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Jul 12, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Just to clarify I am on the autism spectrum and so my emotional experience seems to differ from most neurotypicals. However, I do have a few theories about emotional responses that I've kicked around for the past few years.

I recently helped a friend get clean from methamphetamine and sort through their borderline personality disorder. When I say help, I mostly just mean that I gave them a safe spot to be, connected them with the appropriate resources, and pointed them back on the path to mental health when they got too close to falling off of the wagon.

It was a very long process (roughly 2 years to get to stability/success), and I don't think it's something most neurotypicals would have seen through to the end despite claims of heightened empathy.

What does all this have to do with being a slave to emotional reasoning? My friend's bpd was fascinating and incredibly frustrating to watch. He would loop rapidly throughout the day. Something minor would trigger him, and he'd have an intense meltdown (think a two year old throwing a tantrum in an adults body).

After the episode he felt genuinely awful. He'd resolve not to loop again, and then the next day we'd be right back where we started.

At first, I thought it was chosen behavior, and I was angry. Then I realized that it really wasn't.

I saw his bpd as the extreme of neurotypical emotional reasoning. His feelings and emotions literally dictated his reality. If he felt betrayed then it was because he had been betrayed, if he felt scared then it was because he was in intense danger.

There was no ability to slow the emotional loop, insert logic, and get off the train. But, once he was calm he could explain how he had interpreted things and then his reactions made logical sense in his version of reality.

I suspect that there is a continuum among neurotypicals in there response to emotional stimuli. Most are not as extreme as my friend (who created patently false realities based on his feelings) and couldn't function, but some degree of emotional reasoning is socially functional.

To a psychopath I suspect that neurotypical levels of emotional reasoning look a lot like how neurotypicals would view my friend with bpd's emotional reasoning.

In both cases, I suspect that it isn't within the individuals full control. In my friends case it took years of therapy and practice to change the neurological pathways.

Today, he is still someone I consider to be on the higher end of emotionally reactive/driven by emotional reasoning, but he falls within the range of what neurotypicals would call normal, and he can function in society.

In terms of choice overall, there is a commonly cited study that shows our brain sends a behavioral impulse before we become consciously aware of it. So, instead of the causal chain of events going conscious awareness of choice, brain signal, action, it actually goes brain signal, conscious awareness of choice, action.

My takeaway from that is that we are actually reactionary beings not choice driven beings. Change the upbringing, the genetics, and/or the environment and you will get different reactions over time. My two cents. Hope you found it interesting.

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Jul 14, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

To answer your question, yes, some neurotypicals can. But I've met extremely few. I would label this ability "awareness of cognitive bias". It's also a component of what it means to have little/no ego by my definition. The two people who I know who can do this are my best friends (one is a high-functioning psychopath and the other person is a neurotypical); I find it extremely hard to bond with people who can't.

I have to work hard to do this consistently. My neurotypical friend also shared with me once that he has to as well, during a conversation about it. It is a painful process, as when we are wrong, part our ego dies. But in pursuit of a true, objective worldview, it is necessary.

The rule you defined about considering information more strongly when you have an emotional response to it is very clever. My technique involves being aware of such biases from experience and when in a situation where it will be triggered, to create equal opposite thoughts that challenge the potentially biased belief. I created these habits many years ago when I became aware of how plagued I was by invalid beliefs that were holding me back from navigating the world successfully.

Another interesting bias is the self-serving bias, often manifesting itself in the form of blame. However, any highly rational person knows that shifting focus anywhere outside of your immediate control (e.g blaming) relinquishes their autonomy. So to remain in control, I've made a habit that whenever my subconscious thoughts push up blame, I consciously block it and assess what I could've done better in that situation.

One thing I can share as a neurotypical from experience and also observation of others, is that the stronger the emotion, the harder it is the reevaluate beliefs. However, with great discipline, even in those situations information can be evaluated without bias. Also, I find that while men are ridden with emotionally-driven biases, their more emotional counterparts are even worse.

