In a sort of... close conclusion.

As I stated in "The Most Important Misunderstanding" post, there is no way that self affirmation is ALL you need to succeed. 

However, we can see the original myth being portrayed as Self Affirmation being so entirely helpful! As I showed through the various posts on this blog, it does not help as much as it is emphasized to. "The Little Engine That Could" was one of the things that misled people into emphasizing so much onto a phrase that had no truth to it. 

Upon a reflection on the TV shows such as the Rugrats, the direct TV episode that applies to my blog is an episode of Hey Arnold! How many of you remember that show? Well, if you don't, there was an episode where Arnold joins the basketball team and meets a great player on the team who, to be honest, is the only the coach wants the ball given to. This great basketball player has one flaw though. He can't shoot free throws. Arnold, being a great free throw shooter, stays after practice one day to practice his free throw shooting. As this great basketball player watches Arnold, and sees the ball swishing through the net, he asks Arnold to tutor him in shooting free throws. 

Arnold takes him to a basketball court, and first goes through a series of exercises that help him first feel confident in himself. This is where the myth bears a kernel of truth. Self affirmation was encouraged here from the very start of the activity that he was doing. This great basketball player who learning to shoot free throws had to learn to believe in himself, and as long as he believed he could, his body followed through with what he was focused to do. 

I'm not saying that self affirmation is completely necessary to function, but for important things you should believe in yourself. I didn't mean for this to be a "Debbie Downer" blog, but I thought I could take a myth that I knew that was false and somehow apply to everything else that we found ourselves facing in life. Believing in yourself is important, and you should definitely prepare for what you are doing. Self affirmation is not ALL you need and nor does it give you a ridiculously crazy boost on performance skill. It does help you if you believe in yourself though, and if you have no belief in yourself... Well, you should start. Imagine someone with literally no confidence or self positivity at all. That person is probably not you. 

The Most Important Misunderstanding

All the websites out there that encourage a positive mindset are not harming anybody, but we can all take into account that having a positive mindset isn't the only thing that we need. This is the thing that is most often misunderstood in the perpetuation of the myth. The myth itself encourages self affirmation as the ONLY thing that you need, but fails to take into the context of various different situations. While we can not conjure a phrase that captures the essence of every situation we can still recognize a better way to say it. 

I stated earlier that a better way to say it would be to say that, “A positive self affirming attitude draws more self encouragement and improve the way that you look at the situation.”

The misunderstanding that is portrayed in the “Little Engine That Could” is that it is not a realistic situation that pertains to our everyday lives. Since then we have only have only taken the phrase “I Think I Can” to mean anything. The phrase in itself can be very misleading because it does place any emphasis on the action that is necessary for you to take in order to accomplish the goal at hand.  

Who's keepin' it REAL? Wait.. I thought it wasn't real..

Who's really driving the perpetuation of this myth? I say the media is where we see primary examples. 

One obvious answer of WHO IS perpetuating the myth is the children's stories like "The Little Train That Could." However, lately I think that children's shows have been doing better about portraying the myth. We can all probably list a TV show that depicts this situation to be commonly occurring. TV shows like The Rugrats.. etc.. HOWEVER! The difference in these shows is we can see a kernel of truth lying behind these myths.  

In the Rugrats we can see an example of correct self affirmation in the heart of the character that we all know and love. Chuckie Finster. Chuckie's the person in the show who is labeled the scaredy cat, but pulls through in some situations because he believes that he can. Such bravery in the heart of babies. In the TV show, we see an important distinction in the context of the myth. The myth can apply to both realistic, and unrealistic situations. Every situation that the Rugrats find themselves in is completely realistic. 

Although the media is a primary driver for perpetuating the myth, it seems to be portraying it in a way that is less intense than the "Little Engine That Could." Rather nowadays, there are more situations that we find ourselves in and still do emphasize preparation as necessary. Hey Arnold shows an episode where a player on Arnold's team is having a tough time with free shots, and Arnold trains him to believe in himself rather than relying strictly on skill itself. In Hey Arnold, training in self affirmation was emphasized all along, but paired with physical training as well. 

Another situation in which we see the kernel portrayed in the right way is in nearly EVERY KARATE/FIGHT/KUNG FU/ JUJITSU/ HIIYAAHH movie you've ever seen in your entire lifetime. There is a point where the main character of the movie is paired against someone who is ridiculously good, and the ridiculously good person just crushes the main character. Let's take for example.. The Karate Kid. Daniel san finds himself paired against an opponent who makes him feel like he'll lose. Then we see the power of self affirmation, paired with physical skill. This should be a vivid example of how self affirmation should be encouraged, but not emphasized as the only thing that you need. 

