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[NT] How Do Rationals Deal With Emotions?

Mondo

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I'm saying this as someone who doesn't know whether if he is a Rational or an Idealist.

Are NT's highly aware of their emotions and intuitively aware of how other people are affected by their decisions and simply choose to not act on them or does their 'personality' cause them to lack this sort of awareness and that's how they can make objective decisions so easily? Overall, I consider myself an objective decision maker rather than one who is subjective. However, I always know how I feel about a situation, sometimes my feelings affect my decisions but if I feel that a decision is best made without my feelings, I will ignore them.

Thanks in advance!
 

Haphazard

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Ignoring emotions does not give you objective decisions. Ignoring emotions probably makes you even more subjective, because you don't realize how they're affecting you.

Just some stuff I've heard -- NFs and NTs both get hit by strong emotions very hard. However, NFs are hit hard all the time so they tend to get more used to it, while it tends to sneak up on NTs and bash them on the head when they least expect it.

Ts in general, when they fall, they fall hard. Age tends to take the edge off of it, but young Ts can be absolutely volatile.

Of course NTs can understand how other people are affected by their decisions (it's cause and effect, which they pick up on quickly). However, NTs usually shy away from emotional displays, unlike NFs, and not do that sort of thing unless absolutely necessary or absolutely overwhelmed.

Well, me, personally, in most decisions and stuff emotions don't come into play in the sense that it does for most NFs. I see a situation, I know what my goals are, and I try to figure out how to get the best resolution. Unless there's something particular about it that really bends me out of shape, I don't usually have many feelings about whatever it is, so therefore they don't really get involved.
 

sriv

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I acknowledge them. That is all. Occasional use, for manipulation.
 

DigitalMethod

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What are these things of which you talk about... these... emotions? :huh:

Heh,
I think I mainly agree with you.
I think my emotions shouldn't influence my choices and logic should be the guiding light. If they do have any influence I would prefer it to be minimal. Of course then one realizes that one's feelings are one's driving force, basically, I choose to try to act by logic because I feel like it. Crazy, huh?

I think explaining how I view questions relates, I think any questions asked should have no emotions attached to them at all. Purely scientific. I am asking X to know Y.. although once I find out Y, then I might attach emotions.

I rarely express emotions and I think that cramps me. I build up, then sometimes I just explode.

Are NT's highly aware of their emotions?
Yes. But not "highly".

Intuitively aware of how other people are affected by their decisions?
Nope, wish it were though, I have issues with understanding how I affect others. I can usually logic out how I affect others "physically", but how I affect their emotions? I wish I knew that part more. :blush:

Or does their 'personality' cause them to lack this sort of awareness and that's how they can make objective decisions so easily?
Yeah.. I often, too often, forget about other's emotions and feelings. I think if I knew what they were feeling better, then I wouldn't be so selfish sometimes.

However, I always know how I feel about a situation, sometimes my feelings affect my decisions but if I feel that a decision is best made without my feelings, I will ignore them.
Me too.
 

Usehername

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Are NT's highly aware of their emotions and intuitively aware of how other people are affected by their decisions and simply choose to not act on them or does their 'personality' cause them to lack this sort of awareness and that's how they can make objective decisions so easily?

As a definite INTJ, but I must note with atypical cognitive processes, here is my personal experience.

Before I matured and developed a lot of my F side:
*I often didn't realize I was upset or hurt by someone until I was told I was upset or hurt; my behaviour showed it but I often wasn't aware. "X person has been inconsistent by doing Y to me, which stresses me out because now I feel lost" is perhaps the greatest extent of my paying attention to feelings (excluding major life experiences and events where clearly I could tell what my feelings were). I'm talking day to day, general, nuanced interaction here. I was very limited in terms of how many dimensions I could understand emotions, but that didn't mean that I didn't forsee the patterns of my behaviour affecting others. I knew when to shut up, when to prod, when to innocently plan and construct contexts for people to find themselves in and sort out interpersonal issues... I could read the patterns even though I didn't consciously get "feelings".

After I matured and developed a lot of my F side:
I am far more cognizant of my moodiness, of my hurt feelings, of my nuances in emotions. I have learned the value of sitting on issues for a day instead of reacting from the perspective of being in the heat of the moment and caught up in things.
I sometimes deeply care and "feel" for people even when logically I shouldn't because they just shouldn't matter to me that much as individuals (because of our more superficial relationship, not because I don't value them). This would be true empathy in the standard definition of the term. I have genuine "feelings" in these situations." ("the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.")

