book "Learn Some Psychological Effects Every Day" written by Lu Fang together. Today is the chapter " Chapter 1: Learn to recognize your own psychological effects " of the book.
Su Dongpo Effect 1 - Only by stepping out of the outside world can you accurately examine yourself
An American psychologist did an experiment. He recruited 25 people to participate in the experiment, and the subjects were all old acquaintances who knew each other well. The advantages and disadvantages are also very clear. The content of the experiment was to ask each of them to rank people, including themselves, according to the following nine criteria: elegance, humor, intelligence, beauty, sociability, hygiene, arrogance, snobbishness, and rudeness. Using humor as the standard, who ranks first, second, third... and so on. Each person has to evaluate themselves and rank themselves against the other 24 people. In this way, the psychologists obtained each person's self-evaluation and 24 evaluations of other people.
As a result, many people's self-evaluation rankings are very different from other people's evaluation rankings of themselves. For example, a person who ranks first in his self-evaluation of "loves cleanliness" is ranked tenth by others; and a person who ranks low in self-evaluation based on "arrogance" is mostly ranked by others. at the top; and, similar situations are reflected in everyone's ranking list. The results of the
experiment showed that the 25 subjects who participated in the experiment tended to exaggerate the advantages and minimize the disadvantages to varying degrees.
Su Dongpo Effect: It is important to know yourself objectively, but it is often difficult for people to do it. Su Dongpo put it well in a poem: "If you don't know the true face of Mount Lu, you just live in this mountain." In other words, it is difficult for people to grasp themselves correctly and objectively. Understanding "self" is sometimes even more difficult than understanding the objective world. Psychologists call this phenomenon that people always find it difficult to objectively understand "self" the "Su Dongpo effect".
It is said that at the beginning of the 20th century, an American pastor named Russell Cornwell once delivered a speech in the United States on the theme of "The Land of Gemstones", which he gave a total of 6,000 times. The story he told is this: There was a wealthy farmer Ali in India. Harford sold his family property and traveled out in order to find the land where gems were buried. He eventually wandered outside and died in poverty. Many years later, someone dug up a precious gem in the land he sold. The gem this person had been searching for all his life turned out to be at his feet, but he could not find it and sold it. Speaker Russell. Cornwell quoted this story in his speech and cited many real examples in life. He told us that people are pursuing it all the time, but they don’t know that many times the things you think are far away are actually there. Around ourselves; at the same time, it also reminds us how important it is to understand ourselves clearly and evaluate ourselves objectively. This is also what the "Su Dongpo Effect" reveals to us.
To evaluate yourself soberly and objectively means to understand your own strengths and face up to your shortcomings. While fully affirming your good qualities, you must not over-exaggerate them; and when facing shortcomings, you must not dodge them. Excessive reduction. Don’t make the mistake of elevating yourself and beautifying yourself. Of course, don’t put yourself down either. In life, study, and work, we should make use of our strengths and avoid weaknesses, collect comments from others in interpersonal interactions, analyze our shortcomings, expand our advantages, and develop in that direction as we hope to become. It can be seen that only by getting out of the local limitation of "deep mountains" can we accurately examine ourselves.
I don’t know the true face of Mount Lu, but I am just in this mountain.
Interpretation:
Su Shi was a leader in the literary world in the middle period of Northern Song Dynasty. He made high achievements in poetry, lyrics, prose, calligraphy, and painting.His poems have broad themes, are fresh and vigorous, good at using exaggerated metaphors, and have unique style. Together with Huang Tingjian, Su Shi is also known as "Su Huang ". Su Shi's career was ups and downs, traveling around the world, and he had a rich life experience. He is good at summarizing experiences from life encounters and seeing patterns from objective things. In his eyes, ordinary life content and natural scenery contain profound truths. For example, this song " titled Xilinbi ": "Viewed horizontally, there are ridges and peaks, with different heights near and far. I don't know the true face of Mount Lu, just because I am in this mountain." Natural phenomena have been elevated to philosophy, and the feelings of life have also changed. transformed into rational reflection. What is particularly commendable is that the philosophy in the poem is expressed naturally through vivid and distinctive artistic images, rather than through logical deduction or argumentative analysis. Such poems are both beautiful and interesting, and are truly rational and interesting poems.
"Looking at it horizontally, it looks like a ridge and a peak on its side, with different heights from near and far." is written about what I saw when I traveled to the mountains. Lushan Mountain is a large mountain with crisscrossing hills and undulating peaks. Visitors will see different scenery depending on their location. And "I don't know the true face of Mount Lu, just because I am in this mountain", which is the reasoning of the scene. Why can't tourists recognize the true face of Mount Lu when visiting the mountain? Because Lushan Mountain is famous for its majesty, wonder, danger and elegance, it is known as "the most beautiful mountains in the world". There are 171 named peaks since ancient times. Lushan Mountain has too many mountains with different heights. In Lushan Mountain, the field of vision is limited by the peaks and ridges of Lushan Mountain. What you can see is only one peak, one ridge, one hill and one valley of Lushan Mountain. This is only partial, which is bound to be one-sided.
Therefore, the "Su Dongpo Effect" enlightens people to understand a philosophy of how to deal with people - because people are in different positions and have different starting points for looking at problems, their understanding of objective things will inevitably be one-sided; to understand the truth and full picture of things, It is necessary to transcend the narrow scope and get rid of subjective prejudices.
Don't be arrogant or belittle yourself when you treat yourself; don't be overconfident or too inferior; carry forward your strengths, pay attention to learning from others, books, and practice, and constantly make up for your shortcomings.
"Use humbly." People make progress, pride makes people fall behind." , I think, if we can all do this, then the "Su Dongpo Effect" is the best warning to us!
July 4, 2022