Why does this myth matter to me?

I know it seedms like I'm doing a lot for something that you may not think I'm passionate about. That's where I say HA! I am passionate about this, and I feel like this self affirmation myth applied a lot to my childhood. This is personal information that I'm about to give out.. 

When I was in the third grade I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, and was put on a variety of medications, the first one being Ritalin. I had a psychiatrist that I saw at the time who asked me if I was distracted easily on the medication, or what I thought about me being on the medication. Ritalin not only made it harder for me to do well in school, but it made me suicidal. When I asked my mother about this, she said, "I didn't really like putting you on the medication, but it was for school, and I didn't know any better. The psychiatrist started telling me things that would make you better, but I didn't know what better meant. You were such a drone on that medicine, and when you would start to come off you would start mumbling really negative things about yourself. I would hear you say, 'I hate myself, I hate myself, I don't even know why I'm alive,' and it broke my heart. I really didn't know what to do, but they kept giving us different medications and I didn't know what would be better or not." 

From this point on the psychiatrist told me that as long as I told myself positive things you would get better. Well.. fill in the blank, my condition did not get better, and I barely passed through almost every one of my grades. I had flash cards that would have encouraging phrases on them, and every night before going to sleep I was forced to say, "I am a good person, I am a good person," or phrases that encouraged my mindset. These phrases came to no avail, because I still felt depressed all the time. 

Before entering O'Dea High School located in Seattle, WA, my mother gave me a choice. She told me I was old enough to decide for myself whether I wanted to be on medication or not. I told her I didn't want to be on the medication anymore. Second quarter of Freshmen year of high school I received my first honors certificate, a GPA of 3.5 or above. From there on I received honors for nearly every quarter. 

So the moral of my story is, that self affirmation is not the only thing that you need to help yourself. Take it from me. 

Examples In Popular Culture! Pt 2

This film originally aired in 1963.

It's a really awesome video, and if you read the book as a child I doubt you'll have to watch the whole video to get a message. It is an awesome example of popular culture though because this is been perpetuated in society for a long time, most of us can actually probably recall this video or book at one point in our life. However in the video, we can obviously see that the engine of the "train that could" had broken down, which probably implies some mechanical and technical errors. Merely thinking you can, probably won't fix a train with just positive feedback. Not to mention that because of the steam shutting off, there is probably an engine problem in and of itself. To further disprove this, a small train probably does not have the strength a train PLUS its load of various things.

Examples in Popular Culture! Pt. 1

Will Smith- I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson 

Now, not only is this very funny, but it is a perfect example of how a positive attitude does not always get you a victory. And it's family APPROPRIATE! 

2 old men:

Hey...hey leroy...leroy

Yeah

Did you hear about that boy mike tyson?

Mike...mike tyson he's the boy
That played football from montreal ain't he?

No no you old coop, he a...he a boxer man

Yeah

Let me tell ya I went to his fight a couple months ago.
I seen him hit this boy, and he hit the boy so hard
His head flew off into the eigtheenth row

(laughing)

They had to get his head out of the eighteenth row

[prince & jeff]
I was in jeff's crib one night about eight
And we were watchin'a couple of mike tyson fight tapes
Jeff was like...

Man, you see how hard mike's punchin'?

Come on jeff the other guy was just lungin'
Left, right, left, right, another k.o.
If that was me I'd a been ok though
The very next day I gave russell a ring
With j.l. and omar we all called don king
I said 'yeah, don I got a problem

Tell 'em prince

'yeah what's up? what you sayin? you tryin' to solve 'em? '
'forget the small talk let's get to the nitty gritty'
'me and mike, two months, trump, atlantic city'

Yo, you got this you gonna bust dude up

Yeah, you can be my trainer

Word up?

I'm rough like a freight train smooth like ice
And yo jeff, straight up, I think I can mike tyson

Man, you can beat him, you can beat him

Yo man, word up
Yo I put on a couple of pounds man we can do this

You can do it

Newspaper boy, old men:

Extra, extra read all about it
Fresh prince challenges iron mike tyson to a fight
(laughing)
Ah he's crazy

Ain't that the boy who knocked the guy's head in the fifthteen row?

