I have been googling what this is called when people do this. Supposedly with the advent of social media it has become alot more prevalent for people to declare the intent to or expressing an urge to begin a change in behavior. Obviously increasing the number of people to see your initial thought or intent.
Flooding the feed with likes or supporting comments, making the person less likely to actually follow through.
They already received praise for just the mere thought crossing their mind so why do any of that pesky stuff, like being a person of your word.
And if they needed a case study they could just go back through the years on good ol chinny... and in doing so it would be the only time anyone could use "control" and "chantal" in the same sentence.
But yeah if anyone knows what this is called lemme know thanks.
This is something I posted in the thread ages ago, and it even predates social media. The concept that visualizing yourself achieving goals helps motivate you to actually achieve them has been widely discredited in recent years, since it turns out the opposite is true: visualizing your goals and imagining yourself achieving them actually tricks your brain into releasing sweet dopamine that makes you
feel as good as if you had actually achieved your goal, and lessening your impetus to
actually achieve your goal, since your brain thinks the goal has been achieved already.
It’s why the most successful and hardworking people rarely daydream about success, while the least-motivated do nothing but.
Chantal’s goals are simple: be praised for being an inspiration to others, for whatever reason. Weight loss and eating healthy seem to be her only realistic vector to achieving that.
When Chantal posts her big announcements for a new cycle of “healthy eating and exercise,” her feed is flooded with arsepats and praise. Having received these things, her brain releases the sluicegate and the good happy feelings come pouring in. She has achieved her goal, which was simply
to be praised for setting a goal. Following through on the goal, though it would garner exponentially more praise, is unnecessary, because she got her dopamine hit from the initial praise on her announcement.
Even before social media existed, people going on diets were advised NOT to announce it to friends or family, because they would be less likely to follow through if they got that initial dopamine feedback hit and satisfied their brain thusly, rather than striving to meet their goal.
Chantal is just the most obvious example of this in practice: she announces goals to garner praise, the praise satisfies her brain’s pleasure center, she then no longer has a need to follow through on the announcement. One could argue that following through on her goals would get her far, far more praise in the long run, but Chantal has wired her own brain to only accept immediate, instant gratification and simply can’t tolerate delayed gratification of any kind. Why actually struggle for years to drop half her body weight in order to feel better, be healthier and receive accolades, when she can just post about it, get her dopamine hit, scrap the post, post again and get another small hit, scrap it, repeat.
She’s not smart enough to understand what diminishing returns are, though she’s going to learn about them soon enough.