How Do You Process Emotions?

[Tennessee Jed]

Hell, yeah. Don't get too imbalanced between cognitive and affective empathy. Bad, bad, bad stuff results from it.

[...]

You forgot to list the drawbacks for the cognitive empathy. Affective empathy *without* cognitive empathy is indeed awful in the workplace etc. lol. But with cognitive empathy it can be pretty great there too, depending on the work role.

[...]

Funnily enough, when I just had cognitive empathy (consciously), I would have similar problems minus the drama part. I mean, I had problems with being too helpful. Due to the imbalance, I suppose. And that's not even the worst possible result of having too much of an imbalance between the two empathies.

[...]

And funnily enough, that's what affective empathy has helped give me some. That is, better prioritising. Better boundaries. Even the understanding on recognising it if something is going to turn into bad drama soon. (When it'd turned bad enough drama, ofc I could see that in the more imbalanced state too. But too late.) Etc. etc. Still work in progress ofc.

Yes, you're right. Cognitive empathy alone can become unbalanced and go to extremes too, the same way that affective empathy can turn harmful when it's too extreme. Extreme cognitive empathy can result in the doctor who is so cold and unfeeling toward his patients that he actually harms them. In other words, he cares enough about their welfare to want to heal them, but the care itself can be so blind and uncaring and hurtful that it becomes a harm in itself. Sort of like Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Link: Nurse Ratched - Wikipedia

When cognitive empathy is taken to the extreme, it can also result in the cynic: The person who wants the best for society but is so despairing of society ever improving that he ends up trashing society as a joke or out of frustration.

Experts say that a balance is best. In the book "Against Empathy," psychologist Paul Bloom embraced something that he called "rational compassion." The "rational" side is cognitive empathy; the "compassion" side is affective empathy. Bloom advocates for a little of both, in balance.

 

[Coriolis]

But whenever the subject of empathy comes up, I think it's important to raise one important point: There are multiple forms of empathy. And they each have important strengths and important weaknesses.

So when someone is accused of not having enough "empathy," usually it just means that they are practicing a different form of empathy. For example, I wouldn't say that Coriolis is bad at empathy. Instead, I think she mainly uses cognitive empathy rather than affective empathy.

This is exactly right and an important distinction. I often have pointed out that cognitive empathy is the best I can muster. I don't see it as lesser than the alternative, though, because it results in good outcomes, e.g. motivates me to be helpful to others.

my brain was also changing.

In what way was it changing? How commonplace is this - i.e. will it happen to everyone?

I also find emotion in the moment too fleeting and far from being the full picture on its own. What seems to work better for me - with the changing brain anyhow, not before that - is watch all of them as linked to the situation/issue/whatever, and get all the info from them that I can. I am not sure I get the exact same info or that I interpret it the exact same way as some psychology resources and therapists would expect me to but it works for me as far as I got with all of the emotionz stuff and emotional processing - thread title - anyhow.

I generally consider emotions as just another input to a rational process of evaluation or deciding what to do in a situation, just like physical sensations such as hunger or fatigue, or how much money I have in my pocket. They are data points, but data I have a hard time interpreting and making use of.

Ahh that there is a misunderstanding. I never tried to imply that lol, that a relationship shouldn't be ended bc of the degree of pain. I ended relationships - after my change and getting in touch with emotions i.e. I no longer had the advantage of easily moving on emotionally - regardless of the degree of pain. Yes this means I did end a certain relationship even when I knew the pain was gonna be really bad.

Then yes, we are in agreement. I do find, however, that the soundness of my decision to break things off with someone goes far to mitigate the pain that comes as a result.

I started from adding 1 and 1 together, not doing multiplication let alone solving equations. Heh. But yeah, my brain was only ready for starting at the most basics. Which specifically just meant learning to try to tune in and see the emotions internally, and attempting to do so regularly, even if initially nothing seemed to be there. This is me but I started from defining things, components of emotions, feelings (reading up on all of it a lot), and it was easier to detect them that way. Armed with facts/understanding on what I'm looking for, as much as possible. It still took a long time though.

I do appreciate your trying to take this all the way back to baby arithmetic. I have seen people mention similar steps, specifically trying to see one's own emotions and to define/label them. I still am not sure how the labelling helps. I always preferred descriptions to labels. Perhaps that is why you specified definitions here and not labels. This is one of the places I get hung up, though. When I try to see what emotions are there, I usually draw a blank unless they are strong and obvious - e.g. frustration when I have been working at something for a long time without result/success. At this point, I usually wonder why bother: what will I gain even if I can define the emotions better? Isn't it enough to figure out what the cause is and address that? As in: I am feeing something persistently negative and uncomfortable (see - ill defined). Why might that be? Well, something bad happened at work. Might that be the cause? I address the issue at work - that vague sense of uneasiness is gone. What would I have gained by giving the emotion more attention for its own sake?

Is this answer concrete enough for you? Because to go into specifics on what I did, that would be very long and would require a lot of time, a lot of references to resources, etc. etc. But this is the gist. Books, other resources are all available if you want to read up on those facts/understanding I'm referring to, and the rest you have to do yourself by being willing to pay attention and put in a lot of time to practice.

If you could post the one or two most helpful books or references, I would appreciate it.

How did you decide to pick specific values though? Where did your calculations, computations start?

I know my family had some influence, especially when I was a child, but I also know I have always had a very strong internal sense of what I considered right and wrong, and what was important to me. As I grew up, I noticed that some of the values I took from my family conflicted with my own internal values. I adjusted accordingly. So, I look for internal consistency with my values, and also for them to guide actions that result in favorable outcomes for myself and others. Yes, I realize "favorable" implies a value judgment as well.

Yeah, the example where I mentioned emotional boundaries, it was involving the possibility of unnecessary and actually not constructive enmeshment (depending on the exact situation ofc). But too much control of emotions is also not good in some situations.

As for your last sentence here, actually, yeah, sometimes minimising those effects is good, but sometimes actually you can take advantage of them instead of minimising (as far as you can try and effect these processes anyhow - even awareness of them will help a lot though).

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which there can be "too much" control of emotions, where emotional control is not good. Can you give me an example? Also, how does one take advantage of such effects? What does that even look like?

I gave two general reasons. What makes you wonder as to what you are missing?

If you asked others, they surely did give you answers too. Why was it not satisfactory to you, what were these unsatisfying answers specifically?

I believe you mentioned maintaining relationships and dealing with hard life situations as the reasons. I have had no trouble doing the first, or at least I am satisfied with my present relationships; and as I believe I already mentioned, I find hard situations best dealt with via a rational approach that takes into account the facts of the matter and my personal goals and values. Reasons given me by others usually amount to: I will get more out of life (though they cannot say what more), I will understand more of the human experience (to what end? why is this particular part more deserving of understanding than any other), etc.

I wonder what I am missing only in the sense that I am often curious about things outside my own experience: learning other languages, sampling new foods, reading up on topics I don't know much about. But sampling something and making a commitment to gain some proficiency in it are two different matters. I do the latter when the former provides evidence that the investment of time and effort will be worthwhile.

Also. Some of this cannot be described with "logical words", like when I speak of "emotional connection", I do not have words for conveying to you what's so fulfilling in it. Or when you spoke of human life having value but not feeling this; feeling it emotionally too gives additional value, that I cannot explain in words if someone didn't experience it. It's just certain basic and fundamental aspects of life that maybe a poet or writer could express but I can't for sure. And even if a writer does express it well, I would not have understood it without experiencing it for myself. And having experienced such things myself, I have to say, it's been worth it. My life would not have been complete without these things. It is the experience itself too (i.e. the taste of the food, to use the earlier analogy) but also it provides additional value, additional drive, motivation, better prioritisation of important things and values ... all these additional things are of the kind that's priceless (the function of the food).