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Jul 12, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

This is a very interesting topic! I have thought on this a lot too, and I am not sure we can know the answer. It touches on arguments re. "free will" that never have complete solutions, I think.

One issue -- I am not sure that there is such a thing as completely "logical" human thought. One can get back to premises of arguments/thoughts, and examine those for emotional influence, for evidence of addiction to a belief system... but I've never found any thoughts to be definitely completely free of emotional influences, if I dig deep enough. However one can generally argue about whether such thoughts are free of those influences or not! But how can you prove it? One's internal experience is not good enough, imo, since humans tend to be (blind) to the internal motivations that one hasn't examined well enough to be conscious of yet. In my experience to date, there is always something more to discover about myself; it's like an infinite progression. I have had the experience of discovering an assumption in my thoughts that was affecting conclusions. I'm still not sure that discovering it completely removes its influence though.

That doesn't necessarily apply to all people or neurotypes! (I kinda feel it probably does, but that's probably my problem!) Just my experience and observation.

One of the differences I feel exists between my processing and that of (likely) "neurotypicals" who I know: it seems to me like more of their thoughts are sort of "compiled" with emotions. If you're a computer person, you might know that word. It is like their emotions are part of the thoughts more, and they seem unable to see the effect of the emotions as well as I think I can. Am I imagining this? Who knows! Maybe I just have similar effects but can't see them. Maybe we can see other peoples' better than we can see our own, and those that are more different from ours, are more evident to us.

However autistics have been shown in some research (I'll try to find it) to be less susceptible to "groupthink" than ostensible NTs. I believe that particular issue is related to emotions they have that I have less of; I don't care as much in a certain way about the views of others, it does not mold my thoughts, though I do "care" often, it just doesn't seem to change my thinking as directly.

Athena, have you read on "implicit bias"? That is possibly related, if I'm understanding your question right. It theoretically has to do with brain wiring; the shortcuts (many?) human brains take to reduce decision-making time, some of which lead to biased treatment of members of various groups of people. It's a measurable effect.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

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Aug 1, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Well I'm late to the party but here goes. As a child, and to a lesser extent as a teenager, I was very destabilized by others different beliefs. I wanted certainty and had the arrogance of youth. That all changed quickly with education, introspection, and real life experiences. The key point is that I was emotionally reactive to different beliefs, but intellectually, holding things up for scrutiny was natural and inevitable. This becomes self reinforcing as one learns the lessons of recognising having been very limited in understanding or very wrong about something. The feeling of discovery and illumination outweighs the cringe. So while it is a long time since I have felt strongly threatened by different beliefs per se, I can remember the feeling.

What does affect me extremely strongly is actions that go against my Humanist values. I am deeply upset by people arguing in bad faith, being disingenuous, intellectual dishonesty, intentionally deceptive lines of argument, lack of intellectual courage, perverse willfull stupidity, cynical exploitation of ignorance, refusal to look at evidence etc. I felt this same disbelief and upset confusion as a child, long before I had the words for such things, I just could see how unhelpful such things are, how they could lead only to bad stuff, in relationships, in knowledge. And that has not changed, the upset is still intense and visceral. Supposedly this is an Aspergers trait. Perhaps.

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

if you have this response, can you override it?

Yes. While I don't have psychopathy, I'm very cold and callous in nature - I don't feel remorse or regret unless caught, and I never have. Few things can send me into the realm for such a strong emotional response, but one is abuse of children.

While I can feel this cold murderous sensation rising in me, I have no problem flicking the switch.

With one exception - sexual predators.

If you can, do you find yourself in the habit of doing so, or is the threat response to strong to counter it?

Yes, constantly, but I think that has something to do with my manipulative nature. I had a very manipulative and abusive mom and absent dad. I learned her behavior early.

