A half-baked theory

[sabotabby]

 We all know there are people with very low executive function.

This is most of my students. They're smart as hell, but when it comes to things like remembering to bring a pen and pencil to class, they just can't, and if they're given a form to get signed at home, that form will inevitably end its life, crumpled, shredded, and unsigned, in the pocket dimension at the bottom of their backpack. They know the material but can't write the test. Etc.

There are people with very low executive function, who have developed workarounds.

This is me, and most of my closest friends. I can't make it out of bed in the morning, so I set my alarm two hours early to start waking me up. I can't remember anything so I keep three separate to-do lists. I can't motivate myself through any means beyond raging anxiety, so either I do a task immediately, or I procrastinate forever. I somehow manage to exist, but every day is a struggle.

Presumably, there are people with the normal amount of executive function, and they go around unbothered by life and everything is fine.

But I would posit the existence of a fourth class of people, and these are people with too much executive function to the point where it is detrimental to both their lives and society as a whole. These are people for whom executive functions are an end unto themselves. As long as boxes are generated and checked, and everyone is very busy, work is getting done and progress is being made. These are people for whom rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic seems like a good and feasible plan, because you are taking action and doing things.

I would posit that very early in life, and in many careers, an unhealthy level of executive function is rewarded. This is mostly the key to success in school, far more important than intellectual capability. And in white collar work, looking busy while accomplishing nothing is a useful skill. But I would also say that these are the sorts of people who end up promoted above their level of competence— school boards and governments are full of them. Everyone who has ever suffered through a PowerPoint explaining the new educational jargon through Venn diagrams has encountered this sort of person.

They are the sort who tend to be particularly impressed if you add "smart" or "enhanced" before a word but don't actually change anything.

Right now, they are making decisions that would better fall to people with perhaps lower capacity for navigating institutions and systems, but higher levels of intelligence, wisdom, and empathy. Life and death decisions.

I could be talking out of my ass. It has been known to happen. I'm pretty sure if I were a higher functioning sort, I could brand this into a PowerPoint somehow and make a decent living as an educational consultant, and I wouldn't have to go back into a plague box next week.

Comments

[used_songs]

I would like to cosign this, please.

[sabotabby]

Think I'm onto something? I think I'm onto something.

[dewline]

You are onto something. And you're not the only one.

[maeve66]

I think that is an exact description -- and a description that is also far too kind.

[sabotabby]

My other term is Highlighter Girls—girls who did well in school because they had good penmanship and used different colours of highlighters for headings and subheadings on their reports—but it's not quite the same phenomenon. Highlighter Girls and people with dangerously high executive function are often the same people, but not always, and the latter rises higher.

Stay tuned on my rant about survivorship bias in education.

[maeve66]

... but are they different from girls who use rainbow colors to write their notes (or sometimes full assignments) in? I was one of those. I have one of those right now; where I wrote in Prismacolor colored pencils, she just changes the font color, but it's the same.

[sabotabby]

I feel like that's an aesthetic choice rather than an indication of thought processes? And probably made it harder for the teacher to read, so point of chaotic good.

[belleweather]

I miiiiight be one of those people with "too much executive function"; I have boxes and checklists and things are color coded and my google calendar rules the world. But that isn't a product of native executive function and enjoying ANY of that -- it's a product of anxiety + patriarchy. I know that without all that process, I will forget things and drop balls and my life will be a mess. And I'm a high-achieving woman in a very dominated workplace in a patriarchal society, so I know pretty intimately how little room for error I have under that system. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is totally something I would do, but I know that it's performative?

[sabotabby]

I don't think that's quite the same thing—it speaks to a level of self-awareness. That's my tendency when I'm stressed—over-organization, over-preparedness, etc., because I know otherwise I'd be living in a cardboard box under a bridge.

[smhwpf]

That is a truly exquisite piece of writing, though on a very messed-up situation.

[sabotabby]

Really? I feel like I'm ranting most of the time.

[smhwpf]

It's a rant, but with the characteristic of biting satire, to my ear, and reminds me of the style of some really top writers.

[armiphlage]

I have difficulty getting up too, but setting my alarm early just disrupted my sleep. I now have one alarm by the bed, and an annoying one set for five minutes later near the coffee maker. This forces me to get up, and by the time I get to turn it off, I might as well make coffee.

Have you had a sleep study done recently? I got a CPAP prescribed, and it made my sleep so much more restful.

[sabotabby]

My cats also sometimes jump on my face between 4-5 am, which helps a little.

