First, I want to thank @Bacchus who has inspired me, encouraged me to make this post and has provided useful feedback.
The purpose of this draft is to help to develop a theory that tries to identify and overcome resistance in its whole. It is intended to be practical while removing difficulties during the learning process, and could be very useful for seduction. Note that the following theory is based on reads and observations and is not set in stone.
Context
This is a development of a larger idea about human behavior. This idea states that in order to have compliance towards a certain action two factors must be adjusted : motivation and resistance.To achieve high levels of compliance one must have high motivation and low resistance.
Let me give you an example :
A robot is programmed to do a certain task. Once the order is sent, the robot activates its motors and starts the task. One reason the robot couldn’t achieve the task is lack of energy to make those motors work that would be the analogue of lack of motivation -. Another reason could be that the robot hasn’t been used since long and now is rusty and it can’t move, wasting energy – that would be the analogue of being resistant-.
As one could expect, the solutions of those issues differ. Charging the batteries of the robot will not make it move if it is rusty.
In the same way, if one is highly resistant, no amount of motivation will be enough to start being active. Actually, I believe that motivation can trigger resistance… So that approach isn’t the correct one in such case. Instead, one should aim to reduce the levels of resistance -just enough to be functional, resistance can be exciting or help you in your learning process as I’ll explain later -.
If you are interested in this theory and you would like to know more, ask for it and I will gladly write more about it.
The theory
So now, when does resistance happen ?
Well, I believe it is when there is a cognitive, emotional or behavioral conflict. I call them, cognitive dissonance, frustration and behavioral incongruency.
Example of behavioral incongruency : learning to do something new or restarting after a long pause will trigger resistance. So when starting out you will tend to under-perform partly due to this effect. If the resistance is too high it may lead to a give up. I think in seduction it is called momentum.
One way of dealing with resistance is finding out what triggers the resistance and fixing it. However, it is very specific to the action, needs skill in order to find out what really triggers the resistance, and may only be solved by finishing the task -in such case, highly resistant people are unlikely to overcome it this way by their own-. This is the approach of psychotherapies, such as CBT.
Otherwise, I hypothesize that there are innate mechanisms that help us to deal with resistance. Such mechanisms do so by letting us know that there is something wrong, allowing us to attempt to fix what is wrong – this is the way I described in the previous paragraph-. These mechanisms reveal the existence of resistance. When one "experiences" resistance, what one is really experiencing are those mechanisms, those can be instantaneous. Whereas these mechanisms should help us to identify and solve what triggers resistance, if they are too demanded they actually end up increasing the resistance.
Furthermore, there can be a feedback effect with those, increasing resistance indefinitely.
So the aim of this approach is to prevent resistance from happenning by blocking those mechanisms.
I provide the following diagram in order to understand what those mechanisms are and how their relationship with resistance.
In this diagram, the different kinds of resistance are represented by colored circles and the mechanisms I talked about previously are represented by arrows, with their names next to them.
The ones I am unsure about are followed by an interrogation mark, these are related to what the mechanism is but they arent exactly it.
When one is resistant towards something, a sudden activation of one (or both) of the outing responses – the mechanism that leads to another kind of resistance in the diagram- happens.
Example – hypothetical, but it may be easy to find similar cases :
Guy tries to pick up girls but doesn’t get any results. Being frustrated, he rationalizes that girls don’t like him because he is poor. One day he meets a poorer guy, but he gets the results he wished he could get. This creates cognitive dissonance, which leads to anxiety. Not knowing what to do with that amount of anxiety, he starts feeling hopeless, which will make him more frustrated. In order to deal with such frustration he uses closed up body language/shy behavior or he engages again in rationalization, let’s say by telling himself that nobody likes him – which can create an endless feedback-.
Solutions
Now that all this has been explained, lets take a look of some of the solutions I’ve found:
Thanks for reading,
Klimax
The purpose of this draft is to help to develop a theory that tries to identify and overcome resistance in its whole. It is intended to be practical while removing difficulties during the learning process, and could be very useful for seduction. Note that the following theory is based on reads and observations and is not set in stone.
Context
This is a development of a larger idea about human behavior. This idea states that in order to have compliance towards a certain action two factors must be adjusted : motivation and resistance.To achieve high levels of compliance one must have high motivation and low resistance.
Let me give you an example :
A robot is programmed to do a certain task. Once the order is sent, the robot activates its motors and starts the task. One reason the robot couldn’t achieve the task is lack of energy to make those motors work that would be the analogue of lack of motivation -. Another reason could be that the robot hasn’t been used since long and now is rusty and it can’t move, wasting energy – that would be the analogue of being resistant-.