I like my herd of sheep thick. If one of them breaks a leg, I don't shoot it. I take the wool, the milk, the lambs - it doesn't make sense to me to react emotionally.

But..

When I got my hands on the guy who raped my sister, I was helpless though.

When I saw a guy grope my ex butt at a nightclub, I broke his hand.

When I saw my friend punch his gf while drunk, I knocked his teeth out.

Do you find yourself to be more logical in your consideration of the world, or do your emotions attach to your beliefs, making them hard to reevaluate?

I think I'm logical in how I view the world and respond to it. However, people don't call me logical, but cold and callous.

But, the exception to the rule is sexual predators. I wouldn't say this about all murderers.

But these pathetic waste of meat and flesh scumbags that prey on the weak?

That belief will never change, no matter what.

So, yeah, I guess I'm a slave under some of my beliefs, very much so.

I guess it's a weakness; a blind-spot where somebody could ruin my life by manipulating it correctly and making me react in a manner that is not socially acceptable.

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Aug 31, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I can override this response, but it takes nontrivial mental energy to do so, meaning that over some given time frame (lets say, a day), if I'm exposed to things that cause this sort of response, I'm less likely to try overriding it. Also, as my day-to-day functioning steadily declines, I find myself often not having the mental reserves to consider worldviews and opinions I am opposed to, especially those that I find (justifiably or not) stupid and/or disturbing. I find that my ability to calmly assess a position that makes me uncomfortable is very dependent on my general mental condition. There are definitely things that I believe because I want to believe, and the danger of letting such things set in my mind is not lost on me but at the moment I have no idea how to manage it short of shutting down all thinking and going into deep sleep until I somehow get better.

I don't mean to sound like I'm fishing for sympathy, the point is, the ability to reflect on beliefs like this, especially when it takes you out of your comfort zone, is not some static trait of character. I'm pretty convinced that it really suffers from the enormous information influx that comes from being very online as well.

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Jul 18, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

To answer your question, I have in the past had a mild tendency to want to have, what I would call a knee jerk reaction when it comes to my beliefs being questioned. However I don't react that way, I always try to be open minded. But yes I think people with NT emotions, tend to have their emotions intertwined with their beliefs. Why? Because our beliefs are part of who we are, so in some cases, when you disagree with someones beliefs they feel threatened as though it's a personal attack on them. Of course it's not, but to them it feels that way.

Also people are very often afraid of what they don't know or don't understand and it takes them out of their comfort zone, some people can't handle it. They think they know something and are happy with what they think it's right, when you can prove they are not they then question themselves, which puts them in the unknown, now that causes them fear, much like backing a cat in a corner, except it's all emotional. They aren't in my opinion rational.

I have had Many discussions with my son about my religious beliefs, on some things he makes very valid points and we discuss them, my beliefs are very personal and I find I have some emotional attachments to them as well, but I think I'm pretty open minded and don't just believe what I read as fact, but rather as lessons. So we always end on a good note. With logic and science being part of what we both believe and we find common ground.

I think what you're getting mostly is a fear response from people that don't want to learn anything new or accept that they may be wrong. I suspect that they're convinced that psychopaths are evil and that causes them to feel fear, so your not dealing with anything reasonable at that point.

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Jul 15, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I was re-reading this topic, and had a thought that perhaps we are using a type of perception bias; if we are only flagging events where the neurochemical (addictions) lead us to resist change, but not other sorts of events, perhaps we are missing a part of this that makes it difficult to modify this all... to be more specific, we all have lots of thoughts every day. Those thoughts follow lots of learned patterns, with some cognition thrown in here and there. What would our thoughts be like without that neurological setup?

Is there really a difference between what a biological being would need to mentally do in order to function day to day (using learning in some sort of stable way, not re-examining their perspectives from the ground up every moment), versus how various humans function re. the "problem" issues we are thinking of, where "those people" resist change? Are we all doing this stuff all the time, and just noticing it in others where it really bugs us?