Alternatively, I fixate on people's problems; I become irrationally focused on helping them out. It's not feeling--I have lots of feelings and these are not feelings. It's an irrational focus on solving their problem. Motivated, I'm sure, because of the humanity in me (i.e. it's not the problem in a vaccum that's motivating me, it's that this person has a problem), but it's not feeling in the same sense that many would understand.
I've gone to Africa and meet and played with the starving kids and seen some people who are dying and all that World Vision stereotypical stuff... and I didn't "feel" for them. I felt more for them before I had left North America. The only "feelings" I had were a deep and intense need to focus on solving their problems. Empathy in another version of the dictionary definition. (the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.)
 

DigitalMethod

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Alternatively, I fixate on people's problems; I become irrationally focused on helping them out. It's not feeling--I have lots of feelings and these are not feelings. It's an irrational focus on solving their problem. Motivated, I'm sure, because of the humanity in me (i.e. it's not the problem in a vaccum that's motivating me, it's that this person has a problem), but it's not feeling in the same sense that many would understand.
I've gone to Africa and meet and played with the starving kids and seen some people who are dying and all that World Vision stereotypical stuff... and I didn't "feel" for them. I felt more for them before I had left North America. The only "feelings" I had were a deep and intense need to focus on solving their problems. Empathy in another version of the dictionary definition. (the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.)

I completely relate.
For me, I think I put myself in their position, and through that I find out why they are "hurting" whatever it may be. Then once I find out why they are "hurting" I focus on fixing the source.

Maybe it is just because I like solving problems, and forming plans.
It is feeling and having emotion, but it is not so much a "aww they are hurting I feel bad for them", it is more of a "lets fix their problems so they can be happy".

But why do we want to fix it? Because we enjoy it? Or because we want others to be happy? Maybe it is both, I am not sure honestly.
 

Haphazard

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I don't know... usually there's a sense that there's emotion there, but there's no idea what to do with it and any attempt to deal with it will be like using a chainsaw to preform brain surgery. The concepts are well understood, but there's no skill or finesse.
 

Tallulah

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Usehername said:
Before I matured and developed a lot of my F side:
*I often didn't realize I was upset or hurt by someone until I was told I was upset or hurt; my behaviour showed it but I often wasn't aware. "X person has been inconsistent by doing Y to me, which stresses me out because now I feel lost" is perhaps the greatest extent of my paying attention to feelings (excluding major life experiences and events where clearly I could tell what my feelings were). I'm talking day to day, general, nuanced interaction here. I was very limited in terms of how many dimensions I could understand emotions, but that didn't mean that I didn't forsee the patterns of my behaviour affecting others. I knew when to shut up, when to prod, when to innocently plan and construct contexts for people to find themselves in and sort out interpersonal issues... I could read the patterns even though I didn't consciously get "feelings".

This is largely how I feel. I'm just beginning to understand, and I'm now in my 30s, how to identify feelings for what they are. I might feel strong emotions related to a particular situation, but they're not specific, like "sad," "hurt," etc. They're just sort of a tangled up mess that I don't quite understand, and that I have to deal with in some way before I'm able to think clearly again. I've started to notice that I wouldn't call an emotion what others would have called it, because it didn't feel that specific to me. For example, if someone hurt my feelings, then apologized, I might say, "Well, you didn't really hurt my feelings; I was just confused, etc." But later, I'd realize that they did, in fact, hurt my feelings or make me sad. It's just to me it felt more like frustration and confusion, which are things that are familiar to me. Also, I think maybe I try to name my feelings in a logical way so that they seem more "weighty" in an argument, so I don't come to the table with "you made me sad inside!" Instead, I come to the table with an alternate way of viewing things so people (I feel) take me more seriously.

I have to get to a point of extreme upset before I'd cry in front of someone or tell them that they hurt me--to be that aware of just pure feeling. It would have to jar me to the point where I couldn't depend on my logic to bail me out.

I would say the main emotion I feel is frustration.

Now, I can identify and even feel the specific emotions when I'm watching a movie or acting in a play--I have the tools for the job, it seems. But my own emotions, and how people and things affect me personally--that is a lot trickier.
 

entropie

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I yesterday watched a movie and saw a character dealing with his emotions in a very rationalist typical way.

