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Aquatus1

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Pathos, the Emotion Mind


aquatus1

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We are all born with the emotion mindset.  Babies are nothing but emotion.  They are inherently selfish and concerned entirely with their own needs.  Once into young adulthood (and with adequate upbringing), the other aspects of their minds may begin to gain dominance, or they may remain an Emotion person forever, albeit a more mature one.

Emotion people can be discovered by their description of the world based on their internal feelings.  They describe things in such ways as "I"m happy.", This feels right!", "Ehh, I don't know, I'm a little iffy on that".  Their entire thing is empathy, both giving and receiving.  To them, facts and figures are interesting, and authority exists symbolically, however, first and foremost, they are instinctual and will tend to go with their "gut feeling" in a conflict.

Many police officers are emotion people.  CEO's as well.  People in positions that require passion, energy, and enthusiasm, attract emotion people.  They are the leaders of a group, although not necessarily the most useful or effective members of it.

The problem with having all that energy and drive is that emotion people tend to move in straight lines, and have trouble understanding binary things, like "No" as answers.  To an emotion person, "no" just means that haven't successfully conveyed their line of thought to you.  Consequently, they will try again, and again, and possibly a third time and more.  Walls don't stop emotion people; you have to deflect them.

If a child is playing drummer with a spoon and pan, and an exasperated parent demand that they stop, the child will stop for a time, and shortly thereafter, resume.  This is not because the child is inherently disobedient, but rather because the child is following their emotional mandate.  Have fun, check.  Obey parent, check.  Return to having fun, check.  And experienced parent knows that, to stop the child from doing what they are doing, they will tell the child to go play ball outside.  They will deflect the behavior.

So, if you are trying to reign in one of these overgrown puppies of personality, there's a few steps:

1) Empathy:  The most important thing to an emotion person is that their feelings are understood.  You need to start off right away with an empathetic response.  It doesn't have to be sincere, just empathetic. 

"I know, that's so frustrating, It makes me angry too."

2) Flip:  Emotion people are not stupid.  They know they can't get everything they want.  But you already gave them a treat by empathizing, so they are better prepared for the "flip"; the part where you tell them the exact opposite of what they want to hear.  And, 99% of the time, the flip will be in the form of "But", or "However"

"But, we just don't have the resources to do that project right now."

Now, here's something interesting about the "flip":  it is time sensitive.  If you give the flip within a single normal musical beat of the cadence of your speech, the emotion mind will think you aren't really understanding the importance of their message.  Alternatively, if you pause 3 beats, that's too long, and the emotion person will begin worrying.  They might even interrupt the silence with a "But what?!".  A two-beat pause is just enough to give them a sense that you are sincere, but not so much they get worried.

3) Deflect:  Here is where you give emotion person a new target.  It is extremely important to not give specific responsibility to any given task at this point.  What you are trying to do here is set up a situation where the emotion mind of the listener is going to convince itself to take action.  If you tell the emotion person that they specifically have to do something other than what they are complaining about, it won't register as a priority for them.

"Right now, the Johnson contract is taking up our time.  If we can nail that down, maybe we can free up some resources for something else". 

By doing it this way, the emotion person brain is now seeing a new path: If I help nail that down, I can get what I want.  For better or for worse, that is how they assign priority.  The only difference is that the path they will now follow is one you guided them to.

Of course, everyone is different, and emotion people are definitely in that category.  It isn't quite so simply as giving them as simple compound sentence and being able to control their actions.  However, by understanding the process through which they process information, you are more capable of giving them information that they can understand as "real" with a minimal amount of effort.  And that is what attracts people to others, that's what makes them think "Gee, this person really speaks to me".  As an emotion person increasingly trusts another, through these subtle manipulations of their mindsets, they become easier to control.

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I would agree Dot. 

(Waits 2 beats)

However I think like me you contain a little of the Logos bit too. Pretty sure all the Mods are a little Logo 

Aquatus this is is rediculously awesome information. I have an extreme emotion mindset staff member at work i have struggled with settling down to listen. Even the senior supervisor has struggled. Going to work on timing my responses. 

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I forgot to clarify something.  The timing of the beats should come after the "But" or "However", and before the rest of the sentence.  It's that reluctant, drawn-out "but" you sometimes hear people make.

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