I've had a sleep study done. The conclusion was I don't have sleep apnea, but I wake up repeatedly throughout the night (personally I think this had something to do with all the wires they had on me and the fact that they kept coming in and out), which is preventing me from ever getting a good night's sleep. The doctor attributed that to anxiety and suggested I cut down on caffeine and meditate, neither of which are going to happen.

[annie_r]

I used to watch the Highlighter Girls and over-organizers in confusion - they sat there and highlighted everything for hours, which I thought defeated the purpose. But I could only get through textbooks in what I know know was hyperfocus or nothing (mostly nothing.) I wasn't taught study skills because I had native intelligence + terror of failure and could zip through standardized tests and be out the door first. I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until adulthood, and didn't really identify just how much of my life had been lost to all the extra hours needed to just show up and keep my life small enough to handle. These days I have every kind of pen (because I love buying colorful things that seem useful), notebook, software notetaking and list and mindmapping apps. Some of it is contained, but it's not synthesized. It's all research notes without conclusions. That is the work I keep putting off; it seems so monumental. Trying to figure out my brain and emotional history and what my true needs and desires are. But I still keep buying highlighters. I know they don't help. and, it's after noon.

[sabotabby]

Maybe I should get highlighters. Or tested for ADHD, lol.

I keep trying to do things to make my brain more organized but it never works. Probably highlighters wouldn't work because everything I do is online now.

I wasn't taught study skills because I had native intelligence + terror of failure and could zip through standardized tests and be out the door first.

OMG IT ME

[grimjim]

You seem to be talking about toxic process wonks, who are more comforted by a documented process being followed accurately more than the outcome. The journey is everything for them and the destination immaterial, taken to a dysfunctional excess.
https://www.chemengonline.com/six-sigma-what-went-wrong/?printmode=1
Quote:

We often note a behavior change gap within companies that devote significant resources to the Six Sigma or LEAN philosophies. The talented experts driving these types of initiatives generally are extremely successful at developing technical changes that positively impact company performance. Their focus tends to be robust in statistical analysis and in addressing specific parts of the process. Much less specific and robust, however, is their approach to the workers upon whom the mine or company depends.

[sabotabby]

Oh, I've never heard that term before, but yeah, it totally fits.

[symbioid]

I agree with your hypothesis.

Also *big hugs* I'm so sorry you're dealing with such bullshit right now, we love you and we want you around and I wish you didn't have to suffer like this and I hope you make it through. I hope Cocoa hangs around (at the very least to keep you around) and yeah.

(sorry this is partially a reply to your other post).

OK, uh... enough of that. *hugs*

[sabotabby]

Thanks. I can't contemplate not existing, which makes the whole thing quite weird.

[mistersmearcase]

No, I'll buy that. (PowerPoint was maybe invented for Hyperexecutives.)

[sabotabby]

Agreed.

[metalana]

I work with some people who have very high executive function, judging by their ability to take care of their bodies & families while working long hours.

To be successful in careers as you describe often requires other kinds of abilities, probably in combination with moderate-to-high executive function. (That's more me.)

Some such successful people are striving to achieve good ultimate outcomes for society. Others might care more about busy-work-getting-done: direct results such as an efficient database, and not care whether it serves public good or environmental destruction.

These different motivations may or may not be correlated with executive function level. So I don't agree that your entire 4th class of hyperexecutive people are all doing useless/harmful busywork.

I do however agree with your more specific hypothesis: people with high exec function may have low empathy for people without it. So in particular jobs (such as bureaucrat in education, health or social services) they might make decisions or designs that are ineffectual or frustrating for large swaths of the population.

[sabotabby]

I should say "not all people with high executive function."

Like, for example, I work with this woman who I highly respect. She's got great politics and is a kind, warm person. She creates these brilliant grids and rubrics and resources that are beautiful and stress the importance of equity and inclusion and differentiated learning and all that important stuff.

And I look at that and my eyes glaze over. I just find it so overwhelming that I could never use these resources. Do I believe it works for her and her students? Absolutely! Would it work for me? Nope! She has a basic understanding of why this is frustrating and overwhelming for most people (though I would say I'm on the low end of executive functioning for a teacher) but I don't think she quite gets it. It's hard to teach things that come easy for you—I would struggle to teach someone to read, for example, as it was just something that I passively absorbed at a young age rather than had to learn myself. So I appreciate her as a colleague but I'd probably go on stress leave if she were my boss. But I also believe she uses her powers for good (as do you).