The Region Beta Paradox (Terrible Title, Super Interesting Construct)

No, seriously. It's not actually about math.

Back in 2004 a research article came out called “The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad,” in which researchers explored an idea called the region region-beta paradox.

Human brains have a lot of nifty tricks that can be brilliant for our survival in some instances and chaos inducing in others. First of all, humans are able to guess about consequences, which is termed affective forecasting.  That is, we can look at a situation we have never been in before and make a guess about how it would play out. Figuring out a crocodile doesn’t want pat-pats is an example of smart affective forecasting. But there are also many quirky paradoxes our brain has developed that cause these systems to not work as effectively. Which brings us back to the region-beta paradox. The example the study authors use to demonstrate the paradox is a simple one. Say you have the choice of either walking or riding your bike for transportation , and your goal is to arrive somewhere quickly. We may choose to walk if it’s fairly close and ride our bike if it seems longer.

However, riding our bike is almost always the faster option unless we are just strolling next door. Makes sense, right?

Based on figure 1 in: Daniel T. Gilbert, Matthew D. Lieberman, Carey K. Morewedge, and Timothy D. Wilson. (2004). The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad. Psychological Science. Vil 15:1, pp. 14-19

Gilbert and his team posited and showed evidence that we do the same thing when guessing about emotional outfall. Here’s the thing. If something is *really fucking bad* we kick into a different mode. It means we hit a certain point of pain where our tolerance is tapped out. This is called the critical threshold. 

Which means that we recover more quickly and have less distress if something is really fucking bad. Because we go “oh HELL NO” and fix it. And we feel empowered. And we are sad and scared and all of those things for awhile but we recover.

But when things are just kinda bad? Things are ungreat but tolerable for days, weeks, and months? We don’t hit a critical threshold. We just continue to deal with it. And the outcome is more harmful and causes more emotional damage in the long term.

None of this is to say you should dip on any situation that isn’t perfect. Life is complicated. School, jobs, friendships, families, partnerships. We don’t throw away the beautiful parts of our existence over flaws. We’d have nothing left, including ourselves if that was the case.

 But when I see clients stuck in their decision making process around “is it bad enough to make a big change?” we start getting granular around the collective impact on their lives. If it’s stepping out of a situation we start thinking about what done looks like. When do you know you need to leave this situation entirely? And how can you best and most safely extract yourself? 

If that isn’t a practical solution at the moment we may look at what boundaries can be set up or what accommodations can be made to help soften some of the edges of the issue. If you can’t skip out on visiting your hometown, for example, can you preserve some of your peace by renting a room so you don’t have to stay with family? If you’re dealing with chronic pain, can we investigate some strategies that may mitigate it enough that you can do the things that are important to you?

And you may be thinking right now, “cool story, Doc…but how do I figure out if that’s what’s going on with my life?” which is an important and entirely valid question. So here are some questions for consideration.

1. If there was a no-muss, no-fuss easy button for you to exit this situation would you use it?

2. Do you hold up what is bothering you against someone else’s “bigger problem” as a way of  minimizing your experience? Important note on this one: Gaining perspective by comparing to other situations can be helpful, but **discounting** your own experience when comparing it to others can be a problem.

3. Do you notice yourself doing a lot of wishful planning? As in “once they stop drinking” or “once I get that promotion” type of wishing? Things that  haven’t happened yet/ever or things that have been vaguely mentioned but without a commitment and a timeline?

4. If things are bad, but not “bad enough,” what would make them bad enough to motivate you to make changes?

5. If someone you loved was in a similar situation, what would you hope they would do? What would you encourage them to do or think about if they asked for your feedback?

6. Has there been any progression in the issue toward betterment? Or does it stay the same (stagnant) or has it slowly gotten worse (decompensating)?

7. How often in this situation do you find yourself happy? Satisfied? Content? What about frustrated? Irritated? Discontent? 

8. Has anyone in your life noticed the issue? What concerns have they raised, if any? Are they the type of people you can trust the perspective of?

9. How much of your time is spent on managing this situation? This may even be time managing your own emotional responses, exhaustion, etc.

10. Take the time to make a full pros and cons list. Work on it over more than a day, adding as you think of things and asking people you trust to contribute to it. What do you notice once it’s complete?

Also? We just put up the Kickstarter for the third book in our autism series. Unrelated to this topic but my publisher will totally headdesk if I don’t share a link to it. Please consider supporting The Autism Partner Handbook: How to Love an Autistic Person if that’s a topic you are interested in exploring and you have a few monies to share.