Ever made a spur of the moment that you later regretted? Wonder why the people around you do such boneheaded things? If you’ve ever been in love, or scared, or hungry, you’ll recognize youself in the informatively headlined Hot and Cold Emotions Make Us Poor Judges by Shankar Vedantam in The Washington Post.
People find it very difficult to imagine how they themselves would behave when strong emotions are involved.
Studies have found that, for some reason, an enormous mental gulf separates “cold” emotional states from “hot” emotional states. When we are not hungry or thirsty or sexually aroused, we find it difficult to understand what effects those factors can have on our behavior. Similarly, when we are excited or angry, it is difficult to think about the consequences of our behavior — outcomes that are glaringly obvious when we are in a cold emotional state.
This sound like a big clue to the origins of our stupid ideas. Time to take up yoga, or meditation, or anger management.