[Buddha-l] Re: Republicans are Happier?

[Katherine Masis]

Richard Hayes wrote:
   
  “It is utterly impossible to be mistaken about how one feels.”
   
  I disagree.  It is completely possible, and it happens more than we care to admit, that we are mistaken about how we feel.  I don’t know about the East, but we in the West are for the most part so out of touch with our bodies and our feelings, that we often think we feel A when we’re really feeling B.  For example, guys tend to think they’re mad when they’re really sad; gals tend to think they’re sad when they’re really mad.  From Plato to Augustine to Descartes, the mind-body split still reigns supreme in the West despite all the Descartes-bashing that has become fashionable in the last one or two decades.  Self-reports concerning feelings and emotions are useful in studies in which insight does not play an important role; researchers in these cases are only interested in subjects’ perceptions of themselves, not in whether those perceptions are accurate or not.  Most research in social psych is like this.  It is usually up to clinicians and their clients in therapy, not
 researchers, to ascertain the accuracy of, and gain insight into, self-perceived emotions and feelings.
   
  Katherine Masís
   

       
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