I must admit that I have felt such emotional connection with people, though it has been infrequent and, when it happens, mysterious, sometimes to the other person as well. As for an emotional dimension to something like valuing human life, sure, I can see how many people would feel it, but I don't see the value added. It won't make me more likely to, say, try to save someone's life if I had the chance, or simply to help relieve suffering where I can. If anything, the fact that I do not approach such things emotionally means I will have an easier time doing so for someone I might even intensely dislike. If I value human life, that value overrides my emotions of the moment, or the circumstance.

EDIT: I've just read OldFolksBoogie's post here, it lists a few more examples of how the emotions are useful. And, I genuinely don't get it now, have you never been told such things before? Or do you (or Earl Grey even) just dismiss all of it out of hand by just seeing it as meaningless word salad? Or?

I think most of what OFB posted falls into your two main categories. I can say that emotions for me serve as an early warning signal oftentimes, alerting me to the fact that something requires my attention. I focus on what that thing is, though, rather than the emotions themselves, and address it as described above. I will read through his list again to make sure I didn't miss anything. Actually, I haven't been told this directly myself much. Mostly I see it in general discussions like on this forum. And yes, often the explanations do come across as Greek to me. When I ask questions to understand better, I am not often met with the patience and detail you have provided here, so I do thank you for that.

I'm not buying the idea whenever someone says "oh I'll never make a big mistake in my life like others have". That to me is just too ignorant a claim.

Well, that isn't a claim I would or did make. I said that I think I do better than most people at learning from others' mistakes, not that I always manage to do that, or never make my own mistakes.

Anyway, where you said earlier that you don't make some mistakes others do... it's entirely possible that what you see a mistake, others don't perceive and experience as such i.e. not having bad consequences from it. Since you evaluated it based on your personal preferences only. Ofc some mistakes are objectively really big, I'm not talking about those.

When I say I learn from the mistakes of others, what I really mean is that I can learn from the experiences of others that doing A will likely lead to B. If I don't want B, then I can know to avoid A, provided our situations are similar enough. So, I mean I observe and consider those data, rather than assume that I will be lucky, or otherwise able to avoid some B outcome when others have not.

It's simple enough. If you only utilise objective rationality, you will always remain blind to the emotional aspect of the situation. You may try and pick up some of it by inferences and general understandings on people, to try and do cognitive empathy, but it will lag a lot behind direct (emotional or affective) empathy that would give more information on the *actual* situation.

And if someone tries to utilise cognitive empathy too much without actually tuning in emotionally, let alone being interested in that, that can lead to disastrous results. Even if the person has good intentions only..... I've experienced that first-hand. Very heavily.

How can cognitive empathy lead to disastrous results - disastrous in what way? I don't see how affective empathy on my part would actually lead to better outcomes, for me for the others I might interact with.

What I found rude there was calling the fact of the other person feeling bothered irrelevant or incorrect. What does it even mean, them feeling bothered being not "correct"? That doesn't even make sense beyond seeing that it's a criticism of an otherwise perfectly valid feeling of someone else's, hence rude. And calling it irrelevant, same issue with disregarding heavily the other person's experience.

What you mention about it being rude to expect someone who doesn't like doing x thing, to do x thing anyway. Well it depends on what's expected and why. It could be rude or intolerant even of differences. But, I don't see it as a terribly hard expectation or task to acknowledge someone else's presence in the workplace i.e. who's not even a stranger. Who you are going to collaborate with regularly, perhaps all day. It's quite a basic thing.

I'm going to say I had an issue understanding what's wrong with not focusing on social nuances of expression when discussing things in a completely technical environment (or so I thought, i.e. that it really is technical and not social whatsoever, heh). So I kind of understand your dilemma there, even if I never had an issue with seeing the point to saying hi.

So... when I say acknowledge their presence I don't mean that rationally you must have seen they are there and that the person should know this rationally. I mean it in a more emotional-social sense.

Where you speak of the shoe never being on the other foot. You get that feeling because most people and society in general do have a different preference from you there.

Sure - some minimal acknowledgement is fine - saying good morning, for instance. But that silly dance of "how are you", "fine, and you?" - well, just no. And no to telling them what I plan to do over the weekend, etc. I guess my threshold for basic professional courtesy is lower than most, but then it is not uncommon in my profession/workplace. I have observed before that my mindset and persistent lack of skill on this front is probably exacerbated by the fact that I spend most of my time with people who are similarly inclined, or at least T-types rather than F. That being said, if someone really does want to talk to me - even just to vent, or ask my advice about something not work-related, I will generally provide it. So, in a practical sense I am helpful and collegial, and actually rather understanding.

As for finding it "very easy" to criticise close friends, that's a can of worms ofc. Some people don't simply get offended at criticism, but you can seriously affect their self-esteem in the wrong way (and yes such people could even be intelligent people otherwise, could have a very functional life without those egregious mistakes, just simply way more emotional in ways), or you can make people distance from you internally and eventually lose more and more benefits of the relationship. Or never gain them in the first place. Especially true with marriage and family life.

To me, part of being a good friend is being able to give and accept criticism. That presumes, of course, that the criticism is constructive and supported by evidence. I appreciate friends who are willing and able to give me this insight. But then I have been told by others, online and IRL, that I don't take things personally, moreso than others they have known.

 

[Meowcat]

Then?

Lots of investment gone down the toilet.

Emotional, or otherwise, investment into the relationship.

I was responding specifically to what I bolded- it focuses on the processing over the end result, and is an example of evaluating 'correctness' (whether or not it is a mistake) from the processing.

However what you bolded was *directly* related to what I said about the end result. As it was the *same* thing, I just gave an example of it. So the correctness was evaluated by end result. Reread my sentences together to see what I mean there.

? Where did I say that? Best I can do is say that they are irrelevant to me. A friend and I walk into a restaurant- it does not matter in the realm of my own choices if they like seafood or whatever else.

""Why don't you say hi and wave to me when you walk in the office? Why are you so antisocial? That's so mean," It is their arrogance to think that their dissatisfaction means that they are automatically correct in their criticism. Warranted, perhaps- I cannot speak for how irritated they are- but not correct, or relevant."

I did say earlier that I agree that - in general - just feeling dissatisfied isn't going to automatically mean the conclusion is correct.

Staying with the example, "that's so mean" is an exaggerated intent they read into it*, but "antisocial" is an OK descriptor for how the behaviour comes off to many people. And it does signal something relevant... how is their criticism not relevant to you, I've yet to see the reasoning for that from you.

*: After who knows how many times they've experienced the bad feelings over this experience with you repeating. Not excusing lack of discipline in expression ofc, just a possible explanation why it happens.

Wrong again. I can tell my friend it was a bad idea for them to gorge themselves on a large pizza and how it is bad for their health. That is anything but diminishing their perspectives- it is validating of the reality that they do indeed love pizza (their preferences themselves) because I cannot criticize what I do not acknowledge to exist.

How is the statement "it was a bad idea for you to gorge yourself on this large pizza, as it's bad for your health" validating the reality that they love pizza? This sentence is a criticism. It expresses none of that validating. If you have it in your head that expression of criticism means you already acknowledged the existence of something and that means validation, that's really abstract reasoning to most people. Also, yeah, it comes off really overly perfectionistic - thus meddlesome - criticism to a friend unless they asked you to keep reminding them of their diet.

What this is boiling down to for me is that there are ways to acknowledge emotion and emotional perspectives, without engaging in emotionality itself.

Criticism isn't a way to do that.

