Great Throughts Treasury

"How well people manage their emotions determines how effectively they can use their intellectual ability."

"The two systems have unique disadvantages as well as advantages. Thus, the rational system, although superior to the experiential system in abstract thinking, is inferior in its ability to automatically and effortlessly direct everyday behavior, and the experiential system, although superior in directing everyday behavior is inferior in its ability to think abstractly, to comprehend cause-and-effect relations, to delay gratification, and to plan for the distant future. Since each system has equally important advantages and disadvantages, neither system can be considered superior to the other system."

"Some physicians object to a psychological approach because they fear it will produce ?false hope.? I have never quite understood what false hope is. All hope is ?false? in the sense that what is hoped for may not materialize. At the time of hoping one cannot know the outcome."

"The two systems [rational and experiential] have unique disadvantages as well as advantages. Thus, the rational system, although superior to the experiential system in abstract thinking, is inferior in its ability to automatically and effortlessly direct everyday behavior, and the experiential system, although superior in directing everyday behavior is inferior in its ability to think abstractly, to comprehend cause-and-effect relations, to delay gratification, and to plan for the distant future. Since each system has equally important advantages and disadvantages, neither system can be considered superior to the other system."

"The experiential system is driven by emotions, it is intuitive and automatic. It is assumed to have a very long evolutionary history and to operate in non-human as well as human animals? it is a crude system that automatically, rapidly, effortlessly, and efficiently processes information? Although it represents events primarily concretely and imagistically, it is capable of generalization and abstraction through the use of prototypes, metaphors, scripts, and narratives. The rational system, on the other hand, is a deliberative, effortful, abstract system that operates primarily in the medium of language and has a very brief evolutionary history. It is capable of very high levels of abstraction and long-term delay of gratification."

"There is a time for pessimism, that is, for considering worst-case scenarios in order to appropriately prepare for them. This does not mean one should not be hopeful, but only that one should be prepared for adverse outcomes rather than blithely assume that all will turn out well. Rather than being naively (indiscriminately) optimistic or pessimistic, it is better to be strategically optimistic and pessimistic."

"While the rational mind makes logical connections between causes and effects, the emotional mind is indiscriminate, connecting things that merely have similar features."