2016年3月6日日曜日

Q81. What is personality?

Personality is the strategies for dealing with conflict added to temperament.

  A person's innate temperament does not change much but the ability to adjust it varies greatly. When several emotions are opposed to each other and a conflict occurs in the mind, the way different people deal with this conflict varies. A method of dealing with conflict is an important element of personality, the same as the four temperaments. This is connected to neuroticism, which is one of big five elements in personality psychology.
  Methods of dealing with conflict don't have genetic factors, they develop according to experience. There are many methods that can be used to deal with conflict, which is dealing with emotions that occur simultaneously. This is also an important topic in psychoanalysis.
  Psychoanalysis tells us that there are many methods for dealing with conflict such as repression, identification, or rationalization. We use one or more of these methods in effort to get through life's troubles. This is shown as the different personalities that people have.   
  The best way to end inner conflict is to solve the problem, but in many cases this is not possible.
  This page lists the main ways to deal with conflict. Many of these methods to deal with conflict are undesirable, so you can make your life more beneficial by checking whether you use these methods or not. Those who want to learn more about this may do so by checking out books about psychoanalysis.
  Repression: ignoring and forgetting conflicts. The person pretends as much as they can that the conflict did not happen, ignoring it and not thinking about it.
  Identification: to imagine that one is an admirable person in order to forget conflicts. For example, people support an athlete and imagine the athlete's feelings as their own to drive off their own feelings at the time. Another option is they read historical novels and imagine themselves as the hero.
  Rationalization: to justify the conflict using chop logic. This is the same logic as "Sour Grapes". People think about bad or trivial parts of what they did not do, they then think that they could not do it so it's not regrettable.
  Projection: to impose your emotions on another person. People see their evil thoughts in another person's actions and think that it is not them but the other person who harbors ill will. This makes their emotions into the other person's emotions.
  Substitution: to change a goal to one that is easier to attain, and then achieve it. For example, if your dream is very big, and you are troubled because it is too difficult to attain, so you change the goal to something easier.
  Sublimation: to turn the energy from a conflict in another direction.
  Escape: to daydream the conflict away.
  Reaction Formation: to do the opposite of your desire in order to prevent an explosion of emotion.
  Compensation: to enhance the good features in order to hide the weak points.
  Regression: to directly express their emotion, like a child. If someone is brought up in a very blessed home environment, he or she may have only this one way of dealing with conflict even after they have become an adult.
  Passive-aggressive behavior: to choose to do nothing despite having a conflict. This is considered aggressive because it is used when doing nothing will trouble everyone else. The person is satisfied with the situation in which he or she does nothing so he or she is not at fault even though other people are troubled.
  Disassociation: to make a substitute personality to deal with conflict. Abused children may end up creating a new personality to try to erase the horrible memories. This is commonly known as multiple personality disorder.

2016年2月26日金曜日

Q80. What is temperament?

Temperament is decided by putting curiosity, competitive spirit, wariness and attachment in order of strength.

  The subject of this book is mainly how the three layer structure of temperament, personality and individuality work to decide a person's behavior. Temperament is inborn core traits of human beings, personality is acquired experiences added to temperament, and individuality is the whole existence including intellect and knowledge etc.
  Temperament is the inborn and unchangeable parts of a person's behavior patterns.
  Temperament can be understood by its connection to the seven basic emotions. Out of the seven basic emotions we can exclude repulsion, hope and surprise because repulsion is the opposite of interest, hope is intellect and surprise varies little between individuals. The order of strength of the remaining four emotions, fear, interest, love, and anger gives us the different temperaments. 
  Carry this further and interest become curiosity, anger becomes competitive spirit, fear becomes wariness and love becomes attachment. The order of strength of curiosity, competitive spirit, wariness and attachment gives us the temperaments.
  This is not the mainstream personality classification. I am not saying that personality is divided into these four groups. Personality is decided by what kind of emotion occurs first when selecting an action.
  When we choose an action we feel several emotions and we are attracted to several actions, but a person has only their own body, so only one action can be done. Therefore, we can predict a person's behavior based on which emotion usually wins.
  A simple example; if you win a 1 million dollars in a lottery, what will you do?
  If curiosity wins you may start a new hobby, and if competitive spirit wins you may invest to increase the money. If wariness wins you may save money in case you need it in the future, and if attachment wins you may use the money for your family. We can predict a person's actions in this way if we know their temperament.
  This idea corresponds with the big five elements in personality psychology. Using statistics personality psychology found five elements of personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
  This book interprets those five as follows: openness to experience corresponds to curiosity, conscientiousness corresponds to wariness, extraversion corresponds to competitive spirit, agreeableness corresponds to attachment, and neuroticism corresponds to the process for dealing with conflict.
  The important point here is that neuroticism is clearly different from the other four categories. The other four categories are elements which give direction for the action, but neuroticism is an element which indicates the quantity of the actions.
  This is supported by neuroscience, especially neurotransmitters. Attachment corresponds to sensitivity to oxytocin, curiosity corresponds to sensitivity to dopamine, wariness corresponds to sensitivity to serotonin or noradrenalin, competitive spirit corresponds to sensitivity to testosterone.