Too narrow. I could be interested in this as a general perspective, but not for myself. Back to the seafood example above- I do not need to be interested in seafood personally to want to study it. This much has nothing to do with the thread topic.

So you mean you just want to study what others say about emotions?

I have, and shooting down whichever of your posts are off the mark or presumptuous.

Lol, fight on?

Anyhow, the real point of what I said was that it does matter how you come off, in how people you interpret what you say. That is what is playing out here. If you feel I misinterpreted you in a "presumptuous" way, that's because of how you come off & my being critical with that attitude.

In many cases how you come off matters in communication, outside of having all interests and intentions already cleared up/aligned/synced. Easier to get away with it for technical communication but lol you can still run into issues there in my experience. The other party can either try to be rational - but there will still be more nitpicking, more unnecessary criticisms etc on BOTH sides - or they can get really offended or just plain lose motivation to go out of their way to do anything beneficial for you etc.

Funnily enough - and this is part of how the above happens - you can cause the same to yourself. You may think you have "zero" emotions when they are just fully unconscious but will insidiously affect your thinking and reasoning anyway. Unaligned *and* unprocessed emotional motivation causes that.

Anyhow, I'm fine with clearing up misunderstandings like that, but if you want full accuracy regarding the situation here, then you do need to take into account that your way of coming off disinterested or dismissive with your favourite word being "irrelevant" and the like, WILL cause interference in many cases when others are interpreting your words, even if you try to inform them of what you mean.



And that is one basic lesson of emotional intelligence. Taking into account how one comes off (and how that affects emotions) and seeing that as a valid aspect of reality. And seeing how it is advantageous even to oneself to pay attention to some basics of this.

And trust me, it took me forever to accept that for some situations as a fact of life.

AND. I'm serious, if you truly mean that you doling out the criticism of the pizza-eating goes down like that, while in your mind you only have a nice intent along with acknowledging their love of pizza as valid, then your internal intentions are terribly out of touch with how you come off. And that *will* sooner or later cause more problems. Not just "likely", but definitely *will*.

Done with the warnings tho', yah.


***

[MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION] I forgot to answer a question of yours. "How does one provide for another's emotional well-being? What even constitutes emotional well-being? I am very good at providing for general (e.g. material) well being."

Hmm I would say emotional well-being is when you have a good emotional hygiene. You don't get extra distress that's too unconstructive, and you do get to enjoy enough good and emotionally meaningful experiences. It's good for overall psychological, mental and even physical health. Yes, it's good for optimal intellectual functioning too.

Case in point, criticising your (general you) kids too much -> damage to emotional well-being: lowered self-esteem -> all sorts of other issues from lowered self-esteem, from anxiety to low performance at school, etc.

And when I said "emotional investment" is about emotional attachment. I was being pretty general there. Specifically I meant, it's all the emotions put into the relationship, conscious or unconscious. And whatever actions that motivated, with time, effort, material aspects etc put in .... It can be a lot of energy, emotional and otherwise.


edit: I'll respond to your new post later, don't even have time to read it now.



[MENTION=22236]OldFolksBoogie[/MENTION] Yeah. I like "constructive empathy" as a phrasing made up by myself lol.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

This is exactly right and an important distinction. I often have pointed out that cognitive empathy is the best I can muster. I don't see it as lesser than the alternative, though, because it results in good outcomes, e.g. motivates me to be helpful to others.

I've heard affective empathy (the emotional type of empathy) described as something like "sharing a sentiment," while cognitive empathy (the rational type of empathy) is described as "taking multiple perspectives."

"Sentiment-sharing" is pretty self-explanatory. But "perspective-taking" (cognitive empathy) may need explanation: It involves caring about an issue and looking at the issue from multiple perspectives in order to judge which one is best for further action. It's more of a deliberative process rather than simply sharing a sentiment with someone.

I've seen self-help books that favored either over the other. For example:

An example of a book that favors Affective empathy:
--The actor Alan Alda funded a "Center for Communicating Science" at Stoney Brook University in NY to teach medical professionals how to improve their affective empathy. He finds that medical professionals lean too far toward cognitive empathy and could stand to improve their skills in communicating medical issues with the public, especially given the complexity of modern medical issues. He acknowledges the good things that cognitive empathy does, but he figures that a little more affective empathy wouldn't hurt. IOW, he sees the utility of improving affective empathy as a communication tool. He wrote about it in the book "If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?" He describes the classroom techniques and theories they use, etc. So if you're looking for a book that makes the pro-Affective empathy argument, you can check that out. (I'll warn you in advance that it's very fluffy and chatty in style, as you might expect from someone pushing the Affective empathy viewpoint. It's very much in the style of Alda himself.)

An example of a book that favors Cognitive empathy:
The psychologist Paul Bloom wrote the book "Against Empathy" to say that, given the current emphasis placed on honoring "feelings," public policy has become tilted too far in favor of affective empathy. He argues that the public pushes (and the government embraces) sentimental issues without considering the long-term implications. He thinks that modern society has gotten too "sentiment-oriented" and needs to get back to doing more cognitive-empathy-style "perspective-taking," at least when it comes to public policy. It's an excellent book in terms of describing all the downsides of affective empathy--how it pulls us into drama, etc. I took some of my earlier criticisms of affective empathy from my memory of that book.

Anyway, to summarize: In an earlier post you were asking to see a good argument in favor of affective empathy and why you should practice more of it (and how you should go about it). So I'm just saying that there are books out there that favor one or the other type of empathy and provide the sort of info you're looking for, if you're interested. I figured I would pass the info along since you inevitably end up in the middle of these kinds of debates about the usefulness of "feelings" and sentiment and all that.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

[MENTION=22236]OldFolksBoogie[/MENTION] Yeah. I like "constructive empathy" as a phrasing made up by myself lol.

Not bad.

 

[Coriolis]

Staying with the example, "that's so mean" is an exaggerated intent they read into it*, but "antisocial" is an OK descriptor for how the behaviour comes off to many people. And it does signal something relevant... how is their criticism not relevant to you, I've yet to see the reasoning for that from you.

It is relevant in that it directly relates to me and to the situation, but that doesn't require that I reshape myself to suit their preferences. Would it not, after all, be equally valid for me to expect them to accommodate mine? Seems better to me for each of us to be ourselves, and to understand that others will be different. So, my colleague who enjoys being very effusive with greetings is free to do that, while someone like me is equally free to be much more reserved.

Anyhow, the real point of what I said was that it does matter how you come off, in how people you interpret what you say. That is what is playing out here. If you feel I misinterpreted you in a "presumptuous" way, that's because of how you come off & my being critical with that attitude.

Of course it matters how I come off. I do understand that behaviors that others find unwelcome can lead them to think negatively of them, which will in turn lead to bias against me and possibly negative outcomes. I also understand that people often (usually) are unable/unwilling to override this in favor of a more objective reaction. This is the main reason for me to take any interest at all in these superficial social rituals. I'm not dumb. I can learn a script or a lookup table that tells me: in situation A, one should do X and Y but not Z to ingratiate oneself to others. In fact, I can be pretty good at this when it is necessary to achieve some end. I always feel rather sleazy afterwards, though, like I need a scalding shower.

If they cannot handle it, it is in their best interests to leave. I tell them as much.

I neglected to comment on this in my last post. Yes, people don't have to like me. The world is full of people, and as long as few of them do, that is OK. Different strokes and all. All I can legitimately expect from people is common courtesy and respect, the latter of which I expect to have to earn by being honest, responsible, trustworthy, hard-working, etc. If such qualities engender positive emotions in others, fine - but they can be acknowledged on a more objective level, and that is enough for me. I have found that just being myself is a great filter. Saves me the trouble of social interactions that won't go anywhere because I and the other person are fundamentally incompatible, or have little to offer each other on an personal level, whether platonic or romantic.

