Follow causal chain from top to bottom
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We often shy away from ego assaults (e.g. avoiding situations that we do not feel confident about).
Running away from, or hiding from, an attack. The first and most defensive of the five strategies.
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We work hard to shore up our self-esteem, to strengthen our mask of competence.
Building up our defenses in case of future attacks (either by improving our abilities, or by doing something that simply makes us feel better about our abilities). The second most defensive of the five strategies.
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Much of human behavior could be interpreted as an attempt to protect our self-image. When the ego-attacks come we defend ourselves vigorously: for instance, our first response to an insult is often to explain why it is unjustified.
Defending ourselves from an attack. The third most defensive of the five strategies.
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When faced with an attack on our ego, we look for any way of taking the sting out of the attack, to nullify it
Removing the potency of an attack (reframing our perception of an attack so that it no longer seems like an attack on our ego). We feel cognitive dissonance because of the attack, which we try to eliminate by eliminating the attack. The fourth most defensive of the five strategies.
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When we verbally attack others it is often in response to their attacks on us, and they might not even have realized that we perceived their actions as attacks (e.g. we take a comment as criticism, and feel compelled to criticize them in return). We could even anticipate their attack and want to get ours in first.
Attacking someone that has attacked us in the past or may attack us in the future. The fifth most defensive (i.e. the most offensive) of the five strategies.
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SELF INSECURITY: How good are our skills and abilities? Self Insecurity produces pride, vanity, ambition, self-improvement, travel, extreme sports, horror films, and diets.
We worry continually about how our skills and abilities and inherent quality. This worry encourages us to improve ourselves, making us more competitive in the mating game. The first of the four key areas of insecurity (SAFE)
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AUTHORITY INSECURITY: How safe is our position in the tribe? What is our status? Authority Insecurity produces social drivers, such as guilt, jealousy, vengeance, justice, fairness, and so on, as well as our need to lead and be led.
We worry continually about how our status in the tribe (or whatever group we are in). This worry encourages us to improve our authority, making us more competitive in the mating game, and giving us greater access to scarce resources. The second of the four key areas of insecurity (SAFE)
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FACTION INSECURITY: How strong is the tribe that we are in? Faction Insecurity produces friendships, clubs, patriotism, team sports, and so on.
We worry continually about how the quality of our tribe (or group within the tribe), which affects our access to scarce resources. This worry encourages us to improve the strength of our faction, or even to move to new factions . The most important Faction in our lives is the relationship with our sexual partner. The third of the four key areas of insecurity (SAFE)
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ENVIRONMENT INSECURITY: How well do we understand the environment around us? Environment Insecurity interacts with our fundamental curiosity and produces all of the forms of learning, as well as art, music, cooking, stories, documentaries, and so on.
We worry continually about our understanding and ability to predict the environment around us. This worry encourages us to improve our interaction with our diverse (because of our generalist existence), complex, difficult to interpret and harsh habitat. The fourth of the four key areas of insecurity (SAFE)
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Our insecurity feels unpleasant, but it is essential for our development that we have it. This insecurity gives us a bias towards negative things: threats seem more important to us than opportunities so we are constantly looking out for them.
Insecurity is a good thing: it is a multi-purpose drive that tells us to worry about how little we know about the complex world, to learn (carefully), and to prepare for future events, especially improving ourselves to better deal with these future events. We are insecure because it helps us as a species to be insecure. Our negativity bias is logical: it is better to err on the side of caution. [Insecurity characteristic 1 of 7]
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We rarely acknowledge our own fears, even to ourselves. We create a mask of confidence and competence to hide our fears behind. This mask is constructed from any proxy information that we can obtain, including the opinions of other people.
Being insecure is good, but appearing insecure is a disaster for finding a good mate. An honest display of our uncertainties and perceived inadequacies would not win a mate because your competition for that mate has a mask that makes them appear superior (the mate uses appearance as a proxy for truth). An evolutionary arms race drove the creation of ever more elaborate and convincing masks. [Insecurity characteristic 2 of 7]
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Our egos are very fragile; we constantly feel insecure about any number of characteristics. Natural selection has ensured that we are constantly trying to reduce our insecurity (ideally by improving our selves and our lot in life), by giving us strong emotional response: unpleasant when our insecurity increases, and pleasant when our insecurity decreases.
Our ego, our self-image is fragile because it is part of the flawed and fluid construct that is our internal model, and because natural selection wants to continually push us to improve ourselves. [Insecurity characteristic 3 of 7]
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We always find something to feel insecure about (once we get that promotion, we start worrying about our weight)
Natural selection would prefer that we always strive to be better, rather than resting on our laurels. [Insecurity characteristic 4 of 7]
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Insecurity from one cause can be attributed to another; they all mix up in our heads (e.g. sometimes we feel bad about ourselves without knowing why)
Having all insecurities measured in the same currency allows us to prioritize, but our poor ability to differentiate different sources may just be poor design. [Insecurity characteristic 5 of 7]
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Our fears are not based on reality but on our perception of reality. For instance, we are not driven to improve our actual inadequacies, but our perceived inadequacies (i.e. how we feel about our abilities).
The only window that we have onto reality is our flawed internal model. Our insecurity is thus not based on our actual, real world abilities, but rather on our perception of our abilities. Changing our internal model feels as good as changing the external world, and it is a lot easier. This is part of our self-deception. [Insecurity characteristic 6 of 7]
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The types and magnitudes of our insecurities differ from person to person
Our mental make-up depends on both our genes and our life experiences. Depending on our childhood events, we each come up with our own list of things to be particularly insecure about. [Insecurity characteristic 7 of 7]
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