2016年2月13日土曜日

Q79. What do we need to understand other people?

We need to understand ways of thinking which are different from our own.

  After emotion, let's examine personality, which is an arrangement of emotions.
  Why do we often misunderstand others, or get puzzled by another person's actions?
  The answer to this problem is with our thought process. To guess what a person is thinking we usually imagine that we are the other person. In other words, we think of how we would feel if we were the other person. However, this guess will not be correct unless the other person has the same personality as us.
  Therefore, we cannot understand people with a different personality from ours even if we stand in their position. You and other people are different people.
  If we want to understand others we need to learn what the difference between the personalities is.
  The Burnham Effect is famous in psychology. It is a tendency to feel that an explanation of your personality is correct when you read it. For example, you are always brooding, you have an irresponsible side, you are two-faced, or you are not steady and cannot make long commitments.
  Human personality has a complicated structure, and normally has every kind of feature. Whether they are expressed or not is the only difference. So there is no meaning for personality descriptions such as short-tempered, or suspicious because absolutely everyone has aspects of these. If you wonder if a trait is true and think about it, you can always find it.
  Therefore we cannot understand human personality by expressions which are ambiguous and lack conditions like those previously stated.
  When we talk about personality, what do people truly want to know about the other person?
  It is useless to make predictions about instances in which all people would do the same action. For example, people escape from a fire. All people do the same thing so there is no relation to personality. I think that what people want to know is what action the other person would choose from among several options.
  So well made personality classification can predict the target person's action when he or she can freely select from options.
  We first check whether a person is the same type as us by using a proper personality classification based on actions, and then imagine their mind, and finally we can understand another person well.

2016年1月31日日曜日

Q78. What is shyness?

Shyness is an urge to hide delight.

  Shyness is an emotion that branches out from delight depending on the situation.
  Some people don't openly feel delight but feel shy when the situation is also delightful.
  People feel shy when they receive a compliment from others, they think, "Don't praise me too much." A person blushes when being teased after getting too excited. We can say that shyness occurs from recognizing that you are being praised too much.
  Shyness develops from experience. Failure after something delightful, or failure because of getting carried away or elated makes shyness. Wariness occurs in delight, and it suppresses the excitement.
  This is why they are blushing but they smile, which differentiates it from shame. They are blushing because of the conflict between delight and suppressing it.
  The actions of feeling shy are varied. The common actions include hiding, running away, or covering it up by talking a lot. People sometimes are seen giving weak attacks such as lightly hitting the other person's shoulder.
  Shyness tells others that the person is not arrogant. Shyness has the effect of decreasing ill will. If someone receives a compliment coolly that person will be thought of as cool but not easy to make friends with, so shyness works to avoid this.
  Males tend to like women who show shyness. This is thought to be because shyness is used as an indicator of age, and males have an inclination to want to surpass others.
  Actions of shyness function to say, "I don't want you to think this is usual from now on." Shyness makes people avoid excessive expectations and responsibilities which exceeds their abilities. People will easily reject another's request after seeing actions of shyness, which in turn reduces failures in the future.
  Shyness can give a good impression to others, but it also has the effect of lowering your value and impairs your dignity. However, There is a way to avoid this and gain confidence. It is called humility.
  Humility is to consciously carry out the function of shyness. This is because shyness is too childish of a response. Most actions of shyness are physical expressions, on the other hand, humility is expressed by the contents of language. People show their maturity through making shyness one of their abilities by replacing the actions of shyness with well-conceived language.

