Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

by Douglas Stone

One of the brain’s primary survival functions is to manage approach and withdrawal: We tend to move toward things that are pleasurable and away from things that are painful. Pleasure is a rough proxy for the healthy and safe; pain is a rough proxy for the unhealthy and dangerous. But our approach-withdrawal function is too crudely calibrated to navigate the nuanced worlds of modern work and love. The brain gets tangled when it encounters short-term pain that is necessary for long-term gain—that exercising you put off, for instance. And the opposite is also true: Short-term pleasures that produce long-term pain—as with, say, recreational drugs or an extramarital affair—also produce confused approach-withdraw signals (“wine, women, and song” in older days; “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” to baby boomers). These brain-life mismatches are the source of great fascination and endless torment.