To love someone is to know and understand them.

It takes time and experience, so that means we have taken the time to care, trust and respect.

Love is an action, mentality and attitude, not just a feeling.

We can only know the truth and extent of our feelings when we're supporting it with loving actions and thinking.

When we love, we allow ourselves to be seen and we let ourselves see the other person instead of focusing on the picture we’ve painted in our mind. We are capable of loving and caring for ourselves as well as someone else.

##AND YOU SHOULD ALSO RE

To be loved by someone is be known and understood by them.

It takes time and experience, so that means they have taken the time to care, trust and respect.

Love is an action, mentality and attitude, not just a feeling.

We can only know the truth and extent of their feelings when they're supporting it with loving actions and thinking.

When someone loves us, they allow themselves to be seen and they truly see us instead of focusing on the picture they've painted in their mind. They are capable of loving and caring for themselves as well as us when they back it up with their actions.

-Natalie Lue, excerpted and adapted from What It Means to Love Someone

Reflective orientation is probably what first comes to mind when you think about a 'smart' person: it involves logic, rationality, control over emotions, and the application of past experiences.

Imagine a brilliant scientist who spends all their time in the lab studying the mysteries of the Universe, carefully analysing data and drawing conclusions based on evidence. This individual exemplifies the reflective aspect of wisdom.

On the other hand, socio-emotional awareness involves caring for others, active listening, and the ability to navigate complex and uncertain social situations.

Picture a compassionate teacher who not only imparts knowledge but also takes the time to understand each student’s unique needs and challenges, flexibly adapting to their needs. This teacher embodies the socio-emotional dimension of wisdom.

We found that the two dimensions are closely related, and people think about both of them when determining whether to label a character as wise.

...findings revealed a surprising commonality in how people around the world perceive wisdom in themselves and others, with both the key dimensions receiving a similar weighting across all cultures. We think this commonality is likely rooted in the need to get ahead and the need to get along, which some scholars have referred to as fundamental human needs.

Getting ahead involves recognising who is competent and has the agency to make things happen

– qualities that align with the reflective orientation dimension of wisdom.

Getting along requires abilities related to the socio-emotional awareness dimension of wisdom.

Part of this study also involved asking our participants to rate their own wisdom in comparison with the hypothetical characters. This revealed an interesting bias in self-perception that was also present across cultures. People generally acknowledged their own cognitive limitations, rating themselves lower in reflective orientation than the wisest individuals. However, they tended to see themselves as more socially and emotionally aware than most others. In other words, they were willing to acknowledge their cognitive imperfections but believed they excelled in empathy, communication and awareness of social context.

We propose that this universal bias in self-perception stems from differences in the feedback we receive in everyday life about ourselves in relation to the two dimensions of wisdom.

It is much harder to preserve an inflated sense of one’s reflective and analytic qualities because school grades and career outcomes constantly force us to calibrate our self-opinions.

However, when it comes to our socio-emotional awareness, there are fewer forms of objective feedback that compel us to adjust an inflated opinion.

Imagine an unpopular manager who believes he is caring and approachable because he has an 'open-door policy' – even if he hears a negative comment or two, it might be easier to ignore or downplay them than to ignore an exam failure or job rejection.

-Maksim Rudnev and Igor Grossmann, excerpted and adapted from Wisdom is a virtue, but how do we judge if someone has it?

This person found out how little effort they had to put in to keep you around — which was barely anything — as an emotional punching bag, as a "lesser" (in their mind)

...they could make comparisons with to inflate their own ego, and wanted to keep it that way forever. You growing a backbone isn't part of their plans, and so this person is reacting to the potential loss of supply. Don't let that loss be a potential one — cement it and cut them completely out.

This person will never ever EVER be a good friend to you.

-u/jewdiful, excerpted and adapted from comment

u/Acreage26, excerpted from comment

They want to project shows into this whole parasocial fandom thing. But the actors aren't these characters and are told they should be "honest and real" to be relatable now. We have to stop punishing actors for not lying that it's all real when they do press. Most romance tv-to-reality public relationships during publicity are fictional.

-Miranda Wheeler

Whenever you see a particularly egregious instance of abuse or bullying, having more discussions on 'supporting victims' won't be effective because the abuse/bullying is about pushing the victim to the bottom of the social hierarchy or enforcing their being there.

So #metoo or 'believe the victim' doesn't correct the issue, because this isn't actually about abuse, it's really about enforcing social status.

People keep trying to figure out the correct 'victim conversation' to fix things when that is not what situations like this are about.

-invah, adapted and expanded from comment

We hypothesized that people think about "thinking" in two ways.

• First, people are under the impression that "thinking" is the main way that they form new mental states like beliefs, desires, and intentions. (This proposal contrasts with various alternatives, like the idea that new mental states come from unconscious processes, or are simply created at will.)

• And second, people think this process works in a very particular way: "Thinking" automatically generates new mental states that are rational in light of the thoughts and concerns that go into it.**

Thinking about "thinking" in this way affects how changeable you expect people's minds to be.

On this view, people's minds will seem most changeable when their current thinking seems wrong or unfinished:

When someone holds an idea or desire that doesn't make sense, they're free to change it because all they have to do is start thinking about it. When they do, they will realize their mistake and their mind will automatically change as a result. For instance, someone who thinks that 3 x 4 = 14 is free to change their mind—all they have to do is think again to realize that 3 x 4 = 12.

But this view of the mind also implies that when someone already has perfectly sensible beliefs and desires, it should be hard for them to change their mind.

After all, thinking more about what to believe or what to want is no longer going to change their mind. Someone who already thinks that 3 x 4 = 12 cannot easily change their mind because additional thinking does not yield a different answer.