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

That's the million dollar question, isn't it? The folks who like to preach the virtues of emotional intelligence to the likes of us never seem to be able to come up with any concrete advice on what we should do about it. For that matter, I have yet to see a convincing explanation of how taking more of an interest in this will improve things for myself or others. I suppose that is something I hope to learn from discussions such as this one.

I don't think there are folks in here 'preaching'. I think emotional intelligence is important but I didn't see myself preaching it. Besides, this is a thread in which you have stated and argued your pov, and so do others. It's fine to not see the value in it, but that wording of 'the folks' is a bit condescending, has no real purpose and does not seem very constructive. I think my post shows what I am going to say now: people have different accesses to this topic and for me for eg having emotional intelligence works out, and so it seems like it does for others in here as well. That's pretty much it.

 

[Maou]

I did not have the opportunity to develop my emotions and how to processing them in a healthy way growing up. I was very neglected emotionally, and had very cold parents. So growing up, my emotions were constantly "not okay" to have. A child's first defense mechanism for this kind of environment, is disassociation/depersonalization. So more often than not, my emotions have always been on back burner and ignored. Sometimes they overfill, and burst out in uncontrollable bouts. There is a slight disconnect between me and them. I often times am very unaware of the emotions I am feeling. I have to really think about it, and take in environmental cues to figure it out. I have this on top of what is known as "Emotional flashbacks", because I have cPTSD. My emotions are what goes back in time to moments of trauma, and it will cause a resurgence of powerful emotions that I think is being caused by current events. Which leads to even more confusion to try to understand them, so I ignore them. When I feel emotions, my first instinct is to recognize if its a good or bad one. I sometimes get confused if an emotion is a good or bad one, because often times I feel multiple emotions at once. Yet I cannot make a distinction. I feel that I do have some strong control on how much I let it affect my thinking, other times I "break" and the dam cuts loose and I tend to become rather hysterical. Sometimes, I do know what I am feeling. The emotion is clear as day sometimes, but I have no idea what to do with it. Other times, I let the "autopilot" take control, and just wing it. Touch and go, and it is honestly exhausting for me. So much of my time is spent simply trying to figure out what to do, how to fix my bad emotions that I become disengaged from reality more often than not. I tend to isolate and become anti-social when I am struck with an emotional flashback or bout of bad emotions. I am not really even sure if I "process" let alone understand.

 

[Coriolis]

I don't think there are folks in here 'preaching'. I think emotional intelligence is important but I didn't see myself preaching it. Besides, this is a thread in which you have stated and argued your pov, and so do others. It's fine to not see the value in it, but that wording of 'the folks' is a bit condescending, has no real purpose and does not seem very constructive. I think my post shows what I am going to say now: people have different accesses to this topic and for me for eg having emotional intelligence works out, and so it seems like it does for others in here as well. That's pretty much it.

[MENTION=39881]Meowcat[/MENTION] had asked me what answers or information I had received from others. I have indeed seen a preachy approach from others at times, hence my comment. I have addressed this with them in those threads/discussions. If I thouight it applied to specific members/replies here, I would follow up much more directly.

In other words, if the shoe doesn't fit, don't try to wear it.

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

[MENTION=39881]Meowcat[/MENTION] had asked me what answers or information I had received from others. I have indeed seen a preachy approach from others at times, hence my comment. I have addressed this with them in those threads/discussions. If I thouight it applied to specific members/replies here, I would follow up much more directly.

In other words, if the shoe doesn't fit, don't try to wear it.

I still don't think that statement was helpful or productive in any way, no matter how you put it.

 

[Vendrah]

I did not have the opportunity to develop my emotions and how to processing them in a healthy way growing up. I was very neglected emotionally, and had very cold parents. So growing up, my emotions were constantly "not okay" to have. A child's first defense mechanism for this kind of environment, is disassociation/depersonalization. So more often than not, my emotions have always been on back burner and ignored. Sometimes they overfill, and burst out in uncontrollable bouts. There is a slight disconnect between me and them. I often times am very unaware of the emotions I am feeling. I have to really think about it, and take in environmental cues to figure it out. I have this on top of what is known as "Emotional flashbacks", because I have cPTSD. My emotions are what goes back in time to moments of trauma, and it will cause a resurgence of powerful emotions that I think is being caused by current events. Which leads to even more confusion to try to understand them, so I ignore them. When I feel emotions, my first instinct is to recognize if its a good or bad one. I sometimes get confused if an emotion is a good or bad one, because often times I feel multiple emotions at once. Yet I cannot make a distinction. I feel that I do have some strong control on how much I let it affect my thinking, other times I "break" and the dam cuts loose and I tend to become rather hysterical. Sometimes, I do know what I am feeling. The emotion is clear as day sometimes, but I have no idea what to do with it. Other times, I let the "autopilot" take control, and just wing it. Touch and go, and it is honestly exhausting for me. So much of my time is spent simply trying to figure out what to do, how to fix my bad emotions that I become disengaged from reality more often than not. I tend to isolate and become anti-social when I am struck with an emotional flashback or bout of bad emotions. I am not really even sure if I "process" let alone understand.

Bad emotions are not actually bad, trust me. Some good can come from them (although anger generally doesnt). This is a lot of subjective, my emotions arent like yours, but as a rule of thumb I even already heard from professional psychologies that it is bet to let them out of your deep or the grave you gave them than to bury them inside. To face them. Sometimes I feel bad, and when I let myself feel bad the emotion end up passing, while if I struggle against it, it will persist for longer. It is not bad to feel bad at all. In real life even the most luckiest people in the world pass through this eventually.

PTSD... I dont know why but this looks like an abbreviation of a democratic party (politics)..

 

[Vendrah]

Time to join the party, I guess?
I dont think there is only 2 types of empathy, but rather at least 3.
I say why: Its bad to quote stats on this topic, but I will go fast on it, I basically had been digging around and ended up correlating 3 cognitive functions with empathy, but that pretty much dependend on how empathy was concepted through the questionaries. Dependending on how it was phrased, empathy correlated with Fi, Fe mostly, and Ne in one cousing aspect (it was phrased as Sympathy, I think).

I think Ne plays an interesting role, and how people do it without Ne kind of impress me (because I wouldnt know how to do it). It really means projecting others into the yourself person for a while (from a few seconds to a few minutes..), emulate the other persons thoughts and/or feelings, in a way to try to understand the person. It is about to put yourself in others shoes as english people like to talk (put yourself into other´s place in portuguese). It is asking: "What if I was that person, what would I think and/or feel?". But there are two things to be watch: In this process, at least through Ne, feeling is not a must. Because Ne isnt about feelings.

Perhaps I put too much cognitive functions on the subject, but my point is that being empathetic doesnt really imply into two things:
- Supporting the person: The story about "everyone is right at their own lenses" is discussable and I disagree. Even though they dont escape being wrong at the bigger picture when they are, and the big picture reminds you that even if you can get some understanding about the worst criminals and bad people, you at the same time is able to have empathy with their victims, which change things.
- Doenst auto-imply into have feelings for the person.

