Re: Emotive Education
Dan Hook (guldann@ix.netcom.com)
Fri, 14 Mar 1997 21:11:04 -0500
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> From: Lee Daniel Crocker <lcrocker@calweb.com>
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: Emotive Education
> Date: Friday, March 14, 1997 6:35 PM
>
> > <3. "REBT is based on the assumption that what we label our
> > "emotional" reactions are largely caused by our conscious and
> > unconscious evaluations, interpretations, and philosophies.">
>
> > <Is this definition in keeping with the new neurobiological
> > discoveries of hard-wired emotional systems (recently discussed on
> > this list)? I'm all for learning to control these systems more
> > effectively, but I sense an underlying assumption here that they don't
> > even exist.>
>
> That's a very important "largely" in that first description.
> Although a responsible scientist prefers more specific numbers to
> weasel words like that, I think one probably could quantify this
> better by anayzing how twins raised apart respond to questions
> about their emotional reactions. My own guess, absent any such
> data, is that the "largely" is over 80%, though you are correct
> that 100%--the "tabula rasa" idea--is clearly false based on
> overwhelming evidence.
This could provide some problems. The twins would have to be raised in
different cultures for genetic influence to come through. I am assuming
that the cultures reaction to certain traits not related to emotion, but
presumably genetically based, are not to be counted as genetic emotive
behavior. Identical twins are probably too similar in other respects to
construct a simple evaluation.
Dan Hook
guldann@ix.netcom.com