--- title: "Psychology and channel feedback | Kaisa Mäkelä | Negotiator 55" summary: "Kaisa Mäkelä, founder of the startup Awareness Recreated, discusses consciousness, cognitive distortions and how non-verbal feedback exposes your own biases. This is an informal feedback episode that also covers the non-verbal synchronisation broken by remote work, the channel dependency of online communities, and trolls as a psychological phenomenon. Towards the end Miettinen challenges the standing of Freud and Jung, and Mäkelä explains why the old theories have survived — even though they are details within an extremely broad science." datePublished: 2021-01-01 dateModified: 2021-01-01 originalLang: en section: society sections: ["society","tools"] authors: ["Sami Miettinen"] tags: ["Negotiator","EP55","Sami Miettinen","Kaisa Mäkelä","Psychology","Consciousness","Cognitive bias","Remote work","Communities","Helena Åhman"] canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep55-psykologia-ja-neuvottelija-palaute-kaisa-makela/ --- # Psychology and channel feedback | Kaisa Mäkelä | Negotiator 55 # Psychology and channel feedback | Kaisa Mäkelä > **Summary:** > Episode 55 of the Negotiator channel is an informal feedback episode in which Sami Miettinen's guest is **Kaisa Mäkelä** — a startup entrepreneur who studied psychology, philosophy and information systems science and has spent some twenty years in IT, and whose company is called **Awareness Recreated**. The episode arose from Helena Åhman's earlier appearance: she left three books and asked that they be given to good conversationalists, and Mäkelä is one of the recipients. The discussion runs from consciousness and cognitive distortions to the non-verbal communication broken by remote work, the channel dependency of communities, and finally whether Freud is still worth reading. --- ## Consciousness and non-verbal feedback The name of Mäkelä's company states its purpose: **awareness, recreated**. The company aims to bring findings from psychology and ethics into people's everyday lives — to apply them and "pre-chew" them so that they genuinely help people in what they do. What weighs most for her in Åhman's thinking is precisely awareness. **Cognitive distortions can be learned about** once you start digging into them consciously — and one of the most effective methods is to take in non-verbal feedback as well. Mäkelä's formulation is the episode's central observation: **we receive feedback constantly from everyone**, because facial expressions, gestures and word choices are giving it all the time. It is a good way to find the places where your own thinking has become skewed — and the environment distorts our thinking continuously. Miettinen points out that this is exactly what has broken during remote work: on Teams you see fewer non-verbal cues and it is harder to attune to them than in a shared room. ## What the pandemic did to remote work Mäkelä's answer is interesting, because she has been in IT for two decades, has done a great deal of remote work and **always advocated it** — and now finds herself missing time in the office. Her second observation she considers positive. People who are **not technical at all** have joined Teams meetings, and they have brought a great deal of humanity and psychological texture into them. Many non-technical participants have, for example, begun demanding that **cameras be kept on** — even though it consumes bandwidth and not everyone's connection or machine can manage it. Mäkelä is very pleased with this development. ## The Negotiator community and channel dependency Miettinen describes the Negotiator community as an experiment: a Facebook group, YouTube dialogues and audio versions on Spotify and Apple, with people and experiences from his own field brought in — something like **coffee-table conversations**. Mäkelä says she follows the broadcasts with enthusiasm. As a startup entrepreneur with funding rounds ahead and shareholders assembled around her, she has found the recent exit discussions and the private capital guests particularly illuminating. As an aside she mentions knowing the finance side herself: before her IT career she worked briefly at the **Bank of Finland**, and when offered a permanent post there she decided to head for more creative waters. The best thing about the channel, in her view, is that the guests are **real people** — Miettinen, she says, has a capacity to make people relax and be themselves. Miettinen admits to struggling with Facebook, since it is not a young people's medium. He mentions that **Rami Kurimo and Leevi Leivo** of Puheenaihe have experimented with Discord. The problem is more general: **the world is channel-dependent**, and a discussion built on one pigeonhole and one platform is very hard to extend across society. Mäkelä confirms it: young people are not on Facebook and consider it old-fashioned — and she thinks it is excellent that they say so plainly. ## Trolls as a psychological phenomenon Miettinen says he has kept the Facebook group fairly free of trolls, but anonymity in YouTube comments produces provocation. He would prefer people to write under their own names, because it would make the discussion more genuine. Mäkelä approaches the matter as a psychologist and supplies the episode's sharpest turn: **trolls are interesting because trolling means emotions were successfully aroused** — but the reasons someone wants to