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Stefan Kelly's avatar

Been thinking about this exact thing a lot.

Was thinking we need a behavioural word for the effect of stuff having a name, but then I saw the irony of that.

Makes me think of Nancy McWilliams observations on the effects of having a diagnosis: https://www.reddit.com/r/psychoanalysis/comments/1fn7z95/mcwilliams_on_the_problems_with_categorical/

Or less dramatically, I wonder about the effects of people understanding certain things about themselves/their personality. For example, if I found I'm an 'introvert' compared to most people. And I start descrbiing myself as that, do I then start opting out of socialising more, even though nothings changed under the surface (or has it, if you take the JL Austin perspective)

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Colin Strong's avatar

Thanks Stefan - very much agree on the effects of diagnosis and related points. A couple of discussions I have had recently assumed that names were often a neutral choice which could be made to be more recognisable / distinctive through repeated use / promotion. But that feels like an overly mechanistic view of how names work - seems they have a much more active role in shaping things, including our identity / behaviours. Thank you for the thoughts and link

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