I myself have been suppressing my empathy because I already had a flood of it, and ended up burned out.
It happens that I can see others suffering through statistical numbers. It took me long to realize that I saw numbers differently. Most of people, when read "10 murders where done in the city this year", interprets and acts coldly through that stat because for them that is just a number in the sea of stats, you know, like these fact numbers. For me, everyone of these 10 murders are deep stories, everyone of these 10 are people which end up their lifes (and most of them surely didnt wanted that), everyone of these murders are more or less 10 books filled with drama and all that stuff. That line of interpretation of mine ended up me getting, even by only 0,001% to 1% of the suffering of many and many people at once, which mades me super depressed (nearly crying when I started to wonder if I should share this). It did get worse outside, when I suddenly started to see in my enviroment the right patterns thar reinforces the number, so everytime I saw one homeless I remember of many others out of my field of viw, but were still there. They were very real to the world and very imaginative from myself, yet they are real. I end up having to contain it to control because thinking steps ahead I would end up killing myself because of that (it would take at least 2 years for that thing to cause it on its own). Today, I try to not remember and Im trying to be more detached (partially PROActive by the book quoted by [MENTION=22236]OldFolksBoogie[/MENTION], instead of reactive. Although being detached has nothing to do with working on beliefs towards what is in or out of control).

 

[Maou]

Bad emotions are not actually bad, trust me. Some good can come from them (although anger generally doesnt). This is a lot of subjective, my emotions arent like yours, but as a rule of thumb I even already heard from professional psychologies that it is bet to let them out of your deep or the grave you gave them than to bury them inside. To face them. Sometimes I feel bad, and when I let myself feel bad the emotion end up passing, while if I struggle against it, it will persist for longer. It is not bad to feel bad at all. In real life even the most luckiest people in the world pass through this eventually.

PTSD... I dont know why but this looks like an abbreviation of a democratic party (politics)..

My issue with letting them surface, is that I cannot control them. My main emotion I deal with is anger, and its on a very short leash. Its too much to let lose safely. So I cannot really "face them", but adapt to future expressions.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

[snipped...]I basically had been digging around and ended up correlating 3 cognitive functions with empathy, but that pretty much dependend on how empathy was concepted through the questionaries. Dependending on how it was phrased, empathy correlated with Fi, Fe mostly, and Ne in one cousing aspect (it was phrased as Sympathy, I think). [...snipped]

I disagree. Your definition of empathy is too narrow. Too exclusive. Personally, I use a much broader definition of empathy:

Speaking in broad terms, empathy is simply the way that we relate to the world. In terms of biology, empathy is based on mirror neurons. Every human has mirror neurons, as do primates and lots of other species. Even most mammals empathize to one degree or another: For example, household pets bond with their masters and reflect their moods. That's empathy as a broad concept: Basically it's simply the ability to interact with, bond with, and mirror the world around you.

From there, humans tend to be divided up into those who use affective empathy versus those who use cognitive empathy. But all people pretty much have to use one or the other. It's difficult to imagine a person who doesn't use either one: They would be unreactive to the world.

Here is how I would define things:

I think Affective empathy (the "emotional" form of empathy) pretty much correlates to Extraversion, whereas Cognitive empathy (the "intellectual" form of empathy) pretty much correlates to Introversion.

If you think about it, the definition for Affective empathy pretty much matches the definition for Extraversion: Jung said that extraverts interact with the world by bonding directly with objects and people in the world around them. And that's what Affective empathy does: It shares the sentiments of the people around you, thus creating supportive bonds and a feeling of community. It's the ability to feel what others are feeling by a mirroring process.

Meantime, the definition for Cognitive empathy pretty much matches the definition for Introversion: Jung said that introverts interact with the world by extracting ideas from the outside world and carrying them down into an internal laboratory. In that laboratory they create "idea complexes" concerning favorite concepts, and they take fresh input from the outside world and see how it matches up with their existing "idea complexes." If you think about it, that's pretty much the definition of "perspective-taking," which is the activity of Cognitive empathy.

In chapter 7 of "Psychological Types," Jung himself said that Extraversion equates to "empathy" and Introversion equates to "abstraction." But the terminology has changed since 1921, when that book was published. A lot of psychologists didn't like Jung's choice of terminology because it implied that introverts couldn't be empathetic and extraverts couldn't abstract. So instead, modern psychologists use the terms "affective empathy" and "cognitive empathy." But I would say that the definitions for "affective empathy" and "cognitive empathy" are pretty much a match for Jung's concepts of Extraversion and Introversion; it's just different terminology from what Jung himself used.

Of course, that raises another question: Does this mean that all extraverts are automatically users of affective empathy and all introverts are automatically users of cognitive empathy? Or is it possible for there to be some crossover: Is it possible for some extraverts to use cognitive empathy and some introverts to use affective empathy?

In answer to that question, personally I would guess that there's a broad correlation between introversion and cognitive empathy, and between extraversion and affective empathy. But I think that there is also plenty of room for crossover as well: After all, everyone has an introverted function and an extraverted function in their top two functions. That means everyone has quick access to both kinds of empathy. So it's entirely possible for introverts to develop their Auxiliary extravert function and start using affective empathy in their dealings with the world outside their heads. Matter of fact, in a previous post I described pretty much this exact thing in my own history: I'm an introvert but I developed my auxiliary Ne and used affective empathy in the past; but I tended to become an enabler in the process; so eventually I gave it up and returned to my natural roots in cognitive empathy.

Similarly, it's also possible for an extravert to work on developing their Auxiliary introverted function and start using cognitive empathy more. If the world is getting them down and pulling them in too many different directions, they may "start looking out for Number 1," sink into their head a bit like an introvert, and start engaging in cognitive perspective-taking to prioritize their needs, instead of bonding to so many people that they end up overcommitting.

Of course, this is all just my own theory based on what I've read about cognitive empathy and affective empathy (and about Jung's definitions of introversion and extraversion). And as always, the standard disclaimers apply: I don't have any background or training in psychology. I'm just passing along what I've read in self-help and popular psychology books.

 

[Coriolis]

I still don't think that statement was helpful or productive in any way, no matter how you put it.

Are you dismissing the possibility that some people can get preachy on this topic? Or do you instead think we should pretend the preachiness doesn't exist? I actually can overlook preachiness as long as it comes along with workable guidance on how to follow the advice presented.

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

Are you dismissing the possibility that some people can get preachy on this topic? Or do you instead think we should pretend the preachiness doesn't exist? I actually can overlook preachiness as long as it comes along with workable guidance on how to follow the advice presented.

No. Just no.

Since this thread is getting extremely derailed now, I'll write you a DM. Because now it really is time to not derail this thread any further, because then it would get really ridiculous with the derailing.

 

[Indigo Rodent]

Is there a difference in how the various personality types process their emotions. I'm not getting into the mud of who feels more than others. We're all human, we all feel emotions just the same. But how do you process that emotional data? To some, emotions can be this vague territory that is unknown or irrational, to others, it is the lifeblood through which all decisions are made and interpreted.

Not only am I interested in seeing how the various types perceive their emotions, and the emotions of others, but I wonder if the various function dynamics sift through emotions differently as well. Dig deep people, really deep. Analyze that thought process of yours. Let's talk about them feels

I just measure if the society good, humane, pure and worthy of being proud of, if needs are met, if surrounding is safe, clean and beautiful, if there's enough living space. Yes, I mostly feel low key despair most of time. Generally, I try to distract myself with various hobbies or just think about how the world, how my life is, etc. and come to various conclusions, usually repeatedly.

Used to be like this during high school due to 2 years of psychological abuse in toxic primary school that left me disabled with IBS, insomnia and attacks of rage and a year in a toxic private high school after it.
Ableist parents didn't help.

Only learned to control that stuff after I learned basic mindfulness of breath meditation back in 2015.

Like I literally have ripped 7 doors from cabinets in kitchen back in 2001-2006, punched a mirror, etc.

When I was still in abusive school, I used to storm out of class and slam the door. Happened to me a few times in next school - when I saw a maths teacher belittle some students.