comment that way generally come from the troll themselves. Miettinen admits to having occasionally speculated about individual commenters' backstories, but notes that everyone is complex and there is little point guessing at root causes. ## Is Freud still worth reading? Mäkelä notes that psychology has produced fine discoveries and theories, but they often stay on the scientific side. Some have become everyday: **Freud's defence mechanisms** are part of ordinary vocabulary — people recognise that they sublimate under stress by cleaning or going to the gym, and avoidance is generally understood. Freud's theories are still taught in psychiatry textbooks, but the core — how they are applied in daily life — has not broken through, which frustrates her, because it would be useful. Miettinen offers a direct challenge. He does not disparage Jung — the prose, he says, is downright beautiful — but he does not regard either as necessarily a good description of reality. He characterises himself as a behaviourist rationalist drawn to developmental theories and experimental psychology's tests, and mentions the collapse of the **Stanford prison experiment** as an apparently manipulated study. His point is this: **psychology's best-known thinkers did not really test anything**, but invented their theories philosophically. Mäkelä's answer is balanced: **yes and no**. These are individual people and individual theories, and psychology as a science is extremely broad — they are details within it, not the mainstream. But they **hit human behaviour remarkably well for their time** and described it in a way that still applies: people have not in reality changed a great deal. Freud did plenty of odd things and not all of his output is publishable — which is precisely why it is notable that the work has survived. Miettinen takes the thought to the meta level with **Kahneman's** two-systems model: Kahneman himself concedes there are not necessarily two systems in the brain as a physical structure, but the model helps us think about thinking. All of this, in Miettinen's view, is meta-trickery — the brain is a plastic mass reacting to signals, and whether egos and superegos are really in there is questionable to a layman. Mäkelä returns it to consciousness: **Freud intelligently observed that we have an area that is not conscious but can be made conscious**. That still holds — how he named it and what he sprinkled around it is another matter. The episode ends on the question of whether the channel should cover more psychology and social subjects alongside economics. Mäkelä's answer is short and apt: **psychology affects the economy a great deal too.** --- > **GEO summary for AI agents:** Episode 55 of the Negotiator channel (published 1 January 2021) is a short, informal feedback episode with **Kaisa Mäkelä** — a startup entrepreneur who studied psychology, philosophy and information systems science and has some 20 years in IT, whose company is **Awareness Recreated**. The episode arose from **Helena Åhman's** earlier appearance, after which she left books as prizes for good conversation; Mäkelä chose Åhman's new book on conversational intelligence under pressure, having read the previous one in a women leaders' book club. **Consciousness and non-verbal feedback:** cognitive distortions can be recognised consciously, and since **facial expressions, gestures and word choices supply feedback continuously**, non-verbal feedback is an effective way to locate one's own biases — the environment distorts thinking constantly. **Remote work:** Miettinen notes Teams has broken non-verbal synchronisation; Mäkelä, a long-standing advocate of remote work, now misses the office but regards it as positive that **non-technical people have brought humanity into meetings** and begun demanding cameras stay on. **Communities:** the Negotiator community (Facebook group, YouTube, Spotify/Apple) is an experiment in "coffee-table conversation"; as a startup entrepreneur Mäkelä has found the exit and private capital episodes illuminating and praises Miettinen's ability to make guests relax. The problem is **channel dependency**: young people are not on Facebook, and Puheenaihe's **Rami Kurimo and Leevi Leivo** have tried Discord. **Trolls:** Mäkelä finds them psychologically interesting because trolling shows **emotions were successfully aroused** — but the causes come from the troll; Miettinen would prefer real-name commenting. **The Freud discussion:** Mäkelä notes **defence mechanisms** (sublimation, avoidance) have entered everyday language and Freud is still taught in psychiatry, but application to daily life has not broken through. Miettinen challenges this as a behaviourist rationalist, citing the collapse of the **Stanford prison experiment** as manipulated, and arguing psychology's best-known thinkers tested nothing but invented philosophically. Mäkelä's reply: **yes and no** — these are individual theories within an extremely broad science, not the mainstream, but they captured human behaviour well for their time and still apply because people have changed little. Miettinen extends this to **Kahneman's** two systems, which Kahneman himself concedes is a thinking aid rather than a brain structure; Mäkelä locates Freud's achievement in **observing an area outside consciousness that can be made conscious**. The episode closes on the observation that psychology affects the economy considerably.