Q77. What is gratitude?

Gratitude is an urge in which delight comes from another's ability.

  Gratitude is an emotion that branches out from delight depending on the situation.
  Delight is a form of self-presentation in a group. However, depending on the situation there are things that you should not present to others.
  If you use another's ability delight is not a suitable emotion because delight's purpose is self-presentation. For example, a child gets a toy from a relative other than its parents and shouts, "Yay!" At this time the parents teach the child telling them, "Say thank you." As a result the child learns to feel gratitude when he or she feels delight from other people's actions. Gratitude requires disciplining like with shame and guilt.
  For example, gratitude occurs when delight is caused by others, such as you receive a lot of money from friends when you have trouble with money.
  A behavior of gratitude is smiling, but if you feel it too strongly you may cry. People may bow their head to show gratitude. "Thank you," is a phrase of gratitude. If the emotion is too strong people may go down on their knees and bow their heads to the floor. It is a signal saying "I will repay you someday."
  Gratitude shows good will towards the person who brought delight to you. Gratitude promotes altruistic behaviors and improves human relationships. It strengthens the bond of a group.
  When soccer players score a goal they often thank God. This kind of thought is also developed as an effect of gratitude, which strengthens the bond of the group. Regarding everything as by the grace of God, and every person in group gives thanks to same God, this has the effect of decreasing friction in human relationships. This reduces the effect of pushing others away that delight has, and avoids arousing the jealousy of others.Q77. What is gratitude?
Gratitude is an urge in which delight comes from another's ability.

  Gratitude is an emotion that branches out from delight depending on the situation.
  Delight is a form of self-presentation in a group. However, depending on the situation there are things that you should not present to others.
  If you use another's ability delight is not a suitable emotion because delight's purpose is self-presentation. For example, a child gets a toy from a relative other than its parents and shouts, "Yay!" At this time the parents teach the child telling them, "Say thank you." As a result the child learns to feel gratitude when he or she feels delight from other people's actions. Gratitude requires disciplining like with shame and guilt.
  For example, gratitude occurs when delight is caused by others, such as you receive a lot of money from friends when you have trouble with money.
  A behavior of gratitude is smiling, but if you feel it too strongly you may cry. People may bow their head to show gratitude. "Thank you," is a phrase of gratitude. If the emotion is too strong people may go down on their knees and bow their heads to the floor. It is a signal saying "I will repay you someday."
  Gratitude shows good will towards the person who brought delight to you. Gratitude promotes altruistic behaviors and improves human relationships. It strengthens the bond of a group.
  When soccer players score a goal they often thank God. This kind of thought is also developed as an effect of gratitude, which strengthens the bond of the group. Regarding everything as by the grace of God, and every person in group gives thanks to same God, this has the effect of decreasing friction in human relationships. This reduces the effect of pushing others away that delight has, and avoids arousing the jealousy of others.

Q76. What is nostalgia?

Nostalgia is delight from recalling the past.

  The mechanism of delight produces some special situations.
  One is nostalgia, a perk of delight's system. Nostalgia is a variation of delight.
  We feel nostalgia when remembering events from our childhood for example. This is made by the system of delight when the present situation corresponds with a happy memory from the past. The difference is that the delight is from remembering the past, not a prediction of the future.
  People feel nostalgia when they are reunited with a close childhood friend, or from seeing a memento. However, actions of nostalgia are generally weak in response to nostalgia being weaker than delight.
  If a man and woman who were only acquaintances and not really friends when in school meet again as adults, they sometimes fall in love. This is because the delight of nostalgia strengthened their relationship.

Q75. What is delight?

Delight is an urge to display one's success.

