Irrational Emotions

[Mister Mister]

  I've heard Stef mention something about Rational Emotions vs. Irrational Emotions.  I think I sort of get this, for example "I am angry at my father for hitting me" might be rational whereas "I hate all Men" is not.  But I don't quite see what would be the definition that distinguishes them.  Can anyone help me parse this out?

[PatrickC]

Broadly speaking, it's the difference between understanding where your emotion is coming from (rational) and when you don't (irrational) and 'act out' on others not responsible for making you feel the way you do.

[dsayers]

Emotions themselves are not rational or irrational (different hemispheres of the brain). Our interpretations of and reactions to them can be though. With things such as self-knowledge, beginning with accepting one's own capacity for error, we can approach our emotions with rationality.

 

So I guess the answer to your question would be the line that differentiates the real world from fantasy. For example, if a neighborhood dog is barking for no reason at length, it would be irrational for me to get angry at the dog. It would be rational to understand that my issue is with the owner of the dog for refusing to control his animal. Better still would be identifying that the reason it seems to anger me more than most is because my parents were so manipulative that I never "got away with" anything.

[Mister Mister]

 PatrickC, on 22 Nov 2014 - 4:49 PM, said:

 

Broadly speaking, it's the difference between understanding where your emotion is coming from (rational) and when you don't (irrational) and 'act out' on others not responsible for making you feel the way you do.

 

 

 

 

 

   That's interesting, and makes sense.  So how much general social dysfunction extends from misappropriating emotions to irrational causes?  I am thinking of the hatred towards various groups that disagree with a particular ideology, and the "love" people have for Obama and other ideologues

[PatrickC]

That's interesting, and makes sense.  So how much general social dysfunction extends from misappropriating emotions to irrational causes?  I am thinking of the hatred towards various groups that disagree with a particular ideology, and the "love" people have for Obama and other ideologues

 

Ideology is often a reflection (replacement) for unmet needs. So when people disagree with your ideology, they then (unjustly) become the protagonist for those previously unmet needs.

 

It's similar to your opening analogy, about hating all men because your father used to hit you. Make sense?

[Bipedal Primate]

I prefer to categorize emotions using these adjectives: euphoric, happy, neutral, sad, angry, rage, empty, etc..

 

For me, ideas, beliefs, choices, interpersonal reactions/responses, behaviors, and actions can be measured as irrational and rational. 

 

Emotions are not negotiable.

 

Ideas, choices, reactions/responses, beliefs, and actions are negotiable.

 

I feel, my emotions serve to guide me, therefore no emotion can be labeled irrational. I think 'an emotion' is the starting point of understanding what's happening around me. therefore, all emotions are useful because they alert me to subtleties in my environment that are not always obvious to my conscious mind.

 

My emotions alert me and help me identify when I am engaging in irrational behaviors: dissociating, in denial, repressing, transferring, projecting, etc. For me, my emotion is the alarm system that goes off so that I can avoid cognitive dissonance and irrational behaviors. 

 

If a person is experiencing the emotion of absolute despair, because of no job, being broke, being homeless, and then attempt suicide; is it the emotion that is irrational or the reaction to the emotion? 

 

Is it possible to negotiate that a person's emotion in that moment is the wrong emotion? no

Is it possible to negotiate a person's choice/reaction/response to an emotion? yes

Is it possible to negotiate the idea that suicide is preferable to living? yes

Is it possible to negotiate the belief that losing one's job and being broke is not permanent? yes

 

Here is an interesting study on explicit and implicit emotion regulation: 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3280343/

 

I often experience spontaneous 'anxiety' in moments when I am in the middle of doing something enjoyable. This let's me know, I am probably repressing difficult thoughts, events, or denying reality. The emotion itself is not irrational because it is a rational manifestation of my environment and/or unwanted cognitive habits due to an interference with my cognitive processing abilities.

[Pepin]

What makes an emotion rational or irrational is its relation to reality. Was the emotion triggered or did it come from nowhere? If triggered, what triggered it? Should that event trigger that emotion? Is the intensity appropriate?

 

Classifying your emotions allow for a greater ability to introspect.

 

If you feel anger all of a sudden, and have no idea why, you are able to look inward to find to cause.

 

If you are speaking about being hit as a child, and you are laughing and giggling, you'd ask if this is an appropriate response. After determining that horror and anger are more appropriate with the stimulus, you are able to figure out why you had an irrational reaction to a memory. Why do you find being hit as a child funny, when it was an awful event that had a negative impact on you?

 

The intensity is also a factor to analyze. If a coworker says something a little snarky to me, and I become completely livid, then I can look at the situation and realize that the intensity is too high. It is not that the emotion is wrong, rather that it ought not to be firing on such a level. I can use this information to figuring out if there is a reason as to why I was more mad than I should be. Is there something bothering me that I am ignoring? Am I projecting my anger from something else? Or am I tired and in a grumpy mood?

