The Psychology Thread

Hmm: a situation with a low expectation of involvement, lessened social pressure and little to no immediate personal reward in any concrete form? Not an altruistic moment? *peers over specs*

Look: people can be both selfless and beaned over the head by the bystander phenomenon. We're complex that way: only Chronic Hero Syndrome cardboard cutouts are 100% altruistic all the time. Just as unrealistic Complete Monster plot devices on legs kick puppies as much as they can.

edited 9th Apr '15 6:02:08 PM by Euodiachloris

Hmm, never thought about altruism in that way. Interesting.

And I think you raise a good point about complexity.

Or maybe you are must an above average responsible person. The Bystander effect isnt carved in stone, you know.

Of all things, that's probably not it.

Point.

You may feel more responsible toward others in situations in which someone may get hurt, rather than situations where all that's at stake is your social and institutional obligations (I know I do).

Ah, I like that explanation.

Aaaaand, I should probably get back to work. DX

Slaaaaaack oooooff, slaaaaaack oooooffffff. You know you want to.

EDIT:Wrong thread

edited 9th Apr '15 7:37:18 PM by dRoy

So. Psychologist people in here.

What are your thoughts on Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence stuff? I just want to hear opinions.

Dunno if it's a form of intelligence, but in social animals it makes sense to admit that having an ability to quickly and effectively process emotional states in abundance could be rather helpful... so, it's as close as damn it.

I kinda dislike it to be honest.

It just sounds like it oh so properly compartamentalized for it to be something that explains..well. Anything.

It's an oversimplified approach to other people's original research. It's not wrong per se, but if you really want to know more about individual differences in processing emotional information, Wikipedia is not a bad place to start.

Speaking of emotions, I got a question for a story.

Is it possible to fake emotion, and if so, to what degree and for how long?

The context: One of the main characters is a high school girl who excels at pretty much everything - she's top of her class in both academics and athletics, tall and beautiful, and both her parents' sides are rich and powerful. You could say that she's got it all.

However, after an accident during her childhood left her incapable of feeling emotions. On surface, she's a humble and quite compassionate person, but in reality she probably wouldn't even blink if everyone around her was slaughtered in the most bloody way possible. On the other hand, she knows that in human society there are social norms that are expected to be met and how one should display certain emotions in certain situations.

So when someone around her grieves, she fakes her tears while giving condolences, laugh at people's jokes even though she can't find anything humorous (this, though, we've all done at least once probably).

The main character dislikes her almost instantly, because he can see that she's not real about all those. And she takes interest in him because of how utterly honest he is (he's almost literally incapable of telling lies or holding back).

Sounds like an anime.

The term for that is Blunted Affect and it is more often seen in extreme cases of Depression, Schizophrenia, and in some cases of PTSD.

Can also read a bit of Superficiality but seriously someone who fakes emotions like that might also be a narcissist, a psycopath, or a sociopath.

edited 16th Apr '15 2:51:07 PM by Aszur

That story is supposed to be a YA story, and...still not sure if that's a good thing or not. XP

Blunted effect was the one I was initially thinking about. Never knew about superficiality until now, though.

Psycho/Sociopath I can totally get, but why a narcissist?

Narcissists tend to be unable to empathize with other people, if I'm not mistaken.

Really? I never knew that, but that's hardly surprising.

She could fake it to a point. It depends how far she takes it and her environment.

Like down here in the south, it is easy to fake emotions due to combined social expectations and people being very base. But in other areas, maybe not so much.

The kid will need coaching too.

OK, major physical trauma to the frontal cortex can induce personality change. But, it's not usually going to lead to instant sociopathy or narcissism. Temporal lobe epilepsy, schizoid behaviour, psychotic lapses and other impulse control problems... Sure, these can all happen along with a change in general tastes and preferences (and a loss of memory and learned behaviours specific to emotion-based decision making). But, it's usually going to come in bouts of sudden variance, rather than something steady... beyond the fallout of dealing with the whole mess, of course.

Now, using a single physical accident to excuse or "explain" a change of emotional perspective due to chronic, multi-factor depression, PTSD or anxiety? That sounds likely.

edited 17th Apr '15 2:56:10 AM by Euodiachloris

@Gabrael - As for the actors, her father is a very stoic researcher but with a strong sense of morality and justice. However, the real teacher would be her mom, an A+ Grade sociopathic genius who is a CEO of a pharmaceutical company (in which her father is the director of research). Oh, and her mother is the closest thing to the story has to the Big Bad.

Now, as for getting someone like her (the kid, not the mom) to be more genuinely compassionate about people...hmm...I got nothing. Nothing realistic, at any rate.

@Euo - Ho...now THAT'S interesting way to look at it.

Especially if her mother helps in her recovery from the accident...

I think I got myself a villain and her victim. Sweet.

That would be more plausible.

Then it wouldn't be so much of her not having emotions per se, but that she has been strictly conditioned on what to be emotional over and how to express it.

Narcissists are not above manipulating people, sociopath/psycopath style. Faking emotions can be a way to achieve this. Hence why I included them. Shedding a few crocodile tears for the sake of making the boss believe that other person is trying to thieve your rightful position as the top employee?

Either way is a win win cuz the narcissist still gets all the attention in the world.

Now I need to figure out why a mother would condition her child like that, for what gain.