This may seem obvious, but it has a striking implication: People in circumstances in which only a single belief or desire potentially makes sense, and who already have that belief or desire, can't change their mind.

We found exactly what we predicted: Across all of these cases, people thought [this person] could change their mind only to the extent that doing so was rational.

This is all consistent with the naïve theory of reasoning

...according to which people can easily form beliefs and desires when they can use the information they have to come to a new, rational conclusion. But when they have already done that, they seem stuck with the beliefs and desires they have rationally formed. What we have not yet shown is that this stems from how we think about thinking.

So that was our next task: To see whether people thought that thinking itself was the thing that limited people’s freedom.

Our studies tested this hypothesis by asking people whether someone could change their mind if they could interfere with or manipulate how they think. For example, could someone form an irrational or self-destructive belief—to quit their job in a bad economy—if they could intentionally forget relevant information, like the actual state of the economy? Or could they keep that irrational belief if they avoided thinking about it altogether?

When we asked participants these kinds of questions, we observed totally different results.

Even though people still thought that these irrational attitudes were bad, they now thought that Rebecca and similar characters could easily form and keep them.

So, the constraints of rationality must apply only to thinking—not to other reactions someone might have to a situation, like sticking their head in the sand or selectively ignoring their evidence.

The same logic that applies to people's beliefs and desires also applies to their intentions, which are also a product of their thinking.

So, constraints on thinking also apply to intentions.

This is the sense in which [this person] is not "free." They are not being physically forced to keep their jobs or hand over their wallets. But because these options are the only ones that they can rationalize, they are forced into them psychologically. The facts of their situations mean that it is only possible for them to believe and desire a narrow set of options, and it is only possible for them to consciously choose among those narrow options, as well.

However, if we're right that people use a naïve theory of reasoning, the constraints of reason apply only to thinking.

They don't apply to reactive instincts or impulses or other behaviors people can be otherwise triggered into. In other words, people seem free to make arbitrary, irrational, and self-destructive decisions as long as they are able to suppress their thinking, or rationalize the irrational and self-destructive choices in question.

Having a clear model of how people intuitively think about freedom is useful for a few reasons.

The way we treat others heavily depends on whether we think they are free to believe, feel, and act differently. For instance, we blame people for holding political beliefs that differ from our own, and we do so because we think that they are free (but unwilling) to change their mind. If only they bothered to think, they would realize how right we are! Their failure to do so, in our minds, makes them ignorant or lazy.

The naïve theory of reasoning explains how this line of judgmental thinking arises, but it also contains the key to diffusing it.

When we better understand another person's reasons for believing and acting as they do, we are less likely to think that they are free to change their minds. At least, they aren’t free unless we give them new reasons and information to help them change their mind. And if we realize that they are limited in this way, we are more likely to engage in conversation rather than judgment.

It is important to note that our theory describes how people think about freedom in nearly ideal conditions.

When we gave people stories, we gave them perfect information about that person's situation and perspective. But the real world doesn't give us this information about others. And we're bad at coming up with this information on our own.

In fact, when we aren't thinking deeply about someone’s situation, we tend to assume, by default, that people are completely free to change their minds.

If we want to understand the psychological constraints that shape others' thinking, we need to understand their perspective. We need to start asking questions.

There's a riddle that goes like this: If you have three, you have three. If you have two, you have two. If you have one, you have none. What is it?

The answer, of course, is a choice.

Our work suggests that thinking about thinking as the source of freedom helps us understand where limits on choice seem to come from. In turn, we can think more clearly about how people and institutions—muggers and legislative bodies alike—shape our freedom through forces that are not only physical, but psychological.

-Corey Cusimano & Tania Lombrozo, excerpted and adapted from When do we have free choice?

Before I could manage my emotions, I had to accept my emotions. Before acceptance, I had to identify my emotions. Before identifying, I had to acknowledge my emotions. Before acknowledgement, I had to be honest with myself.

-@Rwenshaun, via Instagram

comment

"Addiction" to trauma work is not about seeking a thrill but stems from an emotional cycle that can be hard to break.

Repeated exposure to trauma activates the body’s stress response system, releasing adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones create a temporary rush, making the work feel energizing in the short term. However, without boundaries, this cycle leads to emotional wear and tear.

-Ankita Guchait, excerpted from Why Trauma Work Can Feel Addictive

This is the lasting impact of [abuse] to an innocent soul.

-Nate Postlethwait, adapted from Instagram

When a family breaks up over someone exposing their abuse, that someone was holding generations of family pain. They can say [the victim] broke up the family, but what they broke was the cycle. That family was broken the moment they started hiding the abuse.

-Nate Postlethwait, adapted from Instagram

Pay attention when a dating partner projects their insecurities onto you...

-excerpted from comment

...and it always came back to "Other people come and go from your life, but your family will always be there for you forever."

They made sure to devalue all my relationships outside the family so that I would think the extremely conditional love I received at home was the only way love worked. You do what others tell you and you don't bother people with your own feelings; if someone hurts you, it's up to you to get over it, and you'll be made to apologize for reacting badly to someone's harmful behavior, instead of the other way around.

What a surprise that for all my young life and most of my adult life so far I've ended up gravitating towards close friends who act the same ways.

Bossing me around, dismissing everything I said, making really mean comments about things I said or did or wore, then tried to say they were just joking. I had many a friend who would give me the silent treatment if I dared oppose anything from what movie to watch to the topic of conversation, until I was apologizing and begging forgiveness.

I legitimately thought that's how love worked.

The worst part is I'm so [naive] and trusting that I always give more chances or take any interaction at all, and that's how I end up getting used or hurt even more.

-u/3owls-inatrenchcoat, excerpted from comment