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ego dystonic

Essays tagged “ego dystonic”. Follow an idea across the archive.

Essays on ego dystonic

2 essays

Jul 17, 2011LW

Ego syntonic thoughts and values

Scott explains how the brain presents socially acceptable desires as genuine values (ego syntonic) and unacceptable ones as external compulsions (ego dystonic) to improve social signaling, with willpower representing the balance between these forces.

8 min read 1,121 words

Jul 15, 2011LW

To what degree do we have goals?

Scott argues against negotiating with unconscious desires, distinguishing between behavior-executors (which have context-dependent urges) and utility-maximizers (which have stable preferences), and suggests we mistakenly model ourselves as the latter when we're actually the former.

13 min read 1,971 words

behavioral psychology Blue-Minimizing Robot decision theory