I'm fascinated by the ways in which people express themselves, because their responses are often counter to what they're actually feeling. Like when they're frightened, they tend to freeze. When they're angry, it doesn't always come out as volume. There are wonderful contradictions in the way that people express their emotions.
Interpretation
People often express emotions in ways that contradict their true feelings.
This quote highlights the complexity of human emotions and expression. Edward Norton points out that individuals may not show their true feelings in expected ways; for example, someone who is frightened may become still instead of fleeing, and anger may not always manifest as loud outbursts. These contradictions reveal the depth of human emotional experiences, suggesting that understanding someone's true feelings may require deeper insight beyond their outward expressions.
In practice
In a psychology class discussing emotional expressions and behaviors.
Look, you've got a generation of people coming along who are going to form their own new relationship with the idea of supporting the causes that they care about or changing the world. And these people are not going to do it the way our parents do it.
I've observed over and over that people seem to get a much deeper sense of fulfillment out of something they've done as an act of service than out of the things they do for themselves.
Basically, I think 21st century conservation is moving toward preserving ecosystems by dealing with the needs of people.
I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things . . . which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising
Life, like poker has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced.
In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.
Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?
But in psychoanalysis there are no unimportant thoughts; there are only thoughts that pretend to be unimportant in order to not be told.
Behavioral scientists distinguish between fast thinking and slow thinking. Fast thinking is represented in the mind's System 1: it is automatic, intuitive, and often emotional. Slow thinking, reflected in System 2, is deliberative and reflective; it likes statistics. It's hard to think of a purer System 1 candidate than Trump.
I believe that the therapist's function should be to help people become free to be aware of and to experience their possibilities.
I think the relationship between social-dominance orientation in people and the extent to which they're made uncomfortable by ambiguity and novelty is really important. Better a stable world that's familiar, in which I'm doing pretty poorly, than dealing with all the ambiguity of a changing world.
People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives.
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