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Jul 12, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I am going to take some time to consider this.

Firstly, Joe Dispensa is worth reading, even just for kicks. I find his ideas definitely worthy of thought, and mostly, practice and not as pop psychology/self-help crappy as you might think.

Second, although I know you are a diagnosed psychopath, and I am not (although I do find I that my “system” is very sensitive to certain chemicals/medications, and my own ability to bond, think logically has a continuum all its’ own ((and I wonder about chemically-induced psychopathic traits, not being a true genetic diagnosis, but are there such conditions, and if so, is the brain altered to function as such?)) I find your treatment of others very much deserving of applause. I know you don’t do it to feel “good” about yourself (can you on an emotional level, or is it only by cognition?) it is nevertheless a good way to treat others. Many NT’s would do well to act as you do. :)

If I get a chance, I’ll throw in my two cents (my gosh, the colloquial language coming out of me in this post! For shame!). :)

I wanted to ask, on another totally different topic, how you experience/describe your experience with humour. Humour can be cognitive but I also find it linked to happiness/contentment and often also that “sense” changes us chemically and vice versa. It can also be developed, like a skill, in a way. Perhaps a topic for another time?

And I do have some definite experience with logical realizations that have, literally, set off a storm of physical symptoms of, if not traumatic stress/withdrawal, a sense of denial, almost like an awakening to a different reality. I won’t bore people with details except that yes, sometimes a persons’ extreme reaction hides inner doubt. Does Shakespeare’s quote about protesting too much seem apt here?

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Jul 11, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Very interesting.

I couldn’t imagine challenging believes can trigger a threat response in someone, to be honest. I have seen many people going crazy over trivial stuff in political discussions but I thought the emotional response that was there was different, at least most of the times. I stand up for my believes, but I don’t identify with them (or my belief system), nor my emotions are attached to them. I have challenged and changed my believes and was fine with that.

I too often see things I disagree with, both ridiculous arguments and relatively good, though still incorrect ones. I don’t have any reaction to them most of the time, they can be funny, they can be annoying, but definitely don’t feel attacked and don’t get an urge to join or start an argument. Including things that are not some abstract philosophical problems, but are ‘personal’ political conflicts I have seen people have physical fights over.

To add about the “personal” thing, it’s interesting if people have the same reaction to any belief they grew to think is true or only ones they feel involves them somehow.

Another very interesting thing I cannot really understand is the mentality of people who wouldn’t even consider your point just because “they were raised differently and were always taught X”, without any further explanation, just that. They don’t want to listen and to think at all. I wonder if it could be caused by the same thing.

I used to dream about conducting a social experiment in which I would be able to observe, what happens when different groups of people are given different types of arguments for and against something, then revealing that some (or all) of these arguments are false. I think however that it would take time (which is also interesting to study tho) for people to get attached to their believes and would take a certain amount of people around them who would ‘motivate’ them to believe something by potential exclusion from the group. I don’t have resources to conduct such experiment for now, unfortunately, but thinking about it and discussing it is very interesting. I have already observed this phenomena in the wild, but as it is harder to track the development of ideology and its effect on the group because of its size and form it’s harder to systematize information about it.

As for your original question I would say, the vast majority of people can override the response, they just don’t want to and don’t see a need to, considering how normalized it is. Embrace emotional discussions and using your reactions to something as an argument. You have a right to feel rage, your opponent deserves, and to leave mid-conversation when you get uncomfortable. Don’t listen to people who tell you it’s not what a civilized discussion look like, it’s their privileged position to not be bothered. Some modern attitudes to argument etiquette remind me of the social culture after communist cultural revolutions, the less you control yourself, the better.

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Jul 11, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Quora's search being what it is, I wasn't able to dig it up, but Habib Fanny wrote something very related to this a while ago. I'm guessing 3 or 4 years ago, I can't really remember when I started following him.