 

[Meowcat]

Bad emotions are not actually bad, trust me. Some good can come from them (although anger generally doesnt). This is a lot of subjective, my emotions arent like yours, but as a rule of thumb I even already heard from professional psychologies that it is bet to let them out of your deep or the grave you gave them than to bury them inside. To face them. Sometimes I feel bad, and when I let myself feel bad the emotion end up passing, while if I struggle against it, it will persist for longer. It is not bad to feel bad at all. In real life even the most luckiest people in the world pass through this eventually.

PTSD... I dont know why but this looks like an abbreviation of a democratic party (politics)..

I totally agree with most of this. I only post bc I want to say that I don't think making an exception for and vilifying anger makes sense. I read a book written by a counsellor recently and it claimed at one point that anger is madness, and anything you say or do when angry is madness and that the reader should believe him on this because he's a qualified therapist .... no shit. Lol. Anger is a very constructive emotion to protect boundaries or to achieve hard things. Etc.

If I misunderstood your comment on anger let me know tho'.

I've heard affective empathy (the emotional type of empathy) described as something like "sharing a sentiment," while cognitive empathy (the rational type of empathy) is described as "taking multiple perspectives."

"Sentiment-sharing" is pretty self-explanatory. But "perspective-taking" (cognitive empathy) may need explanation: It involves caring about an issue and looking at the issue from multiple perspectives in order to judge which one is best for further action. It's more of a deliberative process rather than simply sharing a sentiment with someone.

(...)

Anyway, to summarize: In an earlier post you were asking to see a good argument in favor of affective empathy and why you should practice more of it (and how you should go about it). So I'm just saying that there are books out there that favor one or the other type of empathy and provide the sort of info you're looking for, if you're interested. I figured I would pass the info along since you inevitably end up in the middle of these kinds of debates about the usefulness of "feelings" and sentiment and all that.

Hmm. I would say advanced affective empathy isn't simply automatic sinking in what another person feels, but it's conscious tuning into what another person feels, in a consciously controlled process. And then that can interface pretty well with cognitive empathy or considered thinking processes and whatnot. Working with actual emotional data on the actual situation.

BTW empathy for me just means the brain's modeling of how animate things work. Hence it can't be about an objective or impersonal topic. With cognitive empathy, depending on what we mean by cognitive empathy - above I meant every knowledge about these animate models that's not directly based on being interested in and tuning into the actual emotions - the reasoning process can get pretty impersonal ofc.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

[snipped...] Hmm. I would say advanced affective empathy isn't simply automatic sinking in what another person feels, but it's conscious tuning into what another person feels, in a consciously controlled process. And then that can interface pretty well with cognitive empathy or considered thinking processes and whatnot. Working with actual emotional data on the actual situation. [...snipped]

You're right. I've been describing extraversion/affective empathy rather simply (as "sentiment-sharing") just because everyone pretty much intuitively understands affective empathy and how it works.

But in fact extraversion/affective empathy is a pretty complex skill. It's the skill that builds elaborate cultures and civilizations. It tames the "human element," neutralizes the negative side of human nature (the selfishness and childishness), builds community spirit, and gets us all working together to build great nations and do things like travel to the moon.

And it's not an easy skill. Introverts who learn to extravert (like myself) find that society has a number of traps for the unwary--abusers, enabling, selfishness, fear of ostracism, etc. It's extraverts who do the work and learn how to maneuver around all those traps, neutralize the worst of it, provide support networks, and keep humanity chugging forward as a whole and doing great things. And extraversion/affective empathy operates "on the fly," in real time, by sheer brains, guts, and instinct.

In Chapter 6 of "Psychological Types," Jung talks about how the world needs both introverts and extraverts. Introverts are good at sitting in solitude and thinking up great inventions or books; meanwhile, extraverts are good at taking the raw material of human nature and creating great civilizations from it. Jung considered introversion and extraversion to be equal in both importance and difficulty and said that both skills are needed if humanity is to move forward and achieve great things.

 

[Meowcat]

In what way was it changing? How commonplace is this - i.e. will it happen to everyone?

Getting way more access to emotions, feelings. (I have other things going on too but this is definitely one of them.)

I don't know what it depends on whether it will happen. I've seen it in quite a few people. Some people would start on this when they no longer had many other life goals to achieve (e.g. retirement), some would when they were affected enough by a *very strong* emotional influence during happenings in their lives.

I generally consider emotions as just another input to a rational process of evaluation or deciding what to do in a situation, just like physical sensations such as hunger or fatigue, or how much money I have in my pocket. They are data points, but data I have a hard time interpreting and making use of.

Same. Including the last sentence ha ha. It's hard work trying to do it more!!

Then yes, we are in agreement. I do find, however, that the soundness of my decision to break things off with someone goes far to mitigate the pain that comes as a result.

Damn then you got lucky in a sense lol, in that you haven't had a strong enough emotional attachment broken yet (or so it sounds to me yeah) where such rationality no longer goes far enough to significantly er, mitigate that pain on its own.

I do appreciate your trying to take this all the way back to baby arithmetic. I have seen people mention similar steps, specifically trying to see one's own emotions and to define/label them. I still am not sure how the labelling helps. I always preferred descriptions to labels. Perhaps that is why you specified definitions here and not labels. This is one of the places I get hung up, though. When I try to see what emotions are there, I usually draw a blank unless they are strong and obvious - e.g. frustration when I have been working at something for a long time without result/success. At this point, I usually wonder why bother: what will I gain even if I can define the emotions better? Isn't it enough to figure out what the cause is and address that? As in: I am feeing something persistently negative and uncomfortable (see - ill defined). Why might that be? Well, something bad happened at work. Might that be the cause? I address the issue at work - that vague sense of uneasiness is gone. What would I have gained by giving the emotion more attention for its own sake?

Glad if you feel it helps in any way. Ahahaha and don't go there about labelling. LOL. I am with you on this, yeah. I was *always* hung up on how it doesn't make sense to just label emotions. I figured out over time that that labelling helps certain more "feely" people, yes, when in a book I saw examples of their thought processes about it. I need to remember which book it was but it was talking about how when you get to figure out which feeling you are having, like you figure you feel upset and a few other feelings about your kid not dressing right for school then you can see how that touches on your other fears or whatever and so on and somehow that magically led the person in this example (with her kid not dressed up right) to see the solution. If I find which book that was in, I'll quote from it. Anyway yeah labelling does not do that for me, it does not bring up other emotional contexts or whatever for me. I use definitions and descriptions instead like you said.

With that, I basically try to find all emotions, feelings linked to the situation to make a full appraisal of it. Exploring all aspects emotionally internally and secondarily, the other person's emotions too (harder for me than to do my own emotions tho' that's also really not easy). Until I get the final gut feeling where I know what the bottom line and the real decision is. Where there is no second-guessing afterwards. And where I can see a lot of aspects of the personal situation (tho' I could still improve on this a lot...). BTW I was always able to make decisions about choices for impersonal things but with personal situations I either ignored the need to make a decision or I was taking forever with it. But I know people who have trouble with making decisions even for impersonal things bc of being out of touch with their gut emotional feelings. Now besides better decision-making my goal is ofc also to communicate emotionally better with the other person, so it isn't just about the decision-making.

Anyway yeah. You can improve on your sensitivity on detecting components of feelings/emotions. If you can only see strong and obvious ones now, you can practice your ability to perceive them from smaller signs too. Baby steps there too initially though yeah. Again like I said, I couldn't have done it without defining it all at first. I initially intellectualised a LOT in general but it was necessary imo.... You can then also improve your ability to categorise (not just "label") and place the feelings. And so on.