  Delight is an emotion that branches out from hope depending on the situation. Delight occurs when a pleasant situation predicted by hope is realized.
  You feel delight when your prediction comes true. Delight occurs when an imaginary world in the brain corresponds with real world. People are delighted when they achieve a goal.
  Players exchanging blows with each other when a batter hits a game-winning home run in baseball, a celebratory beer shower when winning the pennant race, a player's expression when scoring a goal in soccer, jumping for joy when you find out you passed an exam, raising a fist in triumph or cheering and so on― these are actions of delight. The person's whole body tenses up and they are extremely excited. People express delight with overflowing physical and mental energy. We can say that happy dances are quite literally the extreme expression of delight.
  There is no delight which is not predicted. No matter how profitable a realization is, if it has not been thought of before it cannot bring delight. People will not feel delight unless they are aware that it is a result of their capability because delight is a display of self-competence. However, people think of many kinds of things, so there are very few things which have not been imagined. Even if people have never thought about a thing itself, they have thought about its results, so feeling delight is common.
  For example, when you find a case on the road with 100, 000, 000 yen inside, you would feel just bewilderment at that time, not delight. However, you would feel delight if after returning the case you are rewarded and it makes you rich.
  Extreme delight may make people cry. A delightful situation is recognized in the sensory association cortex, signals are sent to the motor association cortex, and we try to do something. If the delight is too strong, there no activities to digest it at the time, then we cry out of delight.
  Well, why do we express delight like this? On reflection this is strange reaction, but it can also be explained by evolution.
  Actions of delight are to show success to their fellows. This asserts that they are capable and requests their status in the society be raised. It is thought that people showed off when they successfully caught something when hunting, and gained respect from others in the primitive ages.
  We can assume that this is the reason that victory poses are more prominent in men. When we imagine an athlete posing triumphantly it will most likely be a male athlete. This is not a coincidence.
  In Japan, which treasures harmony, there is a tendency for delight to be hidden. Sumo, shogi, and go players would never express delight. This is because Japanese people don't like to push others aside.
  Delight makes people continue and repeat their current action because it is pleasant. Therefore, delight can strengthen the effort put in to achieve a hope.
  Also, the delight of a person who is recognized as on your side can become your delight because humans have the ability to sympathize. The delight of your loved one becomes your delight. In an addition, this positive emotion spreads around and enhances social relationships. Sharing delight with everyone produces unity.
  Delight is a young emotion in the history of evolution. Delight exists only in animals which form groups because delight makes one appealing to those around. Delight also requires intellect because it needs prediction, so only humans and apes seem to feel it.
  For example, chimpanzees cry like a lunatic when they find fruit. This is thought to be the delight of finding.

2016年1月23日土曜日

Q74. What is regret?

Regret is a side effect of the memory system.

  There are many effects of helplessness.
  When love is helpless people feel sweet sorrow.
  People feel sweet sorrow when they feel love but cannot act on it, or they don't feel love's effect. For example, a person is with their dear one but they cannot do anything because the love is one-sided, or when a mother does something for her child but the child's response is cold.
  Sweet sorrow appears when love and helplessness occur simultaneously.
  When a person's sense of helplessness is too big they often commit suicide.
  Humans don't commit suicide because of how sad they feel. Helplessness is the cause of suicide. They think that no matter whether they live or die there is no difference because they think that their existence has no influence. Say a TV star commits suicide and then a fan commits suicide because of this. The fan committed suicide not because they felt too sad, but because they felt a strong helplessness from not being able to stop the TV star's death.
  In addition, there are many suicides by anger, such as suicides by fire to protest against the government, and some cases of suicide caused by bullying. They claim, "It's your fault I'm dead."
  Even if we set aside these extreme cases helplessness has elements which cause people distress. Regret is one of the best representatives.
  Regret is to recall past events and to find hope in that situation. They notice what they could have done to succeed. Then they realize that they cannot correct past events─ of course!─, so they feel helpless and depressed.
  However, time is the wrong opponent to fight because all people are helpless against the flow of time. People might think, "If I had known that at the time it wouldn't be like this," but they cannot avoid it because they didn't know. This misunderstanding is because they cannot see the past as the past, and confuse the past and present. Regret is a side effect of memory.
  Regret should be clearly distinguished as a measure to not repeat the same mistake when similar events happen in the future.

2016年1月18日月曜日

Q73.What is helplessness?

Helplessness is a feeling experienced when we predict disappointment.
  Helplessness is an emotion derived from appraising disappointment.
  We feel helpless when we get low marks on a test despite our effort. However, we don't feel it because of the test's score, but from predicting that the next test will go poorly too so any efforts would be useless. If we clearly know the reason why we did poorly on the test we don't feel helpless. Helplessness is a sense that we cannot achieve what we hope.
  An inferiority complex is formed when comparing abilities causes one to feel helplessness because we live in competitive society, same as a superiority complex. If a person's hope is to exceed someone else, but they can't, this is called an inferiority complex.
  A person who feels helpless stops being proactive. They think that it is doomed to failure from the start, and then they stop trying to do things. When they have to do something they act too slowly, because they feel that they cannot succeed. They become indecisive.
  Helplessness is disappointment sustained by memory and has little value in evolution. It only causes the stagnation of some activities, and a shift in your lifestyle through reflection.
  Researchers found that when some mammals are captured by carnivorous animals, they are surprisingly quickly to stop resisting. If fellows of their heard appears they start to resist again, and sometimes can escape. This means that they often are eaten without any useless struggling, and not after exerting all of their energy and being taken down. Mammals may feel helplessness.