Hey leroy, you read the paper?
That boy done lost his man

[prince, barber]
There was press conference to see what training I was doing
Before then I had never heard reporters booing
Cameras flashing I was in the middle
I didn't wanna look dumb so I exagerrated a little
I said uh I been training 2o hours a day
Lifting big old cars and big bails of hay (that's what he's doin')
And I run 10,000 miles every morning
Thinkin' about mike and my moment of glory
(tell 'em more)
I drink water 20 gallons a pop
And I can throw a volkswagon a whole half block
(he can do it too)
And 4 million sit ups...in a minute....
..i ain't lying I did it
(he done it)
The general public thought I was a fool
I was gettin' dissed but I guess that was cool
Well gettin' dissed is never good
But I was even gettin' dissed in my old nieghborhood
I was at the corner at the top of my block
There was a couple of people standing outside of the barber shop
It was larwence, my barber, and franny
He yelled out

Hey, prince, you can win!

I said 'really? ' and I stopped to chat

You could beat him man, if you hit him wit a bat
Ha ha...you gon' get whipped
But can I have your shoes when he break your neck?

Everybody was laughin' out loud
I thought at least my own grandma would be proud
I went to her house and snuck in to surpise her
I heard her on the phone
(a thousand bucks on tyson)

[prince, ring announcer]
It's fight day and man am I hyped
Woah I can't wait to see mike
Boy I'm hyped ready to be my thing
Trump castle casino

In this corner...weighing in
At a mere 165 pounds, the lighting rodent,
The fresh prince! (booing)

And in this corner...
The heavyweight champion of the world...
Iron mike tyson (cheering)

I came out hustling sliding and grabbing
Slippin' and dippin' hustlin' and jabbin'
For a second I looked good out there
But then mike brought to reality my worst nightmare
One punch, that's all it took (oooh)
He hit me in my ribs and my insides shook
Now how can I say this and be a little discreet
Let's just say that my bowels released
I called timeout and went back to my corner
Said to my coach 'ain't no way I'm goin'
The hell back out there, man you can't forget it'
My body's like a punchin' bag and mike is gonna (hit it)
They tried to make me go meet my doom
But I sucker punched my coach and hauled to my dressing room
The next day the headline in the town
'fresh prince breaks camp, tyson wins first round'
Some fool asked why I ran away
I said 'a good run is better than a bad stand anyday'
My career is over as far as fightin'
But I don't know what made me think I can beat mike tyson

2 old men:

Hey leroy!

Yeah

Did you see the fight? did you see the fight?

The..the..the football player?

No the boxer, come on man
I was at the fight last night
I paid four hundred and seventy fo' thousand dollars
For my ticket right...

Ah, you weren't at no fight
I seen you around here last night

..and the boy..the boy ran out the ring

You always lying

I ain't lying...

You lie to your grandkids..

..i seen it...

...you been lying ever since you was a little kid

...mike tyson punched the boy in his ribs, and his leg fell off
His leg fell off and it fell over...

...you always lying

...and it knocked the hbo camerman's camera fell out his hand
I said, God damn, I couldn't beleive it leroy
You shoulda been there...you definetly shoulda been there

...i was right next to you playin' checkers

But, but, but.. Self affirmation REALLY did help!

Here are some mind traps and human reasoning errors that may contribute to an improper skew of the myth at hand throughout society:

POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER HOC: Translated to English from Latin this translates to “After this, therefore because of this.” This is a primary fallacy that traps people into believing in this myth because it so strongly relates to it. So let’s break this one down. Say an event, A happens, and because of A, B happens. How about we fill in the blanks? Say, someone has been really depressed for a long time, and then they watch a video on YouTube about self affirmation and they feel a transformation in the way that they live their life.. you can probably fill in the rest. So there HAS to be a relationship between A and B right? This implies that A CAUSED B. The example cited in Lilienfield is that most serial killers eat cereal as a child (14). Of course, we can not assume that EVERY child that eats cereal is going to be a serial killer. So the reason that I cited that example to disprove this myth is because having a positive attitude is one aspect of being able to improve your quality of life. A positive attitude can give you a mental boost, but it is not the only thing necessary, because only thinking a positive thought does not get anything done.

CONFIRMATION BIAS: This reasoning error states that you only look for evidence that proves your statement, in this case only proves the self affirming myth. This is also a primary reason that people fall victim to the self affirming myth because it is similar to the myth that “positive attitude cures cancer.” My psychology class disproved this myth earlier on the quarter by stating that the reason that it is a myth is because we only look at people who say that they have been cured by their own positive attitude and use them as examples. The self affirming myth reiterates itself here by appealing to the sentimental side of us. In order for us to be logical we have to look at the bigger frame of the myth though. We can look at many different cases of one achieving success, but at some point we have to ask what really caused it? Was it really only the individual’s positive attitude?  We can not look at success as the direct, and only, result of positive attitude and self affirmation.

