Emotional Ignorance: Lost and found in the science of emotion

Product Information

But the underlying reason you go to all this cognitive effort is because you want to enjoy eating. You desire to avoid the discomfort of hunger, and experience the pleasure of quality food. And these drives operate in the emotional sphere. From a purely logical perspective, if food is just a biological necessity, we’d only ever eat the closest and cheapest foodstuffs that meet our needs. But few people actually do that.

Dean Burnett | The Guardian

Other brain-imaging studies indicate that people scoring high in alexithymia show reduced activity in brain areas associated with emotion regulation and self-related thoughts. For example, a 2013 study by researchers at three universities in Germany found that individuals with alexithymia have less gray matter in the anterior insula, which helps to govern emotions as well as interoception. This lesser-known sense encompasses the perception of one's internal bodily states, such as hunger pangs or an accelerating heartbeat. The same neural processes that underlie interoception, it seems, can also explain the ability to detect and decipher emotions. Although the case was taken seriously by the manager (referred to as the ‘chief doctor’), it was handled as a one-off incident and did not generate any guidelines or protocols against racism in the workplace. Failing to institute clear guidelines on racism may further silence racism thereby making it even more invisible. Fereday J., Muir-Cochrane E. (2006). Demonstrating Rigor Using Thematic Analysis: A Hybrid Approach of Inductive and Deductive Coding and Theme Development. Int. J. Qual. Methods 5 ( 1), 80–92. 10.1177/160940690600500107What's the point of nightmares? And why is it so impossible to forget embarrassing memories?Emotions can be a pain. It can be challenging to communicate with an emotionally immature person. They may not be able to respond positively or control their emotions during a conversation. You have to be calm, composed, and well aware of the possible response from them. Try to understand their feelings and be patient and compassionate. I think, there does not exist that kind of space. And I think a lot of people of color … or healthcare staff are traumatized by these situations. And they just keep going, because yeah … I mean, you can ask probably every person of color, who work with patients. I mean, it would be absolutely surprising for me, if any of them going through a racist situation that does not really affect them. But some of them…. they came to the conclusion that: “Okay, if no one cares, I will as well not care.” And that makes the problem very normalized. Kierkegaard once noted that “Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate”, astutely observing the power of negative emotions to get things done. And this applies to scientists as much as anyone. Moreso, if anything. Yes, therapy can help identify the underlying reasons for the issue, their behavioral patterns, and help the person cope with and manage their emotions.

Emotional Ignorance | Psychology Today Australia

It can be a positive emotion, like the satisfying thought of how others, or society in general, will benefit from the knowledge you uncover. Or it can be a negative emotion, like the anxiety caused by the uncertainty around important subjects, like climate change or the fate of the universe. Wilkins A. (2012). “Not Out to Start a Revolution”. J. Contemp. Ethnography 41 ( 1), 34–65. 10.1177/0891241611433053 Even the formation of memories and their efficient recollection is heavily influenced by emotions. It’s emotions that allow us to sort through the never ending stream of sensory input and retrospectively assign meaning and weight to individual memories. This is why certain events will not only be remembered differently, but in different light, when you learn of new relevant information. Mills C. W. (2015). “ Global White Ignorance,” in Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. Editors Gross M., McGoey L. (Ithaca: Routledge; ), 217–227. 10.4324/9781315867762-27 Sullivan S., Tuana N. (2007). Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. [ Google Scholar]

Lost and Found in the Science of Emotion

Younis T., Jadhav S. (2019). Keeping Our Mouths Shut: The Fear and Racialized Self-Censorship of British Healthcare Professionals in PREVENT Training. Cult. Med. Psychiatry 43 ( 3), 404–424. 10.1007/s11013-019-09629-6 I think there is a lot of ignorance among many people who work with healthcare about racism and how they deal with it. Unfortunately, that even includes people of color, because we have like we have been brainwashed somehow Because every time, we are reminded during all the years of education that the patient comes first. And you have to be understanding and supporting, which is a part of being a doctor. And if something happens, and the patients say anything, you should never take it personally. You could just imagine they have a bad day. But it feels like a way to normalize a certain behavior of patients or actually stop paying attention to the problem of racism that happens on a daily basis. While scientific understanding of emotions may be more limited than many would think, it’s not completely absent. There are many things we do now about emotions. The patient then stood up and went to request another doctor at the clinic’s reception, where he was directed to another doctor. The new doctor however told the patient he should do what the first doctor had said. Finally, the patient said he was going to visit a larger hospital instead. The GP noted that the patient seemed to want to consult any other doctor who was a majority ethnic Swede. The GP trivialized the patient’s refusal to accept his medical authority by saying the patient was not clear in the head.