As for your example. The problem is that you do have to connect the emotional dots more sometimes. So just guessing that it's the specific issue at work where you can directly see the concrete steps of action will leave that out. The bad feeling may be resolved if it was just that yeah, but if it was in relation to something more personal then you'll need to connect the emotional dots too. Or it's also a problem if you notice but then you ignore the vague bad feeling too much and it will repeat (and repeatedly ignored) and this will build over time and cause more issues. Then it can get so strong that you can't even really retain control over it rationally - beyond already lacking full control over it by failing to fully understand it and connecting those dots.

And since you described it as a vague sense of uneasiness, it's likely it was vague because it had a personal component. At least for me it's more discrete and less vague emotional reactions (tho' still pretty simple ones) when it relates to aspects of impersonal situations. Basically my emotional flow internally is pretty good when it comes to impersonal stuff. For some people it's not, but I'm lucky at least with that. The flow was really really broken for personal aspects tho' for me. Due to neglecting that area for so long. It's still hiccupy as hell but it's improving. And when I speak of personal situations, it means situations either about my person or about other people (or both: the most complex, ha). Even with some impersonal situations I ended up seeing that they had a personal aspect too. No, certainly not all of them (thank god lol).

What would I have gained by giving the emotion more attention for its own sake?

Requoting this part. It's not for "its own sake". The emotion always has a purpose, a context, it does not exist for "its own sake" only. This is a very important tenet, please.

If you could post the one or two most helpful books or references, I would appreciate it.

It wasn't just 1-2 books/references, it would be hard to pick out just 1-2 of them. If you can narrow down what exactly you'd look at right now, then I can try to recommend a couple of them.

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which there can be "too much" control of emotions, where emotional control is not good. Can you give me an example? Also, how does one take advantage of such effects? What does that even look like?

It's not good when emotional expression is important, like with kids, again. To be able to mirror them, to teach them about emotions, to have them feel not neglected emotionally. It's also not good in marriage because it blocks emotional connection that is to be the foundation of a strong intimate relationship. It's not good socially sometimes when it comes off as too reserved and disinterested. Sometimes you really just gotta get spontaneous emotionally. Fuck too much control. : p

Taking advantage of effects: I'll give you some really basic examples. Positive mood helps with finding more options, even with risk taking when that is what is best (sometimes when it feels like a risk you have to jump in anyhow). Helps even with quicker decision-making when there are many options. Slightly negative mood helps with being detail-oriented, realistic and considered enough (not too negative though).

Btw you cannot truly exclude the effect of emotional states and you shouldn't even try. (Re: Damasio's originally ground-breaking research again, rooted strongly in hard facts from neuroscience.)

I believe you mentioned maintaining relationships and dealing with hard life situations as the reasons. I have had no trouble doing the first, or at least I am satisfied with my present relationships; and as I believe I already mentioned, I find hard situations best dealt with via a rational approach that takes into account the facts of the matter and my personal goals and values.

I'm glad if you are satisfied with your relationships and if your friends/spouse/kids/family etc also are.

A rational approach is not always enough in hard situations. I once read about how under stress the more rational brain works (in contrast to the more emotional type of brain). Under moderate and somewhat more than moderate stress such people grow more emotionally distant, progressively colder, which helps focus on finding a solution and keeping the bad emotions at bay until then; but there is a turning point under severe enough stress into overemotionality. Now that's when emotional awareness beyond just rationality really helps get the most out of it. Also, just as important: if the moderate stress is prolonged, this being distant and colder mode will have a bad effect on relationships. Ofc the eventual solution is to sort out the stress but yeah... this effect is not to be neglected, at all.

The other thing would be severe enough depression. Some people actually have long-standing dysthymia too without even noticing it. And in all these cases, emotional awareness is required for a resolution. Rationality with the already known values (from previous emotional foundation, conscious or not) simply isn't enough.

For resolution of trauma especially rationality isn't enough.

For life situations that are hard but can be approached impersonally, your approach can be enough though if the emotional awareness is too low it will eventually bite anyone in the ass long-term. Like I said a few lines above.

Reasons given me by others usually amount to: I will get more out of life (though they cannot say what more), I will understand more of the human experience (to what end? why is this particular part more deserving of understanding than any other), etc.

For the former reason given by others: did they not ever give you ANY example of what more you'd get out of life? Have you ever asked for examples and they couldn't give any?

"Human experience" is uhh a pretty feely word, ha ha ha. I would say that it's justified though in that you can that way have more of a connection with other people, if you understand more of the uh, so-called "human experience". You will understand their "feely" experience too more, and that serves as an additional basis for a better connection.

The bolded is a red herring, sorry. If you are intellectually honest, you can see why. Since simply by mentioning "understanding more of the human experience", no one states that this is more important than other things, and it does not logically follow either.

I wonder what I am missing only in the sense that I am often curious about things outside my own experience: learning other languages, sampling new foods, reading up on topics I don't know much about. But sampling something and making a commitment to gain some proficiency in it are two different matters. I do the latter when the former provides evidence that the investment of time and effort will be worthwhile.

Alright... You know I'm different there so it helps that you explained this. I mean... I don't get curious / look at new topics just for the sake of curiosity. But ok, if you do, I get that.

I must admit that I have felt such emotional connection with people, though it has been infrequent and, when it happens, mysterious, sometimes to the other person as well.

How would it be if you experienced it more frequently? Would you say it added no value on top of all the rationality?

As for an emotional dimension to something like valuing human life, sure, I can see how many people would feel it, but I don't see the value added. It won't make me more likely to, say, try to save someone's life if I had the chance, or simply to help relieve suffering where I can. If anything, the fact that I do not approach such things emotionally means I will have an easier time doing so for someone I might even intensely dislike. If I value human life, that value overrides my emotions of the moment, or the circumstance.

Sure, that's called self-control or discipline over momentary emotions.

I personally have experienced feeling it making it more likely that I'd help someone with something. I get to feel for the other person and then maybe the feeling goes away (many of my feelings are fleeting in terms of conscious experience yes), but the obligation I created based on it remains. And I fulfill the obligation as promised. Even tho' the original feeling is gone*. So.... there is benefit.

*: I think it means that it's still there somewhere. I read a book once that explained how when a feeling/emotional state isn't active, you still have it in effect. The example given was, you are really focused on playing a sport with your team so you don't at all have focus on your lover or feel any feelings. But then they show you your lover's photo. And you feel it again. I can find the exact description if this is not clear enough for an explanation, let me know. (The book is not in English and I doubt it was translated, so I cannot simply give its title to you as a reference)

I think most of what OFB posted falls into your two main categories. I can say that emotions for me serve as an early warning signal oftentimes, alerting me to the fact that something requires my attention. I focus on what that thing is, though, rather than the emotions themselves, and address it as described above. I will read through his list again to make sure I didn't miss anything. Actually, I haven't been told this directly myself much. Mostly I see it in general discussions like on this forum. And yes, often the explanations do come across as Greek to me. When I ask questions to understand better, I am not often met with the patience and detail you have provided here, so I do thank you for that.

Agreed OFB had good examples for my categories. Your next sentence, yes you put that well & I guess you have some emotional awareness yes. I don't think you can expect yourself to change like, not to focus on the objective thing eventually... I don't aim to change myself in that way either. But getting more into emotions before going back to the objectivity can still help... If you reread his list, did any of it make sense for how it can be added value? Or was it too Greek? I'm curious, let me know.

And np I really don't mind the way you ask questions about this. It doesn't feel like you are automatically just dismissive of the entire topic even tho I see some of it too : P. But I understand actually, I've had it a lot myself. I still do about some emotional things. : PP

Well, that isn't a claim I would or did make. I said that I think I do better than most people at learning from others' mistakes, not that I always manage to do that, or never make my own mistakes.

