Why do people engage in self destructive behaviors? | Forex Factory

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Why do people engage in self destructive behaviors?

  • #1
  • First Post: Apr 15, 2013 7:57am Apr 15, 2013 7:57am
OK all you amateur psychologists, here is a question for you to ponder. "Why do people engage in self destructive behaviors?" What makes someone do something they KNOW is destructive to them. Addiction is the first thing that comes to mind. Alcoholism, drug addiction, smoking. Why do individuals engage in these behaviors when it is proven that there are severe negative consequences to their health? Before you argue that addiction is physical, think again. Not all addictions are physical. How about those who purposely eat too much or to little. Or those that cheat on their spouses, or those who gamble?

Now before you start to click the delete button on this subject, think for a minute, this has a direct effect on your trading. What causes you to break you discipline when you KNOW it will not turn out well? What is it inside of us that says, "...well maybe THIS time it will work...I don't do it all the time." It is the same justification I hear being used in other self destructive behaviors. "This one cigarette won't cause cancer." "I won't get diabetes from this super size." "I just drink when I'm out with friends." "I know this trade isn't according to my strategy, but I think it will work out this time."

I am as guilty as anyone of the above statements (accept smoking). But what happens inside the human mind when this occurs? What is it inside of each of us that causes this? I ask this because I think that for me, (and I'm willing to bet, most of us), that discipline is a significant key to success in trading, and life for that matter. Understanding and correcting this seemingly small flaw could go a long way to improving just about everything life throws at us.

Is there some bio-chemical reaction that occurs at the synapse level that causes this kind of thinking? Is it just a human propensity to "sin" and therefore self destruct? Are there "treatments" for improving or preventing these types of behaviors? Or are we just victims of our own biology...those that have better discipline are born with it.

Any thoughts? Please keep comments constructive. Lets turn our analysis inward for a while and see what happens. Lets apply the same process we use in markets to analyze and evaluate ourselves...I think THIS is the area where this type of process will produce higher results.

Anyone?
  • #2
  • Apr 15, 2013 8:19am Apr 15, 2013 8:19am
Quoting gspajon
Is there some bio-chemical reaction that occurs at the synapse level that causes this kind of thinking?
Bingo. Case closed.
  • #3
  • Apr 15, 2013 8:43am Apr 15, 2013 8:43am
Quoting m.m.m.
Bingo. Case closed.
Do you know which bio chemical reaction that might be? Norepinephrine, or dopamine uptake, or what? Perhaps hyper production of acetylcholine? Do you actually know?
  • #4
  • Apr 15, 2013 9:26am Apr 15, 2013 9:26am
You hit the nail on its head!

This self destructive behaviour is nothing less than poor dicipline. There are so many traders who gives up trading because they simply cannot break the bad habit of not applying consistant and diciplined trading. It is difficult but definitely achieveable.
Forex trading is a great teacher by itself. It teaches the trader so much about himself. I love this game....it changed my life!
Identify your weaknesses and work hard to overcome them.
Never ever give up if you really want to succeed! Ones biggest enemy in this game is not your broker, big spreads, slippage etc but yourself.
gspajon...good thread started here!
Never Ever Give Up!
  • #5
  • Apr 15, 2013 9:46am Apr 15, 2013 9:46am
http://traderspodcast.com/episode103/
tradewith60
  • #6
  • Apr 15, 2013 10:47am Apr 15, 2013 10:47am
The smoking and drinking discipline is much broader and more obvious.

That kind of discipline could be measured in meters.

What we're talking about is much more subtle and inward. The kind of discipline that would be measured in millimeters or even less.
I'm not saying it is less important..... it is actually more important, it is just harder to see.

(We don't ask, "Why do I smoke?"..... that one is too obvious.)

To see the trading discipline, we need an internal microscope.

The breakdown in discipline is much less obvious in trading. Also, there are many confusing and conflicting signals in trading, so it is easy to pass self-sabotage as some kind of sugar-coated-capital-preservation or whatever reason we come up with to skip trade signals... hesitate..... take a late signal with high risk and less reward potential.

Nothing like re-stacking the odds even further against ourselves.

It is why we ask "Why"??....-- Why am I afraid to pull the trigger on a potential really good trade when, in comparison, I take really Sh!**y trades all the time with no fear at all... ??

Self Sabotage.

In fact, if one is not engaging in self-discipline, then they are engaging in sabotage.

I think it's either one or the other.
  • #7
  • Apr 15, 2013 10:56am Apr 15, 2013 10:56am
Quoting Price
The smoking and drinking discipline is much broader and more obvious. That kind of discipline could be measured in meters. What we're talking about is much more subtle and inward. The kind of discipline that would be measured in millimeters or even less. I'm not saying it is less important..... it is actually more important, it is just harder to see. (We don't ask, "Why do I smoke?"..... that one is too obvious.) To see the trading discipline, we need an internal microscope. The breakdown in discipline is much less obvious in trading. Also, there...
we like to take the shitty rule breaking trades because we automatically have an excuse which we can deflect from us failing... oh that trade doesn't count because.... etc etc

If we take the perfect set up following all the rules... and it losses... what then? maybe our strategy doesn't work? maybe we're no good at this? maybe we will never be any good at this?....

