Comment · Thu, September 3, 2015 · Ceretropic & Nootropics Depot
One is the deadliest number: the detrimental effects of social isolation on cerebrovascular diseases and cognition (2015)
What they were answering
dingbat21 · 4 points
You can also develop the skill of not caring what people think.
this is good advice but even better would be to develop the skill of not caring that you do care about what people think. for evolutionary reasons humans are designed to care about what people think.. trying not to care is a fool's game, although its sometimes possible to fool oneself into believing this.
the odd thing is, of course, that once you stop caring about the fact that you do care, then you tend to stop caring so much. i think this is better than trying not to care because that can express itself in reactive rebellious juvenile behavior of loudly announced "I don't care what anyone thinks!" sort.
Nobody really judges me. The ones that do are probably not secure in who they are as it is, and are projecting.
this is a common refrain, "they must feel bad about themselves".. but in fact bullies and judgmental people are quite often very secure and have high self-esteem. if people try to pretend otherwise by telling themselves that kind of line, it can make it harder to believe in oneself as its partly based on a lie, and one that is distracting and unnecessary in the first place.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic & Nootropics Depot
Yeah, I read that study too. It showed that bullies have high reported self-esteem. However, other studies have shown bullies are actually very prone to issues with shame. They are shameful if there is something going wrong with their life or feelings, and use bullying as an outward force to distract from that which they are shameful of. They are not really secure with who they are on a deeper level, and that shows when things go wrong. They do tend to have less instances of depression, and do better in careers on average. However, that is because aggression and confidence is an advantageous trait in business, not because they are secure in who they are on an emotional level. Projection is a very powerful method to deflect issues, and is certainly not limited to those with low self-esteem.
Regardless, people who are judgemental are different than the traditional bullies they selected in that study. Bullies in the traditional sense use aggression and subversive tactics to gain advantage. Judgemental people are not trying to gain an outward advantage. They are cognitively comparing you to what knowledge and beliefs they hold, and rejecting conflicting ideas, so that they can remain secure in their own. That's totally different than bullying people to gain advantages over them. There is overlap in the groups, sure. But don't use that one study as a reason to call the projection/self-esteem link a lie.