Emotion and science do not mix. Anyway, that’s what countless people think. Consider the many media portrayals of scientists and similarly “intelligent” types. Sheldon Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, Susan Calvin, Spock and his ilk. Dedicated scientists are often portrayed as aloof geniuses who repress, ignore, or ignore their own or others’ emotions.
Science fiction also has variations based on the premise that “our emotions hold us back, and those who are not emotionally cared for always have an advantage,” such as ruthless cyborgs, intelligent technology, or advanced aliens. Overflowing. Overall, wherever science is involved, sentiment is short-handed.
Real life often reinforces this impression, especially in psychology and related fields. Modern scientific methodology has many elements such as control groups, randomization, and blinding, which basically allow experiments to be influenced or manipulated by the researcher’s own biases and preferences. exists to prevent emotional Not for any rational or logical purpose.
How effective These approaches to achieve this goal of preventing emotional drives from influencing research are a whole other discussion. A lot of time and effort goes into keeping emotions away from science.
But when we take a closer look at what the data show about the nature of emotion, it can be argued that this approach is at best irrelevant and, in some cases, positively counterproductive. for a reason. Especially when psychology is involved.
A deeper understanding of emotions could lead to better science
It is actually wrong to say that emotions are not involved in science. Most of science almost emotions. Affective neuroscience and emotional psychology continue to expand their fields, shedding ever more light on the nature of emotions.
But one of the few things they’ve discovered so far that everyone agrees on is that emotions complexityIn many cases, to the point of tears (literally, in the case of psycho-emotional tears). Yet there is still no accepted and solid scientific definition of emotion.
In fact, people involved in the study of emotions are now wondering whether we all have a distinct ‘basic’ emotion, or whether all emotions are based on a more basic raw neurological substrate called ‘feelings’. We are discussing what we are essentially building at the moment.
The point is that our understanding of emotions is embarrassingly limited. This includes people participating in scientific research, especially psychological experiments.
Issues such as participant bias, response bias, cultural bias, egocentric bias, and many other biases can all hinder research in psychology and are rooted in the subconscious and emotional impulses.
Rather than generally ignoring, excluding, ignoring, or waving at the influence of emotions, actually making an effort to understand and take them into account will improve scientific research as a whole. There is likely to be.
Obviously, not all scientists do this. Far from it. But our ability to take emotions into account will always be limited by how much we really understand them.
Given how influential and fundamental they are, and the impact they have on us all, it’s important to finally identify the scientific facts about emotions that reproductive theories have on physical health. It may help your mental health as well.
Or maybe not. But I don’t know if science continues to keep emotions at a distance.
Emotions are essential to motivation.
Our scientific understanding of emotions may be more limited than many people think, but it’s not completely non-existent. conduct About feelings now.
For example, we haven’t been able to properly define emotions yet, but most people agree that emotions have three important characteristics. Valence (whether the emotional experience is positive or negative), arousal (the degree to which the emotion arouses us), and strength of motivation (to what extent the emotion compels us to “do” something) ).
Emotions and motivations are also fundamentally connected at the linguistic level. Both come from the Latin word “movere,” which means “to move.” Taking away the more complex factors, those that come from emotions, and their ability to motivate us, this is the basic nature of emotions and motivations. Because logic and rational thinking, despite their strengths and benefits, struggle to motivate us like emotions do.
Think of it like choosing a restaurant to eat at. After hours of cross-referencing menus and online reviews, considering hours of operation, transportation links, and more, you might think you’ve arrived at a decision logically.
But the underlying reason you make this cognitive effort is I want to enjoy eatingWe want to avoid the discomfort of hunger and experience the joy of quality food. And these drives work in the emotional realm. From a purely logical point of view, if food were only a biological necessity, we would only eat the closest and cheapest ingredients that met our needs. Very few people do.
Apply the same logic to science. Competitiveness, constant scramble for grants and funding, relatively poor wages and job security in most cases, constant having to move to where the job is, “publish or die”, what to experiment with It can take years, with disappointing results in the end.
All things considered, why Any Do Intelligent People Become Scientists? With their brain power, they may find it easier and better income in other areas.
But it’s not. People still become scientists.people still I want Be a scientist and stay in the field despite all the conflict. Desire means desire, and desire is difficult to obtain unless some form of emotion is involved.
It can be a positive emotion, such as a satisfying thought about how others or society in general will benefit from the knowledge you have discovered. It can also be a negative emotion, such as anxiety caused by uncertainty around an important subject.
Kierkegaard once said, “He who has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate,” and was a keen observer of the power of negative emotions to get things done. It is as true for scientists as it is for anyone. Moreover, if any.
In fact, the only reason we think logically and rationally in the first place is that emotionally rewardingFar from being an obstacle, therefore, emotions are vital to logic and reason.
Some may read this and get offended by this concept. This is ironic, if nothing else.
Scientists have emotions, and ignoring them is useless
It’s an undeniable fact that emotions can and do cause a lot of problems. Even if they are an integral part of the process, they regularly disrupt rational thinking by forcing them to think and act in ways that go against objective reason.
However, this does not automatically conclude that emotions should be excluded from scientific endeavor at all costs. Simply put, emotions are primal and so deeply ingrained in the human brain that they cannot be left out. Yes, we need to rely more on executive functions, especially when dealing with complex and important issues. However, some research suggests that emotions shape the development of executive control, and executive control shapes our emotional responses.
The point is, although many might argue otherwise, it’s not realistic to completely separate emotion and reason. Perhaps this is why emotional repression often ends up being so bad for us.
This can be applied to science in general. Simply assuming that scientists are human like everyone else and immune to emotions can, and has, lead to some very dire consequences. Like the belief that homosexuality is a mental disorder.
These are just two examples of conclusions that have, and continue to do, great harm to countless innocent people. Overwhelming evidence shows them to be completely wrong, but has been verified and disseminated by the scientific community, which was unaware of the damage to their emotional tendencies. (or didn’t care) was dominated by privileged white men. As in powerful allogeneic groups.
People online claim that all conclusions are based entirely on reason and logic, so anyone who lets emotion into an argument can get fired. In fact, what these people usually mean by “reason and logic” is “a view that I have considered to some extent, and which I am too emotionally invested to change, but which I do not consider myself or others. In a very real sense this is a much less reliable approach than showing some passion in your discourse. Because it’s not.
Ironically, I (or the editor) could receive messages from disgruntled people after this article was published claiming that I was wrong, naive, or misunderstood. It means expensive. There are probably some very colorful words and accusations being thrown about my background. As I say, “writing to complete strangers and aggressively criticizing them and their words because they offended you” is a behavior that can be described in many ways. But being 100% logical and rational isn’t one of them.
This is not to say that emotions do not interfere with objectivity or rationality at all. Because they do. always. But scientists are just as affected by them as anyone else, and ignoring or suppressing them doesn’t make them go away. , you can learn to understand your emotions and better embrace and deal with them, making everything a little easier.
For scientists and for everyone.
