++Dreamer Dachsie!++... or other nerds...

[Independent Gal]

I''ve been thinking a lot about what you said about peoples'' tendency to overestimate their response to things that will happen, which made me think about how people respond to new kinds of events in general. I don''t know nuthin'' about this kind of stuff from a research perspective, so I wondered what you thought about this idea that I''ve been turning around in my head in light of recent experiences.

You know how when a toddler falls, it''s important to make light of it and say ''WHOOPS!'' and smile and make them feel that what happened isn''t such a big deal? Presumably, for quite a while, children take their cue from their parents or other adults as to what counts as ''a big deal''... worth crying about.

Presumably, to some extent this carries on throughout our lives. The first time we go to a funeral or a wedding, we observe others and learn the proper way to behave and react.

But I wonder if, going into adulthood, it''s more than ''proper behaviour'' that we learn. I wonder if we actually take our cues about how we FEEL from the way people react to us: not just cues about how we are ''expected'' to feel, but that our actual feelings might be shaped in part by social expectations and cues about normalcy. We make ourselves feel sadder, or more excited, or more worried, depending on what we think is expected of us.

We all know that feeling of disjointedness when you don''t feel a particular way: I wasn''t that excited the morning of my wedding, and I HATE it when people say "You must be SO EXCITED!" when I''m about to leave on a trip. Yeah, sometimes I am, but usually I''m just kind of chill about it. Or my friend who is so zen (to use your word) when she has a miscarriage, and people feel like they can''t quite believe her, or that she''s faking being so OK about it. And then one feels a little freakish.

Couldn''t this generate a feedback effect where you actually DO start to make yourself feel sadder or more excited or whatnot as your brain tries to make you conform to social expectations to reduce the uncomfortable sense of being socially disjointed? Just like the toddler starts to cry or not, depending on the reaction of the mother to her fall.

I''m not suggesting by any means that feelings are wholly formed from outside. But I do wonder if there''s more of an interaction, if our feelings about what happens are formed dialogically, more than we might expect.

This is probably either a) dumb or b) in a first year social psych textbook. But hey, in my unschooled head it was new and interesting!

I''d love to know what you think about this, Dr. SocialPsych DreamerD, (or what any of the rest of you think) or if there''s anything on the subject I could read.

Here ends the naval gaze.

 

[dragonfly411]

Indygal - I think this is an interesting theory and I do think that on some levels, yes you can be affected by it. But at the same time, I don''t see many people changing in the extreme over society. Or maybe it''s just me. I don''t cry at funerals.... I probably will someday (when my grandparents or parents pass), and I rarely cry at weddings (though my aunt''s was borderline but it was because she had waited SO SO LONG and she finally found mister right). Others make it seem like you are just SUPPOSED to , but why? You can feel happiness or excitement or sadness without the physical right? I accept death, I am saddened by it, and I do grieve in my own way, you''ll note me to be much quieter, less active, and less willing to go do things, but I don''t tend to cry as much, because I understand that it comes to all of us and at the point of death, our souls are relieved of our bodies, and that person is no longer in pain or suffering.
I think the trend you see is our extreme desire as humans to conform to the masses. We don''t WANT to be different, or strange, or weird, at least most of the time, we have a strong desire to be looked at as "normal" and to do so we have to react in a "normal" fashion... make sense?

 

[ChinaCat]

Indy-

I actually was thinking a lot about this after reading your posts in the preggo thread. I have been following your situation over there.

I am not a researcher, or statistics person, or any kind of social scientist, but it got me thinking.

I am wondering if it has something to do with projection versus experience. For example, when I heard about what you are going through, I imagined what I "assumed" one must feel and be going through in your shoes. Intense emotion, anger, sadness, pain. But after your post, I thought about the reality of how I would actually respond. I think I would put my head down and get through it. I think I would feel like I needed to focus on the details and the reality and the next steps I would have to take. I don''t think I would be able to access the emotion of it completely. I think I would have little moments of emotion, but really I wouldn''t be able to process it.

I have gone through a few deeply personal and tramautic things. One in particular, I don''t think I actually felt it or cried about it until almost ten years later.

It''s like you were talking about your wedding day. I felt the same- it was a great day, and looking back I can put the emotion in perspective. But day of, I was happy, it was great, but I wasn''t "so excited". I ate my cereal that morning just like every other morning. I kept wanting it to feel "special" but I couldn''t. Now, the ceremony and all of that absolutely was, but not like people expect. Also graduation- I really thought it would be this big moment, but it didn''t feel big. I was hot and tired and wanted a Dr. Pepper. Engagement- same thing. I kind of felt like I wanted to throw up. Not that it wasn''t special, but it just felt surreal.

But when I imagine other people''s weddings or engagement stories, or loss, I project great emotion. I didn''t cry at my wedding or graduation or engagement. But I do when I watch it on TV, or read something silly on PS. I am projecting.

Just a thought. I am sure super-researcher Dreamer will have a much better response. Dreamer kicks a**.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Indy, great questions. I have to do a three hour lecture on Implicit measures and research designs

in about an hour and as usual, I am still prepping

but I have lots of things to tell you about this stuff... there's been a lot of research on these and related topics on social psych, I can probably even point you in the direction of some honest-to-goodness references! LOL! I will respond later today.

Though believe you me, I'd much rather chat with you are this than describe the implicit attitudes test to a bunch of undergrads!

ETA I'm making a couple notes here so I don't forget what I was thinking about: Immune neglect, savouring versus dampening, temperament, multiple levels of meaning in the emotions feedback from others (including values and worth), culture and emotional expression, risk-regulation models of emotional expressiveness. Hmmm... now are you curious?

 

[Sabine]

These are really interesting thoughts Indy. I''m definitely awaiting Dreamer''s ideas when she gets a chance.

I''m one of those people who often doesn''t feel I''m having the "right" response and then felt weird at not having it. There have also been times where I''ve caught myself trying to force the right response. And once, when I had a genuine right response, I felt myself feeling relieved and reassured that I was feeling the appropriate thing.

I wonder if it would affect responses whether you received the news you are responding to in private or public.

 

[mimzy]

this happens blatantly on PS all the time!

poster: " _______ happened. I feel __________. would you?"
replies:"yes, i would feel that way too"
poster: "okay, good"

or

poster: "_______ happened. I feel ______."
replies: "i wouldn't feel _____, i'd feel _______" (can substitute "i'd" with "you should")
poster:" you're right, that's how i actually feel now that i think about it".

or (perhaps the best example)

poster: "___________ happened. how would you feel?"
replies:" i would feel ______".
poster: "yeah, that's how i feel".

in cases like this i think it crosses the line between validation and really looking to others to how to feel, and it happens all the time. obviously not a scientific measure by any means, and i suppose it's impossible to say how the posters really feel, but it's pretty obvious on a superficial level. while the question could be asked in the name of perspective, i really doubt that most people who are genuinely secure in their reactions would post the question just for kicks (unless they know they reacted/would react differently than everyone else and wants to point out their own uniqueness

).

 

[Dreamer_D]

Okay here are my thoughts in no particular order. Remember, you asked for it

About 50% of the variance in people emotional experiences is heritable and probably comes from two of the Big Five personality dimensions: Neuroticism ("N") and Extroversion ("E"). N is a trait has been defined in lots of different ways, and perhaps most people think of it as a propensity to worry a lot, but more recently people have begun to think of it as a more basic, emotionally based trait reflecting the tendency to experience negative emotions and to experience a lot of emotional reactance to life experiences. So people high in N will tend to feel down or angry or depressed more often than people low in "N", and when they have negative experiences in life they will find that they are much more strongly affected by those experience and take longer for their emotions to recover afterwards. Anyways, you can actually see the very beginnings of N in little babies, for example researchers look at the startle reflex in newborns in response to loud noises. More startle tends to predict higher N later in life. And twin studies etc. suggest that there is about a 50% heritability rate in this trait. The other personality dimension is E, which again most people probably think of as how outgoing you are, but more recently researchers have conceptualized it as people's tendency to experience positive emotions. People high in E are often described as "cheerful" and they are unlikely to be in bad moods very often. So when ever you think about mood you really have to first start with these personality building blocks and then think about how situational experiences will be overlaid upon these building blocks, or will interact with these building blocks, to create a person's actual emotional experiences.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I think you have really hit the nail on the head when you comment that things are learned. ABSOLUTELY there is a huge learned component to emotions... not the physiological experience--which is typically arousal and is somewhat free of a label--but rather the expression of emotions is highly highly learned. The best exemplar of this is cross-cultural research on emotions, since a cultural difference in emotional expressiveness is most certainly an example of learned behavior, since culture is really about shared norms and rules for behavior. For example, in Western cultures (USA, Canada, Western Europe), people are really free to express anger, especially in their close relationships. This is an ego-centered emotion that is essentially about expressing your own needs, and so it makes sense that in individualistic cultures such as western cultures, expressing an emotion that is all about ME would be common

In Eastern cultures (most of Asia, basically), anger is rarely expressed, and particularly not in close relationships. This is because those cultures are more interdependent and focused on maintaining harmonious relationships, and so expressing an ego-centered emotion would fly in the face of that paramount goal. Instead, you are more likely to see other-centered emotions, like shame or guilt, being expressed in those cultures, because those emotions are more about the other person and hence are consistent with a culture that focuses on the group and other people, not on the self.

Anyways, that is just a broad example of how expressing emotions is learned. There are, as you suggested Indy, lots of smaller ways that a particular family can influence the expression of emotions too! How did your mom respond when you cried, or were angry, or happy? When we are little we don't have a developed sense of self and so all our emotional regulation comes straight from our parents. THEY regulate our emotions for us by giving us attention when we have a tantrum (never do that parents, your child's future romantic partners will not thank you

), telling us to stop crying, ignoring us, pointing out negative things when we are happy, distracting us when we are sad, cuddling us... and on and on and on. Each of these responses is telling us something loud and clear about whether our emotions are appropriate and acceptable. As we age we internalize these rules and instead of relying on a parent to distract, cuddle, ignore, chastise, we do it to ourselves.

 

[Dreamer_D]

One of the most interesting types of emotional regulation is called savouring versus dampening, and it applies to how people experience positive emotions. Savourers really like to build up and prolong their positive experiences, whereas dampeners like to downplay their positive emotions. So if a savourer has a great day at work, they may come home and talk about it with their partner and then they will want to go out and celebrate with an ice cream, and then they will keep bringing it up over and over again to relive the positive experience. A dampener will immediately try to quash the positive emotion and return to a more neutral emotional state, perhaps by thinking about bad things that can happen or by turning their attention away from the positive thing onto some other more boring or mundane task. As you can imagine, matching on this dimension is really important in romantic relationships because it is really annoying to a savourer to be with a dampener, and vice versa. One of my colleagues is studying this issue right now.

The flip side of this is how people cope with negative emotions: Do you try to feel better or do you just maintain the negative mood? Some people are very quick to try to do all sorts of things to make themselves feel better when they are in a bad mood-- watch a funny movie, distract, eat ice cream

. Others don't do these things, and what is really interesting to me is that the people who do nothing to improve the negative mood actually KNOW that if they did any of those things, they would feel better. But they are not motivated to improve their moods! So what this boils down to is a motivation to feel better or a motivation to maintain a negative mood.

Here is where personality comes back into the picture. Generally speaking, people become really uncomfortable with thoughts, emotions, and experiences that are inconsistent with their self-concept. So if you are the type of person who is high in negative affect... if that is normal for you... then when you have a positive experience the happy feelings actually make you feel a little off-kilter and confused. It doesn't feel right somehow. So you will dampen the positive emotions to try to get you mood-state back to what you are used to. Moreover, if you are used to being a little low, and you have a negative experience, you won't be particularly motivated to improve that mood state. Why bother? Feeling blue feels right. For someone high in positive affectivity, the opposite is true. They will want to savor every moment of that delicious feeling, and when they are sad, they will be very motivated to make things right again by improving their mood. In a sense, then, humans are very concerned with the status quo, and much of our emotional regulation attempts are aimed at getting that status quo back on track.

 

[Dreamer_D]

So that all helps explain one's own personal emotional experiences. Indy, in your situation, if your typical mood state is to be rather contented and positive, then even when going through a very stressful experience you may find that your internal equilibrium kicks in and pulls you back into your usually, moderately happy state of mind. I know for myself, I can never really stay depressed or down for very long because I find myself automatically distracting myself or doing something else to return my emotional state to the one that feels right: being basically happy and contented. You can see though how someone else who is used to feeling sad or anxious or depressed would have a very different experience. When they have a traumatic event, they would not be motivated to feel better. In fact, feeling stressed or unhappy may feel right on a very fundamental level, and even if opportunities arose to feel better, they would not actually engage in those activities.

So why do other people care to regulate our emotions for us? That hasn't really been studied much, but emotional regulation is an interpersonal process. Other people attempt to help us to regulate our own emotions and they will project their own emotions onto us and thus try to help us the way they would want to be helped in our shoes. Perhaps the more interesting issue is why we care what others think about out emotional reactions. We are inherently social creatures and a very large part of our psychological lives is devoted to monitoring other people's evaluation of our worth. This is adaptive because we need other people around us to look after us, so (within reason) it is healthy to care what others think of us. When someone tells us how we should be feeling in a particular situations (or implies it from their own reactions), implicit to that comment is a value judgment about us. If I am not sad enough, will they think I am weird/odd/abnormal? If I am too happy, will they reject me? So we watch our environment for social cues that tell us how to behave. Just as different families/cultures/people have different norms about how to eat, talk, dress etc... they have norms about the right way to express emotions. And the healthy and adaptive human animal will adapt to those norms to fit in and remain a valued member of the group. So it is function, I think, to adapt your emotional expression to your environment.

Of course, if you are in a bad social environment or you are TOO adaptable then you get into the land of psychopathology and unhealthy functioning. Almost all forms of psychological distress is caused by over-exaggeration of adaptive behaviors... caring too much about what others think is maladaptive, having emotions that are too labile is maladaptive. Extremes suck. But that doesn't mean that the processes underlying those maladaptive behaviors are all bad. A little care of what others think is healthy. And a little adjustment in emotional expression to the context is also healthy. But determining what is too much and what is just right.... ahhhh there is the challenge of the truly psychologically healthy person.

And thus ends my essay.

 

[princesss]

DD, that was fascinating! I had a blast reading that.

Man, I miss college. I love learning stuff like this. It''s just so cool.

 

[ChinaCat]

Fascinating, DD. You and Indy should take your show on the road, you guys rock. I learn so much from both your posts.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Thanks Princesss and Chinacat... I love teaching and any opportunity to lecture I will take

much to my friends'' and family''s dismay

 

[Sabine]

Date: 10/17/2008 11:08:49 AM
Author: princesss
DD, that was fascinating! I had a blast reading that.


Man, I miss college. I love learning stuff like this. It''s just so cool.

This was my exact reaction too! I miss learning!