thelastpsychiatrist.com - Reciprocal Determinism And Why Punching People Out Is Way Cool. Adnotated.

And stay away from my man!ⁱ

A quickⁱⁱ addendum to my previous post on the "Psychological Uncertainty Principle."ⁱⁱⁱ

A reader pointed out that some of this is explained by "reciprocal determinism", which basically means that you respond to your environment, but then force a change in your environment which further changes your behavior. For example:

1. "Girls don't like me. Girls don't like me. Girls don't like me." Repeat x 100.
2. So a girl thought she liked you, but then met you, and now decided you're a nutter. So she bolts.
3. Now you have proof girls don't like you.

It sounds like reciprocal determinism says who you are affects your environment, which then affects you.

That's wrong. In the above example, it wasn't ever true that girls didn't like you.^iv You made it true. You changed your behavior, somehow, that made it so that girls don't like you. You received some gain from making it true that girls didn't like you -- perhaps it helps you avoid intimacy, etc, etc.^v

So your identity never enters the equation. Reciprocal determinism is about behavior, not identity. Albert Bandura (the originator of this concept) was responding to Skinner's behaviorism.

Wikipedia's article on reciprocal determinism^vi is a perfect example of this exactly wrong use of the concept. They describe how low MAOA enzyme can cause you to be antisocial. In fact, it is the opposite: having low MAO-A does nothing, but having high MAO-A seems to be protective. The reason people became antisocial (synonymous with criminal) in those studies was that they were abused -- in essence, they imitated the behavior.

The experiment Bandura is famous for speaks to my point about the absoluteness of your responsibility for your identity: kids watched adults beat up a bobo doll, and were then put in a room with a bobo doll, and, surprise, the majority then imitated this behavior, even using the same hitting techniques and repeating the same phrases the adults did. Nothing genetic or even environmental affected this outcome -- almost all the kids did it (and almost none of the control kids who didn't watch the adults beat up the doll).

So watching the Matrix causes kids to go Columbine?^vii Bandura would have said yes. But oddly no one ever wonders why then the cooking channel doesn't result in more pies, or why porn hasn't prompted rampant depilation.^viii Bandura's theory of reciprocal determinism required a key element: reinforcement. There has to be a gain in the imitation, in the identification. You may have "learned" the violence by watching it, but you won't display the violence unless there is some reward -- it isn't just a reflex, some part of your core identity. You decide to imitate it, because it rewards you. How? "I want to be just like my Dad" (except he beats Mom.) "Neo is so cool." (Didn't he kill all the human security guards?) "Thug life!" Etc. Note that no one ever imitates the violence of, say, Gollum. Want to know why? Because Gollum never scores any chicks.^ix

So once again, you pick who you are. Or: you picked who you are, how you behave, whether you know this or not. So now ask: why did you pick this person, this identity? And what is preventing you from changing any or all of it?^x

1. Can you believe no larger version of this stamp exists anywhere on the Internet ? [↩]
2. This "a quick" device is well ripe for either construction or (preferably) outright abandon. Don't fucking "a quick" me, it's at best patronizing and otherwise inexcusable ; instead, put the fucking needed work such that it's "a proper" -- or else get the fuck out of everyone's hair. Da fuck "a quick" nothings on a stick, "nobody can accuse me of being a vapid officious intermeddler, I WARNED THEM!!!". Pshaw. [↩]
3. Speaking of which, these piggybacking portmanteaus ain't my favourite dish either. What is this, the naming porn flicks convention, "Masha's Mashing : The Uncuntability Theorem" ?

   They're especially infuriating when they belie a barely cursory acquaintance of the "idea guy" being "creative" with the subject matter of his inept appropriation. [↩]

4. No, it was plenty true. Why should girls like the average simp, anyways ? What, just because [your version of] a state needs to sell said simps on said lie so they'll pay it taxes ?! Forget about it, girls don't like you. They might tolerate you for cause, but that's about as far as it goes. [↩]
5. Ballas absolutely wants the lulztheory on gender to be true, and so he'll make it fucking true, what. It's just about him and himself, nothing else enters into HOW IT IS!!!! Rite ?

   Forget about it ; as much as a post-Bismarckian attempt at "an ordered socialism" / "city on the hill" / bla bla bla would benefit from it, nevertheless it's absolutely not the case that there's a woman for every dork. Most women would go with any of the few alphas and none of the betas, while most men and a few of the women are broken and therefore worthless. That's very well fucking it, an' no amount of piled-up pretense can ever change that. [↩]

6. Oh for fuck's sake. [↩]
7. No, rather : living in "the US" makes kids who watch the Matrix "go Columbine", much like living in a chicken battery makes chickens that watch other chickens peck at other chickens cloacas peck at other chickens cloacas even though free ranged chickens don't either exhibit or immitate the behaviour. The problem is "America", not some film or other. [↩]
8. Because Ballas spent his time talking to relatively few women, and they were all wives. Pretty much all the sluts I've seen for years now were "of course" (that's a direct quote) hairless about the cunt. [↩]
9. Funny, I'd have guessed Gollum's violence is by far the winner of any popularity vote. You don't think it's by far the most immitated variant ?! [↩]
10. Yeah, seriously, why didn't you pick to be me instead ? Hurr. [↩]