Introduction

This is an article over a concept I saw in an online lecture for Machine Learning. It starts with the professor going over a complex subject and then giving it a name. He then says that by giving it a name we are gaining control over it, (also known as) “the Rumpelstiltskin Effect”.

Short Summary of the Stories Behind Rumpelstiltskin

From my understanding there are many versions of this story, however after researching through them all; I have come to the conclusion they are all similar to the original Grimm Brothers version.
Scene Set

• Little Man
• Miller
• King
• Daughter/Woman

The story consists of a miller and his daughter and a king. In most of the stories they say that the daughter is beautiful, it’s pretty odd and I don’t understand why they point it out. It doesn’t really fit into the rest of the story, but regardless. The miller is an arrogant man and boasts about how great his daughter is to the king, saying that his daughter can spin wheat into gold. The King now very interested in the daughter, gives her an ultimatum to turn a whole room of wheat into gold or die. The daughter tries to convince the king that she is unable to perform this task, however to no avail.
Now the daughter is crying in a room full of wheat, and depending on the story, some little man walks into the room. All the stories refer to this little man as something different: hobgoblin, manikin, dwarf, and etc… but basically, there’s this little man that walks into the room and offers to spin all the wheat into gold in exchange for something valuable to the little girl.
The previous paragraph’s set of events then occurs two more times; making the girl give up three valuable items in exchange for turning wheat into gold. The last item given up is typically her first-born (what is up with fairy tales asking for first-borns). She says yes, and later down the road regrets it.
Once she has her first-born the little man comes back to redeem his earnings. The little man now gives the woman a way out of the deal. In order to keep her first-born, she has to guess the little man’s name. He gives her three tries and some third party will end up telling the woman the little man’s name, Rumpelstiltskin. By knowing the name of Rumpelstiltskin, she is able to maintain control and keep her first-born.

The Rumpelstiltskin Effect

The idea behind the Rumpelstiltskin effect is that by knowing the name of something we are able to gain control over it. This was said in jest during the online lecture, however, I believe it has some merit in it. By being able to give a name to some set of actions, events, or anything, we are able to conscientiously act upon it. By giving it a name we give control over the abstract idea and are able to progress in a way we were unable to before. By understanding this idea/concept we can apply this to our own lives by giving names to abstract ideas or actions and thus gaining control over it.

Short Examples

It’s hard to explain but try conscientiously giving names to abstract concepts and ideas that you have and you will see some difference in your actions. The example I was watching was a lecture over Support Vector Machines (SVMs).
The lecturer first went over the basic building blocks of what the SVMs were and then named it the SVM. The Support Vector Machine is an algorithm to classify different items, let’s take for example fruit and vegetable on a hyperplane. Imagine classifying all the fruit and vegetables on an X-dimensional graph. But we don’t know that they’re fruit and vegetables to us it’s just data points on a hyperplane. By adding some classifications we are able to generate some linear/non-linear function that draws a line between some data points. All the items on the left of the line are fruits and the other side are vegetables. By adding more functions we are able to determine more specificity about the food. This algorithm is referred to as the support vector machine.
But I digress, for those who aren’t interested in Machine Learning algorithms; here is a more simple concept to utilize for the Rumpelstiltskin effect. There is this concept to get out of bed by counting down from 5 and then jumping out of bed. This is used by Mel Robbins who is quite successful. Right after waking up, if you count yourself down from 5 and get out of bed and say GO it’ll be easier. This abstraction would not work properly if you thought of all the steps and then gave it a go. More effectively, if you utilized the thought process “By counting down to 5, I am able to get of bed easier.”. Instead by calling it the 5-second rule, we are able to say “This morning I will use the 5-second rule to get up”. Now the first thought may be effective over the course of a week, month, or maybe even longer. However by giving it a name we are able to stick by it and consciously act upon it easier.

Summary

To summarize this post, the Rumpelstiltskin effect is when you give a name to something, and by giving it a name we gain power over it.  By giving it a name we are able to act more consciously on something and more effectively. I hope that you might keep an open mind and think about this effect yourself. Try it out on something and let me know if this is a load of bullshit or not. 🙂
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