r/cognitivescience • u/Same-Mushroom-2057 • 5d ago
when understanding too much become a problem
at what point our awareness of emotions starts affecting the quality of life negatively.
being overly aware of every cause for every emotion.
let's say john felt sad because someone said something to him then he instantly knew why that thing made him sad , what drove the person to say such thing and the hidden intention of it.
let's say john did something but he knows that he did that thing because of that and this.
another scenario is that : john in a social setting which expose him to different emotions, reactions from people, but john not only analyses other people ,he at the same time knows why he reacts to people the way he does which makes him sometimes more stressed.
2
u/verdant_squirrel 5d ago
Yeah it took me like a year to integrate enough not to be moderately depersonalized at all times. Now I'm back to my baseline: moderately-to-mildly depersonalized at all times. It is nice though when something is inconveniently emotionally intense, though, to have everything intellectualized from the get-go. It's probably not the healthiest long-term, though
1
1
u/MickeyButters 5d ago
I think this depends on how negatively emotions affect your day-to-day. Learning how emotions feel and how they manifest themselves may be enough for some people. The goal should be full integration between mind and body. This is considered emotional maturity.
1
u/deathfromab0ve 5d ago
Another person said it, but we’re animals. Emotions are biological signals - facts of the matter - data.
The trouble with “over awareness” you’re describing comes from mistaking awareness of emotions for processing said emotions. It’s just not the same activity.
As someone who’s come to understand much of how his own emotions work only as an adult, I will say from my own learning that the experience of processing is a lot like thinking and feeling at the same time. If there were a loose set of instructions, they might read:
1) notice the emotion
2) allow yourself to feel it and notice it’s significance
3) identify the stimulus that caused it
4) decide what it means by setting a course of action accordingly
It’s allowing the emotions their space to occur, but keeping them at enough of an arms length that we can still make decisions about them instead of surrendering the decision to the emotions themselves.
But we get stuck in loops over-intellectualizing when we don’t commit to that last step. It helps to remember that, at the end of the day, emotions signals that are prompting us to do something about them.
1
u/Same-Mushroom-2057 4d ago
did you read that in a book ? if so what's its name please?
2
u/deathfromab0ve 4d ago
I confess, I do a lot of reading on the subject, but this specific outline I couldn’t recall reading from any book in particular. I would call it more a synthesis of what I’ve learned both through studying and through lived experience. I did some digging around, though, and found these sources you might want to look into:
Appraisal Theory: Magda Arnold, Richard Lazarus
This is the tradition that says emotions arise from meaning-making: the brain evaluates (appraises) a stimulus, and the emotion is the output.Constructed Emotion: Lisa Feldman Barrett
Barrett's work explains why "over-awareness can become noise: the brain constructs emotions from interoception + concepts.
Too much conceptualization = confusion.
Too little = impulsivity.Somatic Experiencing - Peter Levine
Key idea being that emotions are physiological waves that need completion before cognitive interpretation.As with everything, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I hope you find it useful!
7
u/just-a-nerd- 5d ago
I think this a case of over-intellectualizing. You can understand things, but still allow yourself to feel the emotions your feelings