The movie was called Ice Age 2 and is a animated movie about prähistoric animals living at the end of an ice age. There is one main character called Manni, who is a mammoth and believes himself to be the last of his kind. In the course of the movie he meets another female mammoth, he begins to like and after them having a little troubles to get along with each other, they have a talk and come close to each other.

And now my point: after the have become closer friends, Manni says: "Do you know what I think ? Maybe we can save the mammoth from evolutional effacement now."

That was a absolute rational thought there and it implies that his feelings where actually already set. There was no moment before, where Manni expressed his feelings and no moment he tought about it or shown some hint to be really aware of them.

But saying his sentence, he implied to have emotions for her, so that whole emotion thing actually happend, but on an instinctive basis, he himself was not aware of.

This is just an example and does not count for every rationalist, but I can imagine that some rationals can identify with this, I myself can.

She, the female mammoth, by the way was pissed off and thought Manni wants to get her laid xD. That was a well suited gender stereotype . :D
 

ceecee

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I have to get to a point of extreme upset before I'd cry in front of someone or tell them that they hurt me--to be that aware of just pure feeling. It would have to jar me to the point where I couldn't depend on my logic to bail me out.


This is me. It would be rare and explosive. I would be more angry at myself for not being able to hold on to that security blanket of logic at that point and the tears would be of frustration. Then alllll that time of going back to whatever and whoever hurt me and confronting that. Really exhausting. Now I try very hard to deal with the hurt prior to reaching that point instead of ignoring it. Less frustration, less emotion.
 

Haphazard

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This is largely how I feel. I'm just beginning to understand, and I'm now in my 30s, how to identify feelings for what they are. I might feel strong emotions related to a particular situation, but they're not specific, like "sad," "hurt," etc. They're just sort of a tangled up mess that I don't quite understand, and that I have to deal with in some way before I'm able to think clearly again. I've started to notice that I wouldn't call an emotion what others would have called it, because it didn't feel that specific to me.

Same thing. I'm aware that there's a storm brewing but there's no way to name that storm. If it gets too much to handle I end up excusing myself with something vague like "I feel sick" to handle it and get back to work later. There may be a ton of words to describe whatever it is but none of them really seem to fit. I may be acutely aware of all the physical signs and that something's there, but not in the sense that an NF would be able to identify it.

I remember a story about a man who had the two lobes of his brain separated. Thereafter, perceiving things on the right side (correlating to the left side of the brain) would be able to get 'simple' labels, like if something was an apple, it would be an apple, and that's it. The left side was just the opposite -- there were all sorts of things that he could say about an apple, it's red, smooth, covered in mushy spots, has a stem -- but it wouldn't be identified as an 'apple.'

I'm not sure if this story is true or not but it's almost like permanently being stuck perceiving on the left side (right brain mode). It's obviously something and there's a lot I can tell about it, but I'm unable to tell what it is.

I would say the main emotion I feel is frustration.

Yep. If there's one emotion NTs are familiar with, it's frustration.
 

Tallulah

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Same thing. I'm aware that there's a storm brewing but there's no way to name that storm. If it gets too much to handle I end up excusing myself with something vague like "I feel sick" to handle it and get back to work later. There may be a ton of words to describe whatever it is but none of them really seem to fit. I may be acutely aware of all the physical signs and that something's there, but not in the sense that an NF would be able to identify it.

Yes! That's exactly it. I'm aware of the words that people might use to describe it, but they don't seem specific enough, or something. Kind of like this: I have a very high pain threshold, and if I had what felt to me like a dull ache, I would say that I wasn't having any pain, really. Because to me, it wouldn't feel like pain--at least not what I think of pain as being. I wonder if it's the same with emotions--if someone hurts my feelings, I try to think of specifically WHY I'm feeling the way I am. Like what exactly they touched on that affected me in that way, and even if I'm being stupid and irrational to even care what they said. It never seems as simple as "hurt." Hurt seems like a big, huge deal to me, in the same way pain does. It might be "betrayal" or "underestimation" or something that I have a concept for. But it takes me a while to figure all that out.

I remember a story about a man who had the two lobes of his brain separated. Thereafter, perceiving things on the right side (correlating to the left side of the brain) would be able to get 'simple' labels, like if something was an apple, it would be an apple, and that's it. The left side was just the opposite -- there were all sorts of things that he could say about an apple, it's red, smooth, covered in mushy spots, has a stem -- but it wouldn't be identified as an 'apple.'