As one could expect, the solutions of those issues differ. Charging the batteries of the robot will not make it move if it is rusty.
In the same way, if one is highly resistant, no amount of motivation will be enough to start being active. Actually, I believe that motivation can trigger resistance… So that approach isn’t the correct one in such case. Instead, one should aim to reduce the levels of resistance -just enough to be functional, resistance can be exciting or help you in your learning process as I’ll explain later -.
If you are interested in this theory and you would like to know more, ask for it and I will gladly write more about it.
The theory
So now, when does resistance happen ?
Well, I believe it is when there is a cognitive, emotional or behavioral conflict. I call them, cognitive dissonance, frustration and behavioral incongruency.
Example of behavioral incongruency : learning to do something new or restarting after a long pause will trigger resistance. So when starting out you will tend to under-perform partly due to this effect. If the resistance is too high it may lead to a give up. I think in seduction it is called momentum.
One way of dealing with resistance is finding out what triggers the resistance and fixing it. However, it is very specific to the action, needs skill in order to find out what really triggers the resistance, and may only be solved by finishing the task -in such case, highly resistant people are unlikely to overcome it this way by their own-. This is the approach of psychotherapies, such as CBT.
Otherwise, I hypothesize that there are innate mechanisms that help us to deal with resistance. Such mechanisms do so by letting us know that there is something wrong, allowing us to attempt to fix what is wrong – this is the way I described in the previous paragraph-. These mechanisms reveal the existence of resistance. When one "experiences" resistance, what one is really experiencing are those mechanisms, those can be instantaneous. Whereas these mechanisms should help us to identify and solve what triggers resistance, if they are too demanded they actually end up increasing the resistance.
Furthermore, there can be a feedback effect with those, increasing resistance indefinitely.
So the aim of this approach is to prevent resistance from happenning by blocking those mechanisms.
I provide the following diagram in order to understand what those mechanisms are and how their relationship with resistance.
In this diagram, the different kinds of resistance are represented by colored circles and the mechanisms I talked about previously are represented by arrows, with their names next to them.
The ones I am unsure about are followed by an interrogation mark, these are related to what the mechanism is but they arent exactly it.
When one is resistant towards something, a sudden activation of one (or both) of the outing responses – the mechanism that leads to another kind of resistance in the diagram- happens.
Example – hypothetical, but it may be easy to find similar cases :
Guy tries to pick up girls but doesn’t get any results. Being frustrated, he rationalizes that girls don’t like him because he is poor. One day he meets a poorer guy, but he gets the results he wished he could get. This creates cognitive dissonance, which leads to anxiety. Not knowing what to do with that amount of anxiety, he starts feeling hopeless, which will make him more frustrated. In order to deal with such frustration he uses closed up body language/shy behavior or he engages again in rationalization, let’s say by telling himself that nobody likes him – which can create an endless feedback-.
Solutions
Now that all this has been explained, lets take a look of some of the solutions I’ve found:
- Immersion. Immersion will help one to reduce awareness/self-awareness. This can be super helpful while adopting new behaviors. It basically helps you to not be “in your head”, being over-analytical and not focusing on the task. From what I’ve found out there are different mechanisms at work when one is immersed:
- Tactical immersion: Being challenged a bit by the execution of a task. This requires you more attention to achieve it.
- Strategic immersion: Being challenged cognitively, ie: you want to solve a mystery.
- Narrative immersion: Being invested in a history.
- Trance states: induced by hypnosis, meditation, music, binaural beats, etc.
This can explain why students may find that studying at home is harder than at the library. Because at the library one has a narrative immersion process -one expects oneself to study and see others doing so- and a tactical immersion as one is focused on a challenging task and is not perturbed by distractions. I am trying to figure out more specific ways of achieving immersion.
- TRE: Addresses anxiety. This has been explored by @Carousel, here is his thread about it. I am trying to know more exactly how TRE works in order to see if it addresses anything more. It has been field tested by many members of this forum.
- Contentment: This will help one to avoid feeling regret. This is helpful when one does something new but doesn’t perform as intended. Regret will eventually lead to frustration. So far I’ve found that cardiac coherence can help achieving this, there are techniques about it, I've tested it and I do feel less frustrated and do not feel regretful. I am also doing research about emotional openness to experiences and how to achieve it since it seems directly related to regret, it is also one of the domains of the Big Five personality traits and so it is likely that there is research about it.
- Stretching and exercising: Reduces stiffness and thus will help to diminish behavioral incongruency. A good program specifically made for seduction is Code Of The Natural (COTN). You can read about it in Carousel's thread I linked above.
- Other solutions: the are still many mechanisms uncovered!
Thanks for reading,
Klimax
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