So our brain protects us from our biggest fear by making us avoid the truth...
tradewith60
  • #8
  • Apr 15, 2013 11:04am Apr 15, 2013 11:04am
Quoting 60minuteman
we like to take the... rule breaking trades....
I think there is a sense of "If I get these trades right I just might become well-to-do".

And I think we get scared of what the money means.

Actually.... I think that if these charts weren't about money, then it would be easy.

---- If we were analyzing water quality charts.... and our job was to watch for fluctuations in the chart which appear to have some follow-through.... so we could add just a little bit of chemical to maintain a nice even balance....... ----

Well if that were the case we would all probably be pretty good at it.

But the money.....
  • #9
  • Apr 15, 2013 11:09am Apr 15, 2013 11:09am
Quoting Price
If we were analyzing water quality charts.... and our job was to watch for fluctuations in the chart which appear to have some follow-through.... so we could add just a little bit of chemical to maintain a nice even balance....... ---- Well if that were the case we would all probably be pretty good at it.
haha.. That's awesome ;thumbs up
Time hides Nothing
  • #10
  • Apr 15, 2013 1:33pm Apr 15, 2013 1:33pm
Some good thoughts coming in folks, thank you for your responses. However, I'm looking to dig a bit deeper. Lets put some effort into analysis of this issue. Just like with trading. Find out the pattern, test it, then exploit it.

I realize that each of us may have a different pattern or reason for lack of discipline, but I truly feel this issue deserves some analysis.

What is the commonality in all occasions of "self sabotage" or "self destructive" behaviors? Why does a morbidly obese person continue eating that 33rd donut even though he/she KNOWS it will have extremely negative consequences. What is it that that individual says in his/her mind? It is something like, "oh if this is the only joy I get in life then I might as well eat this." Or could it be something like, "I know this is bad for me but I just can't help but eat the donut." Or perhaps, "I just don't care anymore."

On the same theme, what is that you say to yourself, when you move your stop in too close, or your open a trade that is NOT in keeping with your trading plan? Perhaps it is just making a trading plan to begin with? What happens, physically in our minds, and what happens psychologically in our minds that allows this to happen.

Some recent research on addiction shows that addictive behaviors, while knows to have long tern negative results, stimulate pleasure centers causing a "feed back loop" that is near impossible to break. Even though we KNOW the behavior is wrong or even dangerous, we get pleasure from doing it.

Is this the case with trading as well. Do we get pleasure from lack of discipline?

Still other in the same area of research say that avoidance behaviors cause lack of discipline, because we do not want to own up to the fact that we may have a flaw in our logic or technique and because we place so much "self worth" on our efforts that we do not want to think that there might be something wrong with it and fix it.

Some food for thought...any other thoughts out there...come on dig deep let do a little research into this issue and put it through the ringer.
  • #11
  • Apr 15, 2013 3:24pm Apr 15, 2013 3:24pm
Quoting gspajon
Some good thoughts coming in folks, thank you for your responses. However, I'm looking to dig a bit deeper. Lets put some effort into analysis of this issue. Just like with trading. Find out the pattern, test it, then exploit it. I realize that each of us may have a different pattern or reason for lack of discipline, but I truly feel this issue deserves some analysis. What is the commonality in all occasions of "self sabotage" or "self destructive" behaviors? Why does a morbidly obese person continue eating that 33rd donut even though he/she...
Maybe the obese person thinks hes not worthy.
Maybe traders think that trading for a living is too good to be true and he is not capable of such an awesome dream/life(subconsciously/not consciously examined).
  • #12
  • Apr 15, 2013 3:27pm Apr 15, 2013 3:27pm
Oh, I know for me that the tricky blighter is that people say you need screen experience to 'filter out those trades' that are bad (use subjectivity (otherwise you could just take every signal like a robot)), and then they say that you need to follow the rules. rules + subjectivity is a contradiction at the surface for me. I like trading styles that involve human pattern recognition that can be trained (harmonics!), so i know it would be hard to program a computer to do it.

so scared of intuition, and so scared of not following the rules, and if i follow the rules, im just going to ignore my intuition btw

-----------------------
People believe subjectivity is bad.
People believe following rules is good.
People believe that following rules with a touch of subjectivity is good.
People believe that if one could just follow the rules then an EA could do it (but so not true when rules require pattern recognition or some small discretion).

etc....

Noone ever untangles this. I guess trading just requires not giving up at least, and i like experimenting...