I'm not sure if this story is true or not but it's almost like permanently being stuck perceiving on the left side (right brain mode). It's obviously something and there's a lot I can tell about it, but I'm unable to tell what it is.

This makes a LOT of sense to me. It just feels like a big ole blob of stuff that your right brain is trying to describe. It won't let your left brain get off so easily with a simple label.
 

Spartacuss

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This is me. It would be rare and explosive. I would be more angry at myself for not being able to hold on to that security blanket of logic at that point and the tears would be of frustration. Then alllll that time of going back to whatever and whoever hurt me and confronting that. Really exhausting. Now I try very hard to deal with the hurt prior to reaching that point instead of ignoring it. Less frustration, less emotion.
Yup. Learned this lesson 3 years ago after some interesting times. Now I acknowledge and move on, with the result that I have fewer peaks and valleys. Air is a wonderful thing.
Also, part of this was learning to recognize when how I felt was not how I was "supposed" to feel. As a person who was (still is) often divorced from her feelings, I discovered people have a way of projecting their own emotions onto others, and want to tell you how you feel about X, Y, and Z before you get to assess for yourself -- to comfort themselves. So... that forced me, when I knew an assessment was off, to find out for myself and *then* analyze why the person would want me to feel as they diagnosed. Downside: it's all very robotic.
 

entropie

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Well, I tried. Maybe in the next life my english will improve :)
 

duende

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Well, I tried. Maybe in the next life my english will improve :)

No, it was good. I may not have gotten every nuance of what you were trying to say, but that would be true regardless of your English skills.

Manni's comment made me laugh, because it is totally the way I would process similar circumstances. Like him, I might not be able to formulate (much less express) the emotional-level stuff that would be going on, but the fact that I was willing to entertain the practical possibilities would signal that those underlying processes were, in fact, in operation. The problem, as illustrated by Manni and his potential mate, is that a more feelings-based person may not recognize that the statement of practical ramifications is not a cold calculation, but a response to strong but unseen forces. Like ripples on the surface of a spring-fed pool, there is a cause. The fact that you can't see it doesn't mean its not there.
 

digesthisickness

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speaking for myself:

Are NT's highly aware of their emotions...

i'm highly aware of them. i'm not a robot, so i feel the same as anyone would. if anything, it seems as though i'm even more highly aware than others around me because i pay attention to it so much whereas others seem to be just fine with going with the flow and expressing them and/or embracing them. as though they just take it for granted that they're feeling them. i don't take it for granted at all.


i am very aware of how others are affected by their emotions. it's what i do next with that information that's apparently different than the majority of people i know. for just one example of the many things going on in my mind when on the receiving end of another's emotion: i don't immediately "feel for" them and take what i'm hearing/seeing on face value. i not only think about how they're feeling, but the "why" behind their choosing to express it (or not express it) the way they are.

not because i care, but because caring when not having a good idea of what's going on below the surface doesn't make sense. not to say i never care or that i always do, but that whether i do or not, it still gets filtered objectively.


...and simply choose to not act on them

sometimes i act on them, and sometimes i don't, but a very high percent of the time, i put myself through that same filter and look at the 'whys' before acting on them. "will it solve anything if i..? or will it make things worse...?"

when it comes to my emotions, it just depends. if it's a safe environment, and it's not a situation in which a lot of weight is placed on it, i show emotion quite readily. for instance, crying during a movie or just because i'm so happy and feel safe with the person i'm with.

with someone else's emotions, one major reason i'll filter it is because i'm not sure at first if it's genuine. usually, i can filter it in a matter of seconds, and if i find them genuine, i have no problem doing what i can to help. actually, in those situations, i love helping in any way i can.

heh. or not as the case may be.


...or does their 'personality' cause them to lack this sort of awareness and that's how they can make objective decisions so easily?

it's not a lack of awareness that causes the objectivity, it's the additional awareness that causes it. the tendency to be aware, yet still step back from it.

...of being aware of not only the feelings but of everything else going on at the same time.


Overall, I consider myself an objective decision maker rather than one who is subjective.

HAHA. so does everyone else who ever lived.

However, I always know how I feel about a situation, sometimes my feelings affect my decisions but if I feel that a decision is best made without my feelings, I will ignore them.

try giving more thought to how you deal with other people's emotions instead of just your own, and that may help you figure this out easier.
 
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disregard

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Great post, digest! I am exactly the same way. It's so refreshing for another person to explain it.
 
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