[cushychicken]

The sooner you realize that everyone on God's green earth is acting from an emotional place, the sooner that human interactions make sense.

How something makes people feel - or how they think doing something will make them feel - dictates the vast majority of human behavior.

[skohan]

Yes I quite like the metaphor that our rational mind acts largely as the press secretary for our emotions.

[cushychicken]

I have never heard that metaphor before but I like it very much.

[rgoulter]

I think it's Jonathan Haidt who popularised that phrasing.

The first part of his book "The Righteous Mind" discusses this aspect.

[rocqua]

I think it is also illumiating, if somewhat obvious, that people tend to have well thought out reasons for doing something. So if you see someone doing something obviously stupid, you are probably not seeing the whole picture. It is extremely worth it to try figuring out why they do that. And in figuring that out it is important not to dismiss the other person's ideas out of hand.

[cushychicken]

people tend to have well thought out reasons for doing something. So if you see someone doing something obviously stupid, you are probably not seeing the whole picture

I used to think this, until I read more about advertising and how it's designed to trigger an emotional response. More and more, I think it's really emotions that motivate most behavior. There are many people, when asked "Why did you make that decision?", will respond with some variant of "I don't know, I just felt like it."

It implies to me that most people don't really know what they feel, or why they feel that way. The corrolary to that, which I find fascinating (and a bit sad), is that it means most people really have no understanding of why they do what they do. This as true of actions as trivial as picking a brand of gum or selecting a parking spot, to choices as monumental as deciding to get married or have children.

[rocqua]

Emotions can be good reasons!