OK I can make sense of this. Tho' I would say I think it depends on strengths as to in which areas you can learn from other people's mistakes without having to have personal experience for it.

When I say I learn from the mistakes of others, what I really mean is that I can learn from the experiences of others that doing A will likely lead to B. If I don't want B, then I can know to avoid A, provided our situations are similar enough. So, I mean I observe and consider those data, rather than assume that I will be lucky, or otherwise able to avoid some B outcome when others have not.

Same as above

How can cognitive empathy lead to disastrous results - disastrous in what way? I don't see how affective empathy on my part would actually lead to better outcomes, for me for the others I might interact with.

Adding affective empathy means you can actually utilise cognitive empathy for the actual emotions of the other person and of your own beyond some schemes of understanding. If you have too little focus on the emotional/affective empathy, on actual emotional data, then your schemes, rules and principles will become too rigid and out of touch with how other people work.

Disastrous results... umm, well, so yeah, you can get really rigid and out of touch with what's actually felt. It can backfire in really nasty ways eventually. Typical example is divorce. OK, I'll give you an example, first not from my own life though I could pick from my own life too...

I talked to someone else who has a family and who's past 50 years old. She said that one day she finally tuned in enough and realised from her husband's words how she hurt him and even her kids with a lot of criticism of hers. She was too often critical and giving too little validation even when she thought she was fine in this area. I think she thought the criticism was constructive and all that. She was quite perfectionistic really. She would at least internally be critical of her kids drawings as an example. Yes, even of such things. I mean small kids don't usually draw well but so what? You can still give praise and be happy together with the kids about doing the whole activity. Instead of upholding the drawings to standards like in a class in school where they get graded. So yeah, well. Her husband one day had a really honest "outburst" of complaint about it and somehow she finally got to hear him. She got to feel really guilty btw and then really really worked hard to make up for it. I think that was awesome of her really.

OK I'll give one from my own life too... it's similar really, I was told recently by a friend that they just can't take my advice any more bc it makes them feel really bad by now. It got too much over time. Yeah he's a pretty feely guy but still. That doesn't make his feelings invalid. In the past I'd have argued or I'd have simply not heard it even if I had thought I was registering the complaint fully. But I had enough awareness at that point to get what he means. I know now that feelings do not go away just bc of ignoring them. So you cannot expect either yourself or others either to ignore them by claiming that they are totally inconsequential, just don't matter or whatever. Plus I have felt enough pain by now from my previous experiences, that helped understand too. You know, the kind of pain you do not get to "mitigate" by rational reasoning. No matter how sound the reasoning seems. Heh.

This isn't the worst example from my life and not the ones that I call disastrous. But those ones involve end of relationships, even if I was the one who ended them, and basically I ended them because it all got too out of sync emotionally. And that was due to my low emotional awareness (tho' of course it always takes two to tango but that there was my own role in it.)

If you want concrete examples of this too, ok, ok one of them is that my own feelings got too ignored in one of these relationships. I was really uh, caring and always taking care of things and paid attention to all my obligations and all that, but I forgot how to even show I have feelings so the other person forgot that I could even have any deeper feelings. No joke. Yes it was their fault too, takes two to tango and all that, but.... yeah I could've avoided it for sure.

I don't see how affective empathy on my part would actually lead to better outcomes, for me for the others I might interact with.

I'll quote this one again bc it's important. For others it's just as important that you get to tune in with affective empathy (at least for people closer to you if you don't have the emotional energy to do it much for everyone, which is understandable, really not everyone does). They'll just feel the good effects of it. Good for more effective communication, for being on the same wavelength, and good for that emotional well-being eventually ....

Sure - some minimal acknowledgement is fine - saying good morning, for instance. But that silly dance of "how are you", "fine, and you?" - well, just no. And no to telling them what I plan to do over the weekend, etc. I guess my threshold for basic professional courtesy is lower than most, but then it is not uncommon in my profession/workplace. I have observed before that my mindset and persistent lack of skill on this front is probably exacerbated by the fact that I spend most of my time with people who are similarly inclined, or at least T-types rather than F. That being said, if someone really does want to talk to me - even just to vent, or ask my advice about something not work-related, I will generally provide it. So, in a practical sense I am helpful and collegial, and actually rather understanding.

Oh that, that's just you being a more private person, sure, if you don't share about your weekend in small talk. The original example from Earl Grey was questioning the need to even say "hi".

So if colleagues are usually pretty happy with you then probably no problem in that area.

To me, part of being a good friend is being able to give and accept criticism. That presumes, of course, that the criticism is constructive and supported by evidence. I appreciate friends who are willing and able to give me this insight. But then I have been told by others, online and IRL, that I don't take things personally, moreso than others they have known.

Oh yes it is part of a real friendship. But getting nitpicky and criticising a *good* experience of someone else...? What's the actual point. If friends don't tell you - if you do this, maybe only Earl Grey does criticism like with that pizza-eating example - that it feels bad it's because they don't want conflict or are trying to spare your feelings etc. With more "feely" people especially you cannot expect they tell you everything right away. They sometimes tell you only years later in a direct enough way, when it's too late. Until then they signal to you only in indirect ways and that'll go right past your ears if you are not enough tuned in with affective empathy.

It is relevant in that it directly relates to me and to the situation, but that doesn't require that I reshape myself to suit their preferences. Would it not, after all, be equally valid for me to expect them to accommodate mine? Seems better to me for each of us to be ourselves, and to understand that others will be different. So, my colleague who enjoys being very effusive with greetings is free to do that, while someone like me is equally free to be much more reserved.

There are basic social norms of how not to be an asshole. The original example was just uhh.... ignoring even those most basic social norms.

Also, there is such a thing as mutual compromise. Can't always just be 1000% yourself.

Of course it matters how I come off. I do understand that behaviors that others find unwelcome can lead them to think negatively of them, which will in turn lead to bias against me and possibly negative outcomes.

Do you fully understand though why or how it matters to others that then leads them to think negatively of a person who appears to invalidate their feelings way too often. Not excusing immature shitty reactions of some people tho with this, ofc. (Not claiming I fully understand it all.)

I also understand that people often (usually) are unable/unwilling to override this in favor of a more objective reaction. This is the main reason for me to take any interest at all in these superficial social rituals. I'm not dumb. I can learn a script or a lookup table that tells me: in situation A, one should do X and Y but not Z to ingratiate oneself to others. In fact, I can be pretty good at this when it is necessary to achieve some end. I always feel rather sleazy afterwards, though, like I need a scalding shower.

OK well the social machinations lol...

I neglected to comment on this in my last post. Yes, people don't have to like me. The world is full of people, and as long as few of them do, that is OK. Different strokes and all. All I can legitimately expect from people is common courtesy and respect, the latter of which I expect to have to earn by being honest, responsible, trustworthy, hard-working, etc. If such qualities engender positive emotions in others, fine - but they can be acknowledged on a more objective level, and that is enough for me. I have found that just being myself is a great filter. Saves me the trouble of social interactions that won't go anywhere because I and the other person are fundamentally incompatible, or have little to offer each other on an personal level, whether platonic or romantic.

I used to think the same. Until it no longer worked lol.

Are you dismissing the possibility that some people can get preachy on this topic? Or do you instead think we should pretend the preachiness doesn't exist? I actually can overlook preachiness as long as it comes along with workable guidance on how to follow the advice presented.

Hm I commented on this before and I know I was harsh there but I want to add I understand some of your issues with not being able to follow advice/guidance like the example with "learn to label your emotions and all will be well" LOL. Plus I see now that you do try to pay more attention than I originally thought. Ofc all of that's up to you i.e how much you pay attention, I'm just saying I see more clearly your approach now.