Emotion is described as a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Our entire life’s revolves around emotion; from the day we are born, we cry for food, when we turn twelve we are happy as we think we are not kids anymore, and when we finally turn eighteen a ball of emotions rolls through our bodies. However, to what degree can emotion help or prevent us from gaining knowledge? In order to face this question, it is important to consider the mechanism in which we trust our feelings and how our emotions affect our reasoning. Using examples from personal experiences, both in school and in my free time, but also from a further scientific point of view, the strengths and weaknesses of emotion as a way
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To trust our feelings we have a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of our emotions. This has both negative and positive side effects. For example, when I was younger I was afraid of the dark. I was too scared to sleep at night with no lights on and I refused to sleep in complete darkness. If I were alone in darkness, I would unconsciously make myself believe there are monsters surrounding me. Of course this is not true. I trusted my fear and therefore created more were fear amongst myself, believing things were there which actually were not. As I grew older, I got over my fear of the dark but I did spend a good couple of years running away from it. During those years, I was too young to even consider my fear and just turned a blind eye to my emotions. I solely trusted my intuition and if I had not done that perhaps I could have explored the dark and even have had adjusted my senses to it, as now I cannot even function in the dark. Even though in this case trusting my feelings is considered a negative side …show more content…
Reasoning is the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments logically. However, our emotions could either distort or boost the logic in our thinking. A common weakness in reasoning, which is caused by our emotions, is fear. There are several studies, which show how fear causes exam anxiety. Scientists studied the results of two groups of students taking the same test; one group suffered exam anxiety while the other group did not(1). As a result the group, which suffered from exam anxiety, had poorer results, perhaps because the fear they had of failing the exam caused them to not think logically. The thoughts of failing were stronger than the actual focus on the exam. Another example of an emotion, which causes to make irrational decisions, is jealousy. When I was in eighth grade I was young and foolish and easily affected by minor things. I got jealous of one of my friends because she was more social than I was and therefore she had more friends. So I ended up talking badly about her with other students just so I could feel better about myself. Of course, the girl did not deserve to be talked badly about as she had done nothing wrong. It was simply my jealousy, which caused hatred among the students. If our negative emotions could cloud our thoughts and make us make irrational decisions, then what about our positive emotions? When I am happy, I am always in the mood to make new friends and to socialize. For example,
To trust our feelings we have a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of our emotions. This has both negative and positive side effects. For example, when I was younger I was afraid of the dark. I was too scared to sleep at night with no lights on and I refused to sleep in complete darkness. If I were alone in darkness, I would unconsciously make myself believe there are monsters surrounding me. Of course this is not true. I trusted my fear and therefore created more were fear amongst myself, believing things were there which actually were not. As I grew older, I got over my fear of the dark but I did spend a good couple of years running away from it. During those years, I was too young to even consider my fear and just turned a blind eye to my emotions. I solely trusted my intuition and if I had not done that perhaps I could have explored the dark and even have had adjusted my senses to it, as now I cannot even function in the dark. Even though in this case trusting my feelings is considered a negative side …show more content…
Reasoning is the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments logically. However, our emotions could either distort or boost the logic in our thinking. A common weakness in reasoning, which is caused by our emotions, is fear. There are several studies, which show how fear causes exam anxiety. Scientists studied the results of two groups of students taking the same test; one group suffered exam anxiety while the other group did not(1). As a result the group, which suffered from exam anxiety, had poorer results, perhaps because the fear they had of failing the exam caused them to not think logically. The thoughts of failing were stronger than the actual focus on the exam. Another example of an emotion, which causes to make irrational decisions, is jealousy. When I was in eighth grade I was young and foolish and easily affected by minor things. I got jealous of one of my friends because she was more social than I was and therefore she had more friends. So I ended up talking badly about her with other students just so I could feel better about myself. Of course, the girl did not deserve to be talked badly about as she had done nothing wrong. It was simply my jealousy, which caused hatred among the students. If our negative emotions could cloud our thoughts and make us make irrational decisions, then what about our positive emotions? When I am happy, I am always in the mood to make new friends and to socialize. For example,