We often think of the self as something that exists independent of social relations, but without society, there would be no need for a self or any of the concepts that relate to the self, including morality, duties, belonging, or reputation.

Roy F. Baumeister is a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland and is known for his work on several areas such as the self, self-control, self-esteem, motivation, and free will. His latest book is The Self Explained which builds on previous books, including The Power of Bad: And How to Overcome It, where he explores negativity bias and Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength.

Greg and Roy discuss how the notion of the self is used and why it evolved in the first place, along with the ways that humans are different from animals psychologically. Roy identifies a few key features of psychology and traces some of psychology’s concepts historically. In the end, they discuss the practicality and efficacy of different ways of building character and avoiding temptations.

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Episode Quotes:

What gets people to embrace morality? Why do they find it useful to do that?

16:48: We evolved to communicate and cooperate, that means your survival is essentially dependent on whether other people want to cooperate with you. So you need to figure out how to behave to keep cooperative partners in the future and to attract others. And morality is a blueprint for that. Morality is a set of rules: if you act this way and do the right things, other people will be glad to work with you and cooperate with you.

35:50: You're not learning as fast if you're not being criticized or told that what you did is fine, even when it's not. It's essentially lowering the standards.

On building up character

46:07: If you want to build up your strength of character, you have to expose yourself to temptation and overcome it.

Daily, regular exercise of self-control does make you stronger.

45:59: So we think self-control works like a muscle. When you use it, it gets tired. That's the immediate depleted willpower—the ego depletion effect. But when it recovers, especially if you do it regularly, as with a muscle exercise, it becomes stronger.

Punishment and criticism work better than praise and support

30:35: I understand the education establishment has ambivalence about punishment. It can create resentment and other things, but purely in terms of learning, if you only have one or the other, the punishment and criticism work better than the praise and support. And certainly praising people and telling them they're doing great when they're not has to have some cost in the long run, although it feels good to all concerned. Informationally, the best thing is to get both praise and criticism.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

Guest Profile:

His Work:

Roy Baumeister Podcast Appearances
Roy Baumeister on Google Scholar
Articles on Psychology Today
The Self Explained: Why and How We Become Who We Are (2022)
The Power of Bad: And How to Overcome It (2019)
Social Psychology and Human Nature, Comprehensive Edition 004 Edition (2016)
Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength (2011)
Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men (2010)
Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making?: A Hedgefoxian Perspective (2007)
Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence (2001)

267. Constructing the Self feat. Roy F. Baumeister

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc