Can you be rational and emootional at the same time?

[Eternal Sunshine]

I am curious.

[somedude81]

Sorry, is that how cows feel?

 

Emootional

 

Yes, I'm tired and it's my bed time, carry on.

[threebyfate]

This depends on how your question is interpreted. In synchronized concurrence, no. One after another, yes, in that your mind can shift back and forth between the two states of mind, lightening speed or by intervals.

[Star Gazer]

Sorry, is that how cows feel?

 

Emootional

 

Yes, I'm tired and it's my bed time, carry on.

 

I thought the same thing!

 

I pictured a cow with a ton of black eyeliner, telling another cow, "I'm feeling so emoo, I haven't been milked in a week."

[Star Gazer]

ES: No, I don't think you can be both emotional and rational at the same exact time. But that's not to say you can't be thinking and acting based in emotions one minute, and thinking and acting based on reason the next.

[mercy]

Yes I think they work together.

[TaraMaiden]

Yes you can, but one has to dominate.

and that's 'Rational'.

Unfortunately too many let it be the other way round.....

[Almond_Joy]

You can't be both in the same moment. As everyone else said, you can alternate between the two though.

 

A lot of emotional intelligence literature I've read explains that emotions are a spectrum of responses that can essentially be boiled down to the biological fight-or-flight response humans have. I ascribe to that train of thought, and following that concept it stands to reason that an emotional response will always come first.

 

Very interesting.

[Eternal Sunshine]

Sorry for the typo.

 

Yes, I meant at the same time.

 

More specifically: say you are weighing up between options A or B. Your emotions say A and your logic says B. If you decided to go with B, does that mean that your emotions about A weren't strong enough?

 

I am asking because for me, this answer would be yes. But I am a strongly emotional person and not all people are created the same. I am struggling to see if people can truly over-rule strong emotions with logic.

[TaraMaiden]

When I worked within a Relationships organisation, i undertook training to become a counsellor, but never finished the course due to a move abroad....

however, my Mentor, a wonderful woman, once said to me (I'm paraphrasing):

 

emotions are extremely important, but you should never make a decision, which will have long-term implications, based on an emotional response.

those decisions are usually based on wishful thinking, and if wishes were horses, we'd be neck-deep in manure.....

Decisions fuelled by rational, logical and sensible evaluation may go against the grain, but will pay off in the end.

 

for example, someone involved in a divorce settlement will find themselves frustrated, angry, cheated and thwarted by outcomes, because they wanted revenge, one-upmanship, and the last word.

But enter into a divorce settlement as if it were the termination of a contract, and you'll have it all sewn up in no time.

that's because - in this example - the Law isn't tailored to the individual. It's tailored to the right evaluation and correct outcome.

Therefore, anyone looking for a personal backup based on moral or personal desire - isn't going to get far.....

the person who will win is the one who can dispassionately evaluate the options and go for the one which may prove to be less resistant, but more productive.

you need an unemotional head to get ahead.

[betterdeal]

I am currently reading Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life, which is a dialectic behaviour therapy workbook. It answers this sort of question. I believe that you, ES, and anyone else who is sensitive, like me, may find it useful. I know I am.

[TaraMaiden]

thank you for the recommendation....

Actually, I'm not going to go on a preach-bender here, but I have to say, since i began following Buddhism, everything has pretty much fallen into place and I've gained a better perspective on things....

 

[freetolove]

rational and emotional YES! both tools to guide us. Understand thyself! Some people are more emotional and some are more rational. I use to be very emotional and you can say that I still am but I've learned to be rational because I know I am an emotional person. Get it?

[freetolove]

Buddha's Brain by Rich Hanson is another good read about emotions, it goes into the neuroscience of it. Talks about meditation too.

[westrock]

I believe we are emotional (feelings) and rational (logical) at the same time, but the emotional side is faster in assessing sensory input compared to the rational side.

 

Our senses are directly connected into our emotional system which can assess sensory input and reach conclusions fast.

 

I believe what happens is that our emotional side (lower brain systems) simply respond to sensory input in a black and white way but there is no filtering going on. The conclusion reached is presented to us in the form of a "feeling". Usually at the emotional level there are only two basic feelings, "danger/bad" or "safe/good".

 

That conclusion/feeling is then passed up to our rational system which performs a more complex assessment of the sensory input and sees more shades of gray and color. Because this assessment is more complex the rational is slower to reach conclusions, but the rational can overrule the emotional system's conclusion/feeling.

 

This is why it's not good to act on feelings right away because the conclusion they represent may be later determined by the rational brain to be the wrong conclusion.

 

The key is to remember is this: feelings are not facts.

 

When our rational side reaches a different conclusion than our emotional side, sometimes we become conflicted not knowing what is the right conclusion. This conflict leads to a feelng of anxiety. If that is the case we need to remember that our rational side has a greater ability to assess a situation than our emotional side.

 

In cave times the emotional system served us for survival. When confronted with a lion, we needed to be able to immediately assess if something represented "danger" as there was no time to "think". But in modern times, this ability can backfire on us as what may appear as "danger" to our emotional system may not be dangerous at all, but instead actually be "safe" for us.

 

For example, if you go to the doctor and they have to give you an immunization shot, your emotional system may interpret the sensory input as "needle = danger therefore run!" and trigger an emotional flight/fight response. However, your higher brain function then takes that same input and assesses the emotional system's conclusion but comes to a different conclusion saying "yes needle, yes pain, but this is not danger, but for my own good, therefore safe despite the pain". The emotional side is still there saying danger, but the rational side is overrulling the emotional side.

 

In the context of relationships, we need a mix of both emotional and rational. Someone who relies solely on emotions without any rational thinking is said to be irrational and immature. Someone who relies solely on rational/logic is said to be cold and immature. But someone who relies on a mix of emotion and rational is considered "mature".

[threebyfate]

There are no definitive sides to our brain where emotions and rationale reside. There are areas of the brain where individual processes reside.

 

Rational thought and emotional reactions boil down to neuro-chemical responses. Different individuals will have more or less dopamine receptors in different areas of their brains, hence why behaviours can differ, although it's more complicated than just one neurochemical.

 

But...dopamine is our reward, for thinking and feeling a certain way. For some, pleasure comes with positive emotions. For others, with negative emotions. For some in deep thought. For others in physical sensations of either variety. Or finally for the vast majority, a combination of different triggers.

 

It's unknown what component of behaviours is nature and nurture. It's believed that it's a combination of both. But if you consider how people are born with open neural pathways whereby as you age, the brain shuts down unused neural pathways for efficiency sake, there's a huge component of nurture.

 

This in my opinion, is why psychotherapy works for some and not for others. Some through training by consistently applying CBT and other forms of therapy, reopen closed neuropathways where others won't bother slogging through the arduous process. Bet dopamine and receptors impact greatly on this evolution but in what way, I can only guess.

 

Now, meandering back to the above paragraph about the majority of individuals who have a combination of triggers, it's obvious that everyone is capable of having emotions and also, being rational since emotion or thought doesn't instantaneously translate to action. It is possible to stop yourself from putting emotions to action, run it through the logical process and then react. This doesn't mean you suppress or repress the emotion. Better to acknowledge the emotion first, then self-analyze why you feel this way.

 

Anyways, I didn't go indepth into any component but that's my hypothesis.

Edited March 10, 2012 by threebyfate

[Art_Critic]

Yes.. but a person can also be irrational and emotional as well...