[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In the next chapter I explain how we can weaken the con-nection between an emotional event and our emotional responses.Itis not easy to do either one.Let me explain how this might work inthe context of another example.Suppose a boy, let's call him Tim, was teased by a father whoseteases, while ostensibly made as jests, had a cruel edge, mockingTim's inadequate performances.Quite early, probably before agefive, the script of a powerful person disparaging him through teas-ing entered Tim's emotion alert database.As he grew up, Timresponded with nearly immediate anger to teasing, even when it wasnot intended meanly.This delighted his father, who further tauntedhim for losing his temper over a joke.Some twenty years later, Timstill reacts with anger at the first sign that someone is teasing him.That doesn't mean that Tim always acts on his anger, but Timwould be better off if he didn't have to struggle with his impulse tostrike back whenever someone jokes with him.Six quite different factors are likely to determine how successful*We could find out which one they do by measuring their physiology when this happens, but it doesn'treally matter for my point here. anyone can be in reducing the heat, the salience, and the power ofan emotion trigger, and the length of the refractory period, theperiod when we are only able to use information that supports theemotion we are feeling.The first factor is closeness to the evolvedtheme.The closer the learned trigger is to the unlearned theme, theharder it will be to decrease its power.Road rage is an example of anevent that closely resembles a theme, not a learned variation.This isillustrated in the following puzzle.When my department chairmandrives to the university each day, he encounters a place where twolines of traffic have to merge.There is an unwritten rule that cars ineach lane take turns, but sometimes people sneak in ahead of theirturn right in front of him.My chairman gets furious, even though itreally doesn't matter; the difference in terms of when he arrives atthe university is only a few seconds.Yet at work, when someone onthe faculty writes a critique of one of his plans for the department, amatter on which he has worked very hard and which really mattersto him, he rarely gets angry.Why anger over a seemingly trivialevent, when he doesn't become angry about an important one?It is because the driver's actions resemble the likely universal,evolved anger theme of being thwarted, not by words but by some-one's physical actions interfering with the pursuit of a goal.Theimpolite driver's actions are much closer to the theme than the col-league who writes a critique.(For those who wonder why road rageseems to have become so prevalent today, I suspect that it has alwaysoccurred, but less frequently because there was less traffic.Also, themedia had not named it, which focuses attention on it.)Applying these ideas to Tim's problems, we can expect Timwould have an easier time weakening a trigger that is distant ratherthan close to the universal theme.Being teased and humiliated byhis father's words is further away from the theme than if his fatherhad "joked" with him by physically pinning his arms to his side sohe could not move.Tim would have a better chance as an adult toweaken the trigger if the original experiences had involved wordsrather than physical restraint to tease and humiliate him.A second matter to consider is how closely current instances ofthe triggering event resemble the original situation in which the trig-ger was first learned.It was Tim's father who so mercilessly teased him a strong, dominant man.Teasing by a woman, a peer, or asubordinate is not as close as teasing by a man who has some author-ity over him, and it should be easier for Tim to weaken the triggerwhen he is teased by someone other than an authority figure.A third issue is how early in a person's life the trigger was learned.Presumably, the earlier the trigger was learned, the harder it will beto weaken it.In part, that is because the ability to control emotionalreactions to any emotion trigger is not as well developed in early life.Thus, there will be a stronger emotional reaction associated withtriggers learned early in life compared to those learned in adulthood,all other things being equal.In part, it is also because of the possi-bility (suggested by some developmental psychologists and all psy-choanalysts, and now supported by growing evidence from studiesof the brain and emotion6) that early childhood is critical in form-ing personality and emotional life.What is learned then is strongerand more resistant to change.Triggers learned in such a criticalperiod may produce a longer refractory period.The initial emotional charge is the fourth key factor.The strongerthe emotions that were experienced when the trigger was first learned,the harder it will be to weaken its impact.If that teasing episode wasa mild or moderate one, rather than a strong one, if the feelings ofhumiliation, worthlessness, and resentment over loss of power weremild rather than strong, then it would be easier to cool the trigger.The density of the experience is a fifth factor, contributing to thestrength and indelibility of the trigger.Density refers to repeatedepisodes, highly charged emotionally, occurring during a shortperiod of time, that have the effect of overwhelming the person.So,if there was a period when Tim was teased mercilessly, intensely,again and again, it would be a very difficult trigger to diminish.When there is a very strong, highly dense initial emotional charge, Iexpect that the refractory period in later reactions to that trigger willbe long, making it difficult for people to realize in the first second ortwo that they are responding inappropriately.If the initial emo-tional charge was very strong, that alone may be sufficient to extendthe refractory period for that trigger, even if it was not dense orrepeated again and again.A sixth factor is affective style.7 We each differ in the speed of our emotional responses and the strength of our responses, and in howlong it takes for us to recover from an emotional episode.Myresearch over the last ten years has focused on these matters.(Theconclusion describes four other aspects of affective style in additionto speed, strength, and duration.) Those individuals who generallyhave faster and stronger emotional responses will have a muchharder time cooling off a hot trigger.Let us now consider how Tim could go about weakening the teas-ing trigger.The first step is for Tim to identify what it is that is get-ting him so angry.He may not know that being teased by a dominantperson is a very hot anger trigger.Automatic appraising operates inmilliseconds, before consciousness, before he might be able to becomeaware of what is making him so angry
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]