″ The negative consequences if I turn out to be wrong seem insignificant—oh no, I tried to deceive myself about my ability to feel differently than I do!”
Repression anyone? I think directly telling yourself, “I don’t feel that way, I feel this way!” can be extremely harmful, since you are ignoring important information in the original feeling. You are likely to express your original feelings in some less direct, more destructive, and of course less rational way if you do this. A stereotypical example is that of a man deciding that he should not feel angry that he did not get a promotion at work and then blowing up at his wife for not doing the dishes properly. Maybe there is nothing to actually be angry about, and screaming at his boss certainly wouldn’t accomplish anything, but ignoring the feeling as invalid is almost certain to end badly.
I think Alicorn is suggesting that if you attempt to understand why you have the feelings you do, and if these reasons don’t make sense, your feelings will likely change naturally without the need to artificially apply different ones.
I’m also not convinced that repression is real. I can’t imagine deceiving myself about how I feel in a moment (lying to others, yes, but what’s more obvious to me than how I feel?). I do believe people can self-deceive about the reason that they’re angry/sad/etc. and attribute that lingering emotion to innocent bystanders instead. Maybe that’s what you mean.
I think you’re underestimating human variation, and some people aren’t skillful at distinguishing their own emotions.
“In the moment” is an interesting point. The Kahneman video about the differences between experience and memory is relevant. I’d say the pattern of repression is feel some undesired emotion, dislike it (probably without naming is), distract oneself from feeling it and probably tighten the muscles which would be used to express it, and blur the memory in the process.
Also, how would you classify : “I’m not angry, it’s just that other people are such idiots.”?
Sounds like someone is both angry and a poor liar ;) I’d classify it as a defensive move by someone who was just accused of being an excessively angry person. I imagine the person is well aware of how angry they are.
Thanks for the video. I don’t agree that my calculation of “how much will I enjoy that?” which guides my decisions is based on the way I’d evaluate what I expect as if it had already happened and I were remembering it, but it’s a fascinating claim. I agree with the rest of Kahneman’s talk. I think he says that reflective happiness is determined by goals and wealth, but experiential happiness is mostly achieved by spending time with people you like (I’m not sure, because he appeared to mislabel one or the other, likely due to speaking error).
I concede that when people are motivated to hide their feelings, the way they do it can include some actual self-deception as well.
″ The negative consequences if I turn out to be wrong seem insignificant—oh no, I tried to deceive myself about my ability to feel differently than I do!”
Repression anyone? I think directly telling yourself, “I don’t feel that way, I feel this way!” can be extremely harmful, since you are ignoring important information in the original feeling. You are likely to express your original feelings in some less direct, more destructive, and of course less rational way if you do this. A stereotypical example is that of a man deciding that he should not feel angry that he did not get a promotion at work and then blowing up at his wife for not doing the dishes properly. Maybe there is nothing to actually be angry about, and screaming at his boss certainly wouldn’t accomplish anything, but ignoring the feeling as invalid is almost certain to end badly.
I think Alicorn is suggesting that if you attempt to understand why you have the feelings you do, and if these reasons don’t make sense, your feelings will likely change naturally without the need to artificially apply different ones.
I’m also not convinced that repression is real. I can’t imagine deceiving myself about how I feel in a moment (lying to others, yes, but what’s more obvious to me than how I feel?). I do believe people can self-deceive about the reason that they’re angry/sad/etc. and attribute that lingering emotion to innocent bystanders instead. Maybe that’s what you mean.
I think you’re underestimating human variation, and some people aren’t skillful at distinguishing their own emotions.
“In the moment” is an interesting point. The Kahneman video about the differences between experience and memory is relevant. I’d say the pattern of repression is feel some undesired emotion, dislike it (probably without naming is), distract oneself from feeling it and probably tighten the muscles which would be used to express it, and blur the memory in the process.
Also, how would you classify : “I’m not angry, it’s just that other people are such idiots.”?
Sounds like someone is both angry and a poor liar ;) I’d classify it as a defensive move by someone who was just accused of being an excessively angry person. I imagine the person is well aware of how angry they are.
Thanks for the video. I don’t agree that my calculation of “how much will I enjoy that?” which guides my decisions is based on the way I’d evaluate what I expect as if it had already happened and I were remembering it, but it’s a fascinating claim. I agree with the rest of Kahneman’s talk. I think he says that reflective happiness is determined by goals and wealth, but experiential happiness is mostly achieved by spending time with people you like (I’m not sure, because he appeared to mislabel one or the other, likely due to speaking error).
I concede that when people are motivated to hide their feelings, the way they do it can include some actual self-deception as well.
That’s plausible: “feeling is because of dumb reason X” → feeling retreats → “I must have been right.” I just don’t trust it entirely.