 

A good example of out of whack intensity is when driving. Someone may cut us off, take too long to pull out, or be driving a little too slow, and it is likely that our response to this is far greater than it needs to be. Does it really make sense to cuss and yell for five minutes because someone slowed down your trip by a few minutes? Does it make sense to wish death upon someone simply because they didn't see or understand that it was their turn to turn?

 

The idea is not to ignore your emotions, but to be honest about what you are feeling, and to only act on emotions which are rational. If someone says something to me which makes me angry, but has no reason to make me angry, then I just need to admit that I am feeling angry and I don't know why. The cause of the emotion ought not have caused the emotion.

 

In the case of hating all men, this is more of a rational problem than anything. The claim being made is not so much the subjective one, that "my preference is against men", but rather a more objective one", such as "men are bad, I do not like bad things, I do not like men".  Extrapolating hatred to all of men based on a limited number of interactions with men is not very scientific due to the sampling rate. Worse, it is prone to so many psychological biases, especially since our minds are kind of designed to stereotype.

 

The solution to the above is to realize that the emotion doesn't relate to reality very well, and to uncover the cause of your emotion. It isn't to reject your emotion, but that it doesn't make sense, and to find the cause.

 

I am in general agreement that past relationships, especially family relationships, have a lot to do with irrational emotions... But I am tentative to claim that there is always some past event which is the cause of an irrational emotion. It might just be random. It could be because you understood the subject in one way, and then you realize it is actual something completely different. It might just be because you are tired, or some of your neural chemicals just happen to be temporarily out of whack. Getting mad at your girlfriend for some dumb irrational reason might be because of some prior conflict with your mother, or it might also be because you pulled an allnighter and just cognitively drained.

[s33k3r]

Broadly speaking, it's the difference between understanding where your emotion is coming from (rational) and when you don't (irrational) and 'act out' on others not responsible for making you feel the way you do.

 

I disagree;

 

1. Rational emotions are when you have a legitimate reason for having an emotion.
2. Irrational emotion is when you don't have good reason or evidence to support the feeling.

Now in perspective all emotions are real, as in the experience you have is a real bio-chemical reaction to something. From an evolutionary standpoint it was a way for us to make snap decisions without having to parse it out logically.

 

So back to "I am angry at my father for hitting me" might be rational whereas "I hate all Men" is not.

 

You have physical experience with someone hitting you, it was unpleasant, and was a violation, and therefore have every right to be upset at the person who used unprovoked violence against you.

 

On the other hand, you do not have a legitimate reason to feel everyone that is a man will take unprovoked violent actions against you. You may be having an emotional reaction to the template of how you see a man due to the trauma of being abused as a child.

[Kaki]

So back to "I am angry at my father for hitting me" might be rational whereas "I hate all Men" is not.

 

 "I hate all men" is not an emotion. It is -just as Patrick explained- a projection.

In this example the person doesn't have self-knowledge about where the anger really stems from but is misplacing it and making someone else- all men- responsible for it.

[PatrickC]

I will correct myself on a definition problem I may have made. There are no such thing as irrational emotions. All emotions are valid. It's just whether we respond to them rationally or irrationally (projection), as I and kaki earlier explained.

[J. D. Stembal]

If you haven't listened to this call in show yet, please do so. It includes a great explanation of our emotional brains.

 

[Ruben Zandstra]

In my opinion the distinction between rational and irrational emotions is descriptive of their origins, and is not about the emotions themselves. It's a helpful distinction at that.

Emotions are preceded by thoughts or central beliefs, which can be true and helpful, or false and misguided, I think Albert Ellis (RET) made a good case for that.

Irrational core-beliefs typically stem from adverse childhood experiences and have been formed around illusions that had to be maintained in order to best survive under the given circumstances.

 

A rational belief would be: "I own myself".

Rational emotion -->  When I receive a tax-form I might feel angry, scared and / or annoyed.

 

An irrational belief: "People must treat me well, if they do not then that is intolerable."

Irrational emotion --> I might feel anxious, have pangs of self-doubt or become enraged when treated poorly by a waitress in a diner.

[AnCapJavi]

I just started reading Ellis and it's helped a lot.

 

I think a lot of us libertarians can become or were already pretty neurotic.

 

We focus on things we cannot control and drive ourselves crazy.

 

Yes, taxation is theft but when we believe "The state MUST not tax me! If they do I will be very upset and go on and on about it."

 

A more rational belief would be "I would prefer not to be taxed so much, but if I am it's not the end of the world."

 

Even a robber can rob us. It's irrational for us to believe that they MUST not rob us. They can do whatever they want in reality.

 

A huge one that many of us may fall into may be "We must have the society we want now!"

 

Since I got into Ellis' work I stopped caring so much about statists and the state. I think the best we can do right now is make fun of the state.

 

The time to ostracise statists is not yet upon us. I think people who take these hard positions are just painting themselves into a corner.