--SEEING WHAT WE WANT TO SEE: We each look at life our own unique and awesome way. With every way different, each of us has opinions on how things work. This means that due to our personal opinions we may lean one way on an issue and another way on a different issue. Some of those issues we may be biased on. For some of those issues we may research it and only take information that we can use to prove our side of an issue. For this myth, we may see only what we want to see because we only want to prove our point and this can lead to a heavy distortion of the myth itself.

CAUSATION vs. CORRELATION: This may seem very similar to Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, but it is different in the sense that it casually implies a relationship between A and B. This implies that the relationship between A and B is either that: A caused B, B caused A, or there is a third variable C. Many people jump to the conclusion that A causes B, but where is C in this equation? Is it plausible to say that A directly caused B?  The answer is no, because we do not know all of the factors that can be taken into account to get to the final result of B.

So.. How else can I think of this?

You're probably asking yourself, and frankly, I'm here to answer it. The better way to think of it is saying, "A positive self affirming attitude draws more self encouragement and improve the way that you look at the situation." It may be wordy, but it captures the essence of the myth. Aside from the original saying (You can do it if you just believe you can!) it is still encouraging a positive attitude but leaves room for minor error. We can all think of a time where we walked out of the classroom saying to ourselves, "Dude, I totally aced that test!" Then we come back the next class period, get that test back, and see a grade much lower than we expected. It's a situation that happens in daily life, and the modern words we would use for the original phrase is probably along the lines of, "Man, I am totally going to OWN this test," or, "I am going to make smoldering mince meat out of this test!" As we see though, it does not always hold true. So in conclusion a positive attitude will boost your positive outlook on a situation, but it does not prevail as the ONLY thing that you need. 

What do people really mean?

What do people mean when they say this phrase? A meaning that can be interpreted through this saying is that, "All you need is positive affirmation!" It seems as if when this is said, it is being taken as mindset change being the only change needed to be made. As it was said in the websites, just this positive mindset can change your life and make a bigger effect than you ever imagined. It seems like it is considered by the masses to be the same exact way. The concept seems to be surrounded by the words “all you need” but is it really? A more popular example of this seems to be in this situation:

                “You’re sitting there underprepared for a show you’re about to put on, and you can’t help but feel nervous about what the results will be. Whether or not you will be able to remember everything, whether or not you will be able to make the crowd love it. If you mess up, you know it will be your fault. Someone walks by and then tells you, “Just say you can do it, and you can.” You step out on stage with a positive attitude, feeling like you will be able to do everything regardless of your under preparedness.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it almost seems like we’ve all been in a situation like this before. Whether it be for a school play, a musical performance, a project, etc..  

So how can I research this?

When researching this particular topic it's no surprise that if you plug the words "self esteem" or "self affirmation" into a search engine you'll get a whole bunch of websites on how it helps, and rarely will you find anything leaning in the opposite direction. Here's some examples of those types of websites that you won't get anything out of:

http://www.more-selfesteem.com/affirmations.htm : This is a nice website that you'll find yourself saying "aw that sounds nice" to. However there are no scientific facts to back up anything being said on this website. The books that are listed on the website are authored by people who are of no significant psychological importance, nor have their books made any groundbreaking pioneering in the field which they are writing about. Upon further research, Dr. Ingrid Schweiger listed at the bottom of the page is the only doctor listed. Usually there are more doctors that would back up such a concept, but only one is listed which seems a little skeptical.   

http://www.abundance-and-happiness.com/self-esteem.html : This is a really nice place to go to if you want to lose yourself within philosophical thoughts, and think about some "principles of being." I am not complete discrediting the impact that these have upon an individual's life, but I am saying that there is no research to back up anything being said here. Yet, how can a doctor/ scientist back up accurately philosophical context? You can't, but you can provide examples of how it is scientifically possible.  

http://www.vitalaffirmations.com/ : Another website that offers really nice insights on living life, but emphasizes on some things that aren't necessarily true. This website claims that just by using powerful thinking techniques and watching self affirming visualizations that you can achieve anything that you want to. While it allows hope to spring within you, it simply is not true. Self affirming does not do all of those things in and of itself, while the website proclaims it to accomplish just that.

http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_00000a.htm : Similar to the other websites, this website looks at how much potential you can unleash within you. However, this website goes even further to say that by saying, "I am getting slimmer" you will actually start to do so because saying positive things evokes such a positive mindset. The reason that this is false, but so emotionally appealing, is because the mindset is not everything in a situation made an example of. The mindset is one aspect of it, but the action is an entirely different route.