And finally trading involves seeking out your own answers, and once youve seeked out a good method, to actually experiment with that (or i guess you could just be discplined lol) , this is unlike what we are trained to do at school. So that was a big barrier for me.
  • #13
  • Apr 15, 2013 3:57pm Apr 15, 2013 3:57pm
What a wonderful subject for discussion!
https://linktr.ee/Soultrader
  • #14
  • Apr 15, 2013 7:03pm Apr 15, 2013 7:03pm
Quoting gspajon
What is the commonality in all occasions of "self sabotage" or "self destructive" behaviors?
I was going to say "escapism"

Just cut this off the web:

"Early Negative Experiences
In the case of self-destruction, the early negative experiences typically consist of a childhood abuse or trauma over which the child had no control. This kicks off the self-destructive behaviour, while lack of secure parental attachment helps maintain it."

So I think it's a control thing.

Also a quote from Courtney Love:

"I think that self-destructiveness can also mean self-reflection, can mean poetic sensibility, it can mean empathy, it can mean a hedonism and a libertarianism and a lack of judgement."

Food for thoughture
Time hides Nothing
  • #15
  • Edited Apr 16, 2013 5:08pm Apr 15, 2013 7:39pm | Edited Apr 16, 2013 5:08pm
Nobody beats the computer without insider access, nobody, not in chess, not in taxes, not in trading. Most traders when they finally wake up should be focusing on anger management not trade management wasting time, energy, and money on this s***. I enjoy trading one penny like it's the scam game that it is, but not to make money. I got my old car started and made a pip, so I'm happy again, and then I sat back and watched it act really pissed like that one eyed cyclops in The Odyssey. Fact: 99.6% of traders lose in forex. See Rookie Talk: Forex=Scam.

Inserted Video
  • #16
  • Apr 15, 2013 9:49pm Apr 15, 2013 9:49pm
Quoting jgray110
Nobody beats the computer without insider access, nobody, not in chess, not in taxes, not in trading. Most traders when they finally wake up should be focusing on anger management not trade management wasting time, energy, and money on this s***. I enjoy trading a penny like it's the game that it is, but not to make money. That's for you insiders who make FIVE BILLION DOLLARS IN TWO TRADES. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXyioV7P6hk
This is a 99.6% losers game.

Maybe I can consider "waking up", when traders "WAKE UP" and see that they are dealing with a CASINO EDGE, and thus will lose their money long term, and that they should quit, before its too late.

That's waking up. But some people dont wake up early enough.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
  • #17
  • Edited 5:44am Apr 16, 2013 4:23am | Edited 5:44am
Quoting MapleLeaf
This is a 99.6% losers game. Maybe I can consider "waking up", when traders "WAKE UP" and see that they are dealing with a CASINO EDGE, and thus will lose their money long term, and that they should quit, before its too late. That's waking up. But some people dont wake up early enough.
Oh boy. Set yourself a cut-off point monetary wise. If you reach it, get out of the game and stay away. It's as simple as that. If you find that you cannot leave the market alone, Gamblers Anonymous is there to help.

Some people are masochists. They derive pleasure from pain.
Nothing worth having is easy.
  • #18
  • Apr 16, 2013 5:13am Apr 16, 2013 5:13am
When you think you're going to self destruct, stop trading on your live account and go back to practice account until you're ready again. I know this is hard, it's like asking a smoker to quit smoking. That's why I prefer to trade in group. It's easier to help one another that way.
  • #19
  • Apr 16, 2013 5:33am Apr 16, 2013 5:33am
I think the question was..

Why do people hold a boiling pan when they know it's the same thing that get's their hand burnt?

Not: What do I do if my hand is burning on a pan... Obviously you drop the pan... We know this already...
Time hides Nothing
  • #20
  • Apr 16, 2013 7:46am Apr 16, 2013 7:46am
Quoting CindyXXXX
I think the question was.. Why do people hold a boiling pan when they know it's the same thing that get's their hand burnt? Not: What do I do if my hand is burning on a pan... Obviously you drop the pan... We know this already...
Good analogy Mike. However, we all know how to hold a boiling pan withOUT burning ourselves, and the burn, while painful is an "accident" that is preventable. So while you may drop the pan, do you also stop cooking for yourself? Or do you starve yourself to death because you're afraid of being burned? Or do you find someone to cook for you? NO.

Your cooking skills have nothing to do with your accidental burn. You just learn to correctly handle the pan and continue. Of course you are cautious around the hot instruments the next few times but that subsides and you move on.

My question is about those people who purposely burn themselves when they cook? Even though they know there is a hot pan they pick it up with out protection anyway. There is some irresistible "urge" to burn themselves...THIS is my question.

I truly believe that trading can be done successfully and profitably but am looking for my own self control "techniques" to keep myself from burning my hands. I am beginning to think that there really is no "trade management". Only "self" management.
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