[haswell]

If you're the kind of person who cares about what someone else thinks, you are by definition conditioned to be in that state. Some people are more deeply conditioned than others, and to their psyches, the stakes are much higher than average (i.e. the trauma example). The broader point is that framing this as a "choice" doesn't make sense.

I agree that a person can make a choice to counteract their conditioning (if they even realize it's something they need to counteract). But this is quite a different thing than having a choice over the kinds of automatic modes of thought that need to be addressed.

A person who is anxious about what other people think chooses to be so the same way a depressed person chooses to be depressed. By which I mean to say that it's not the kind of choice that it's made out to be.

[x86x87]

We all care about what others think. We are social creatures with that experience real consequences for anti-social behavior. You still have to filter things and pick your battlea.