In opposition to this, here are some professionally experiments you SHOULD look at:

International Journal on Disability and Human Development // Self-Esteem as an Important Mind-Body Aspect : Though I can not find a URL that links to this particular experiment, it was published in pages 191-196 in this journal of June 2009. The study follows 43 patients who were given 20 sessions at a cost of 1,600 Euros each to attempt to improve quality of life. The patients issues were some type of old emotional pain (ie, childhood trauma) and tried therapy to help them improve their quality of life. Upon a self esteem boost, the patients found themselves improving in nearly all aspects of life including socially, emotionally, sexually, etc.

Human Development Vol. 52 (4) // The Role of Self-Compassion in Development : A Healthier Way to Relate to Oneself : This is a peer reviewed journal released in June 2009 that emphasizes on self compassion rather than self esteem. An interesting way to look upon the subject, the abstract brings up the case of having a self esteem that leads to narcissism as opposed to a healthy life style. From this article we can see an ambiguous meaning in what "self esteem" could really be defined as, or if it can have one set definition. This article proposes that self compassion is composed of three aspects; first being self kindness versus self judgment, the second as a sense of common humanity versus isolation, and the third being mindfulness versus over identification.

Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 77 (3) // Work and the Most Terrible Life :: This article does not have to apply directly to the topic at hand, but it is a nice example to use to show a differentiation. It is an analysis of a work describing a man who was positively motivated for all the wrong reasons yet fails to live a meaningful life. I am posting this article to show that you can be positively motivated and do all of the things that you wish to accomplish, but it will not necessarily bring about happiness or a heightened sense of self esteem.

Child Development : Myths and Misunderstandings : Published this year, author Jean Mercer attempts to debunk a variety of myths about child development. One of which blatantly states that high self esteem helps children perform better in school. While I do not own the book, this blog is dedicated to trying to figure out why it is (or could be) a myth through research, and not a few mere paragraphs of a book.

Sources Cited:

Perera, K. ( 2001). How can affirmations increase your self esteem? More Self Esteem. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from http://www.more-selfesteem.com/affirmations.htm

Abundance-And-Happiness. (2005). Retrieved May 17, 2010, from http://www.abundance-and-happiness.com/self-esteem.html

The Positive Mindset Website. (2007). Vital Affirmations For Your Life. Retrieved May 18, 2010 from http://www.vitalaffirmations.com/

Sasson, R. (2001). The Power of Affirmations. Success Conscience. Retrieved May 18, 2010, from http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_00000a.htm

Professional Materials:

Ventegodt, S., Kandel, I., & Menick, J. (2009). Self-esteem as an important mind-body aspect. International Journal on Disability and Human Development. 8(2), 191-196.

Neff, K. D. (2009). The role of self-compassion in development: A healthier way to relate to oneself. Human Development. 52(4), 211-214.

Michaelson, C. (2008). Work and the most terrible life. Journal of Business Ethics. 77(3), 335-345.

Mercer, J. (2010). Child development: Myths and misunderstandings. Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.

Youtube Search Results: Self Affirmation.

I took a search on Youtube of self affirmations, and here's one of the video's I found. This along with a vast amount of video's claiming that, "if you watch this every morning you will be able to feel it working within your life and you will start to do better." So to repose the question of the question at hand...

-Can watching this video really help you do better in life? 

Hey man, what is this here?

That's probably what you're asking yourself, and well, I'm here to answer that. I am a Psychology/Music double major currently attending Seattle University. You're probably thinking to yourself, "So what? What does this have to do with me?"

In response to that, have you ever heard someone say:

-"Just believe you can do it, and you WILL do it!"
-"Tell yourself constantly how AWESOME you are!"
-"People with high self esteem do way better than people who don't have that same mindset."

Does that really help you accomplish the goal that you are pursuing? Or does it put more pressure on you? Does it help your productivity?

I'm here to get to the bottom of this perpetuated saying in society. There is a strong belief that if you have high self esteem than you will be more productive, while at the same time producing better results.

Let's find out if it's true or not. With research I intend to help you, as well as me, figure out if this is absolutely true, partially true, or completely false.