I think I’ve been implicitly coming to believe that (a) all people are feeling emotions all the time, but (b) people vary in how self-aware they are of these emotions.
Does anyone want to give me a counter-argument or counter-evidence to this claim?
I think I need an operational definition of “feeling emotion”, especially when not aware of it, in order to agree or disagree. I think for many reasonable definitions, like “illegible reactions below the level of self-modeling of causality”, it’s extremely common for this to affect almost everyone almost all the time.
I’ll still dispute “all”, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were close. It is still highly variable (over time and across individuals) how much impact emotions have on behaviors and choices. And if you mean to imply “semi-legible abstract structures with understandable causes, impacts, and ways to communicate about them”, then I pretty much fully disagree.
Note that as someone who is sometimes less aware of (and I believe less impacted by) their emotions than many seem to be, I strenuously object to being told what I’m feeling by someone who has no clue what (if anything) I’m feeling. And if you’re rounding “low impact” to “not feeling”, I object to being excluded from the set of “all people”.
(only because it’s relevent) Note that my “strenuous objection” is mostly about the lack of precision or correctness of the statement—you’re free to believe what you like. I’m not actually offended, as far as I can tell.
Not sure if this answers your question, but recently I had an assistant who would ask me questions about how I was feeling. Often, when I was in the midst of focusing on some difficult piece of work, I would answer “I don’t know”, and get back to focusing on the work.
My vague recollection is that she later showed me notes she’d written that said I was sighing deeply, holding my forehead, had my shoulders raised, was occasionally talking to myself, and I came to realize I was feeling quite anxious at those times, but this information wasn’t accessible to the most aware and verbal part of me.
To be clear, I don’t think I’m totally unaware in general! I often know how I’m feeling, and am sometimes aware of being anxious, though I do find it in-particular a somewhat slippery thing to be aware of.
I think I’ve been implicitly coming to believe that (a) all people are feeling emotions all the time, but (b) people vary in how self-aware they are of these emotions.
Does anyone want to give me a counter-argument or counter-evidence to this claim?
People vary in how relevant their emotions are to anything in their life.
I think I need an operational definition of “feeling emotion”, especially when not aware of it, in order to agree or disagree. I think for many reasonable definitions, like “illegible reactions below the level of self-modeling of causality”, it’s extremely common for this to affect almost everyone almost all the time.
I’ll still dispute “all”, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were close. It is still highly variable (over time and across individuals) how much impact emotions have on behaviors and choices. And if you mean to imply “semi-legible abstract structures with understandable causes, impacts, and ways to communicate about them”, then I pretty much fully disagree.
Note that as someone who is sometimes less aware of (and I believe less impacted by) their emotions than many seem to be, I strenuously object to being told what I’m feeling by someone who has no clue what (if anything) I’m feeling. And if you’re rounding “low impact” to “not feeling”, I object to being excluded from the set of “all people”.
(only because it’s relevent) Note that my “strenuous objection” is mostly about the lack of precision or correctness of the statement—you’re free to believe what you like. I’m not actually offended, as far as I can tell.
Not sure if this answers your question, but recently I had an assistant who would ask me questions about how I was feeling. Often, when I was in the midst of focusing on some difficult piece of work, I would answer “I don’t know”, and get back to focusing on the work.
My vague recollection is that she later showed me notes she’d written that said I was sighing deeply, holding my forehead, had my shoulders raised, was occasionally talking to myself, and I came to realize I was feeling quite anxious at those times, but this information wasn’t accessible to the most aware and verbal part of me.
To be clear, I don’t think I’m totally unaware in general! I often know how I’m feeling, and am sometimes aware of being anxious, though I do find it in-particular a somewhat slippery thing to be aware of.