I can only paraphrase a summary of it from memory. Basically he talked about the distinction between beliefs and identity. Over time, people's beliefs become fully intertwined with their identity to the point of being inseparable. Then, when they feel like those beliefs are under attack, they feel like their whole identity is under attack.

I wish I could find the original, he worded it much better, including a little Habib-made drawing.

As to your question posed to your readers, when I have this response, can I override it? Yes, absolutely. But I've had to spend a lot (lot lot lot lot lot) of time practicing. Long story short, because I have depression, I've had to learn to... struggling to find a word... sort of ignore my feelings. I don't actually mean ignore. They're impossible to ignore. I think of it as sort of a loud, unwanted television with a broken volume knob blaring in the background. For me, that television is a steady stream of negative thoughts and feelings. I had to learn to live with it. But I force myself to treat it as background noise.

So, when I feel my fight-or-flight response kick in, in general, I know it's just that television in my head blaring really fucking loudly. I already know I can't trust my feelings. All I have left at that point is to start thinking critically about whatever it is. Once that happens, I can mostly work things out fairly well.

I've gotten pretty good at it. I don't even take medication anymore, but I have to very cognitive about it. I doubt there will ever be a time where I won't have to consciously refuse to listen to that damn television in my head.

I could go on at length, but this is getting off-topic. I only mean to illustrate that I have a genuine reason to be a person who doesn't simply react based on emotion.

So, thinking critically, not simply reacting to feelings for feeling's sake? The notion that all feelings are supposed to be felt, that all the feelings you feel are valid, and you're supposed to act on those feelings? I don't think the majority of people give a moments thought that it should be any other way.

Sometimes it seems as if people with critical thinking skills are the exception, not the norm anymore. I think the stronger a person's critical thinking skills, the less likely they are to be ruled by emotion. I would bet any amount of money that any kind of scientific study would reflect that in what you're asking. The stronger the critical thinking skills, the lower the difficulty in overriding the response you asked about.

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Jul 11, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

For context, I am an extremely empathetic person. But I never engage with people that just want to impose their point of view and are not willing to have a healthy debate where arguments given are, at least, considered. Nor I would feel the need to express my point of view if I read/hear anything I disagree with.

I would actually say it is the other way around, unless I know that the person I am about to engage with in a debate, is willing to have a reasonable debate, I won’t even bother.

Very interesting post!

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Sep 1, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

First I just wanted to say thank you. It's a slower day at work, and I'm kind of just pounding through a lot of these posts with my downtime.

This is an interesting question. I'm definitely sitting on your end of the spectrum in regards to seeing and hearing differing opinions. I have a lot of interactions with people including my partner about responding and reacting to these things. She definitely has a tendency to respond to random posts saying things that I'll agree are dumb. My thing is, responding to these comments and posts will never change their opinion and she usually end up feeling worse after they respond to her comments. I say, "well don't do that." I've switched to saying, "Okay do that, but know that you'll end up feeling worse after the exchange." The only way to win in these exchanges are to not care. Or care, but manage your expectations about how it is going to end. And even with all of that intellectual knowledge, people can still slip into doing the thing based on emotions, and going through that same process again.

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Jul 29, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

For my part, since becoming self aware of my own... adaptations, I have been training myself to push pause, and think about whatever I'd just got done reading that makes me feel the urge to respond with... Emotions blazing.

Honestly I think it might have more to do with a person's intellect, because it has been a sure sign of an intelligent, scientific mind to be able to, when confronted with an idea which runs contrary to a long held belief, discard that belief when the evidence soundly points toward the new idea being more scientifically correct. So I pause, and assess the words first.

On an unrelated note, I appreciate the invite that I had received to your content here. On Quora it seemed nearly impossible to just read, and occasionally comment your posts without seeing some ... Individuals going apeshit in the comments. I had a hard time getting why those folks were so emotionally invested in what you wrote about your own experiences.... Even Elinor Greenberg seems to value and agree with your viewpoints, so why go apeshit? Anyway, this concludes my wall of text commenting for the day, I swear.

