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Joanthan Haidt article on why 'emotional thinking' causes depression in young women

56 replies

purplevipersgrass · 13/03/2023 10:45

It's quite a long article and covers a lot of ground, but basically it posits that the kind of catastrophic ('Terfs want to hurt and kill transpeople'), black and white (TWAW, No Debate) and emotional thinking ('Ignore the facts, be kind') that we associate with TRAs and young people is responsible for actively causing depression — particularly among young liberal women. Being conservative and less inclined to being a bleeding heart offers some protection.

Haidt points out that CBT, used to treat depression, is designed to tackle and dismantle these unhelpful ways of thinking, but movements such as genderism instil and rely on them.

jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

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Original poster
purplevipersgrass · 13/03/2023 11:19

I had a degree of control, not a degree from a very early age! The degree came later!

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purplevipersgrass · 13/03/2023 11:18

It was interesting that he linked Frank Furedi's work in the noughties about the loss of freedom and risk in childhood to the loss of internal locus of control. I'm in my 60s and was allowed to roam, unsupervised, with other children (within limits, my mum was relatively cautious). Now I look back at some of the things we got up to, and some of the things I refused to get involved with, and I can see clearly that I learned that I had a degree of from a fairly young age. Very different to some of the extremely risk-adverse parenting that goes on now, with children hovered over even when they're at university. It explains the awful passivity of some children and yes, clearly, their depression.

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TheBiologyStupid · 13/03/2023 11:16

I think I came across this the other day via Glinner. It's excellent, as is the piece that Haidt wrote for The Atlantic in 2015 with Greg Lukianoff, "The Coddling of the American Mind": archive.ph/RlsTg

They later co-authored a book of the same name.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 13/03/2023 11:02

It's such a good piece.

This section about locus of control is particularly informative :
"Locus of control. As first laid out by Julian Rotter in the 1950s, this is a malleable personality trait referring to the fact that some people have an internal locus of control—they feel as if they have the power to choose a course of action and make it happen, while other people have an external locus of control—they have little sense of agency and they believe that strong forces or agents outside of themselves will determine what happens to them. Sixty years of research show that people with an internal locus of control are happier and achieve more. People with an external locus of control are more passive and more likely to become depressed".

He pulls together so much of the research about how this affects girls / young women in particular.

I love that he finishes by recommending that people listen to the Witch trial podcast.

bellac11 · 13/03/2023 10:51

Yes this is nothing new and I have posted about this type of thinking on depression threads a lot. I think its a big contributor to the increase in MH or emotional wellbeing difficulties for young people

Rightsraptor · 13/03/2023 10:51

I read that over the weekend and it's an excellent & considered piece. I want to go back through it and pull out the 'learning points' so I can help keep my DGD on track.