Q72. What is self-confidence?

Self-confidence is a feeling derived from predicting success.

  Self-confidence is an emotion branching out from hope's appraisal. Self-confidence is sensed before you act and makes you feel like you can do anything. It can be said to be an assessment of competency in which hope can be realized anytime.
  A sense of superiority occurs when people recognize that they are better than their opponent before they win. Self-confidence when people want to win a competition is a sense of superiority. Self-confidence is often felt as a sense of superiority because humans are often required to surpass others by society.
  When people have self-confidence they actively pursue something, lower wariness, and become negligent. They may act arrogant without discretion. We should be careful to not be overconfident.
  People with self-confidence decide and act quickly without careful consideration. This has the effect of expanding the success and lets you rest physically and mentally.
  Doing these things has the effect of showing off one's success. Especially in men moderate self-confidence appeals to women. On the other hand a timid man is unpopular with women.

2016年1月9日土曜日

Q71. What is envy?

Envy is an attitude when someone accomplishes your hope.

  Envy is an emotion that branches out from hope caused by empathy. Envy occurs when people recognize another person's success. For example, most people become envious of the person who wins a lottery. At that time people want what the other person has that they don't have. Envy is an emotion that occurs when someone accomplishes what you hope to do.
  Since the conditions of occurrence are similar, jealousy and envy sometimes occur at the same time. If a stranger won the first prize in a lottery a person may only feel envy, but if a rival at work is promoted ahead of a person the person may feel jealousy more strongly than envy.
  Envy enhances the image of one's future success, and promotes taking action when one recognizes another's success. It is assumed that envy has the effect of enhancing hope.
  Envy's behavior includes sighing and a wishful look on the person's face. This is a signal that there is something remarkable that deserves attention. This means that this behavior has the effect of getting help from others.

Q70. What is disappointment?

Disappointment is a response when one has lost hope.

  Emotions which branch out from hope are disappointment, envy, confidence, and helplessness.
  Disappointment is an emotion which branches out from hope when it disappears. People feel disappointment when the result of something is different from their hope, such as failing a school's entrance examination. When disappointed people droop their shoulders, and reduce the pace of their actions. This has the effect of allowing the person to correct the appraisal and reflect on his or her behavior patterns.
  Prediction is indispensable to disappointment. People don't feel disappointed when they lose money unless prediction is involved. If people predict unfavorable results the degree of disappointment is lightened, because hope is a profitable prediction for the self. If people have absolutely no hope, they don't feel disappointment.

Q69. What is hope?

Hope is a feeling which makes a strong will.

  The seventh basic emotion is hope.
  Hope's genealogy is a little different from other emotions. Other emotions are truly typical emotions which branch out from interest or aversion and are old, while hope is a young emotion derived from working memory, and consists of intellect.
  When you think about the future and feel it is pleasant, then you will work hard to realize it. This is hope.
  If it is too big to realize, we call it ambition or aspiration. Also if you have a person that you think is ideal, we call it admiration.
  Let's examine when hope occurs.
  When a person is lost and finds a place that looks familiar they feel hope. People feel hope when they are not yet confident but feel on the verge of a break through. The current situation is still bad but people can see a solution, or expect that the situation will improve.
  This means that an expectation which is good for the person is hope. Thinking in detail about a good future gives people energy to act. Promotion and acceleration of current actions are features of hope.
  Hope generates will. When hope appears through actions and the actions continue without losing hope we call it will. The strength of will is the strength of hope. The person whose will is weak may abandon those hopes which are difficult to realize. So you will need to imagine a more detailed and adequate process if you want to have a strong will.
  Also, the more positive past experiences a person has, the stronger his or her will will be. The experience of accomplishing something in childhood promotes a strong will.