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> Any new external idea that disrupts that balance, irrespective of whether it's true or even if it's better for the person than their existing ideas will therefore disrupt homeostasis and create huge physiological discomfort - since at the time it's the body (feelings) that begin to drive the thoughts, not the other way around.

As an autistic person, I can confirm that I have this discomfort when an argument goes/break my ideology/belief system.

When it occurs (except when I am not able to go back and forth with the disturbing information, like in the case of one shot conversations where lots of stuff where said and I already forgotten most of them), I "seek" (but don't enjoy) this kind of discomfort and obsess about it until reaching a new understanding that ends up suppressing the flaws/inconsistencies generating this discomfort in my belief/thinking system.

But it may well be that NT that lack the autistic obsession are unwilling to work trough the inconsistency because there isn't anything that override/force to go trough it.

For my part, I value authors that generate this kind of discomfort, because it allow me to fix and build a better belief/thinking system.

But I must also say that it is not because I consider this kind of material as high quality (the kind that disturb me and allow me to enhance my believe system) that I don't get reluctant about reading it, because it would feel as lot of work and I get lazy and prefers waiting to be in the right mood (energetic and not wanting to just get light&fun distractions). [probably related to autistic executive dysfunction / getting overwhelmed by planning to do something that ask too much work]

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Jun 1, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

It's not just biases, as person below mentioned. I mean, do biases even apply while talking about emotional, not cognitive, responses? I think not xD

It's the complexes and frustrations, completely ego related. If someone's opinion crosses their boundaries of what's acceptable (or in other words, when accepting that opinion would mean accepting they are flawed, faulty or limited somehow), their ego gets hurt and their emotions take over. Some more educated individuals might then use biases in attempt to rationalize what is, quite certainly, nothing rational to begin with. I was the latter one :D

"My question is, if you have this response, can you override it?"

I could had overridden them only in rare cases, when I was already exhausted from "defending" my beliefs beforehand. In most of the cases, the cause is the flawed logic resulting from lack of cognitive empathy/perspective taking, inadequate knowledge or experience related to some belief ingrained to us by our environment and memories, fueled by an underlining disorder (any personality disorder and probably most of the affective ones + ADHD and Autism - even Aspergers. you'd be surprised.

So once the underlying logic is fixed, the belief is no longer bound to our ego. It simply becomes a "perspective", and now we can readily recognize the situations where it might get someone else triggered, as well as the idea who would be ready to correct their logic and who wouldn't, but this "skill" only gets better with experience.

"If you can, do you find yourself in the habit of doing so, or is the threat response to strong to counter it? "

When you don't know the underlying logic, the urge depends on the importance of the belief to our ego AND on the amount of emotions waiting to be released somewhere (displacement!). In my experience, the threat response is too strong to counter it most of the times. I mean, it's not purely emotional - you could look at it as if countering it would cost us more than it would get us in return. We use those occassions to blow some steem, simply put.

"Do you find yourself to be more logical in your consideration of the world, or do your emotions attach to your beliefs, making them hard to reevaluate?"

I've always considered myself overly emotional and hypersensitive, and that changed when I realized that emotional sensitivity = sensitivity to changes in the environment = intelligence, and intelligence happens to be related to both working memory AND logic, as well. Now I'm completely in control of my emotions and dare to say that they're balanced with logic and experience (I use emotions to fuel logic and to choose which experiences to save in memory and which ones to discard).

Don't forget experience/memory - that variable is as important as emotions and logic are; there is no logic vs emotions conundrum. Sometimes your empirical facts (experience) counter the logical facts, and your emotions (gut feeling) leans to those empirical facts as well. In this case you can say that experience decided a "winner" between emotions and logic.

Perhaps it's true psychopaths don't learn from experience, after all :P

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