Emotional Responses

Everybody has some unique qualities but we also share basic qualities with each other and the rest of the animal kingdom to some extent. We all have the need to eat, sleep, find shelter and take care of our other bodily functions.

In addition most animals, including us, have an instinctual need to care for our young. This is so fundamental because those who didn't have it, tended to die out. Instincts are strongly tied to our emotional responses.

They happen whether we want them to or not. Generally the sound of a baby crying will elicit strong responses, especially in women. It explains, but doesn't explain intellectually, things like love at first sight, the need to help strangers, our ability to adopt a crowd mentality, etc. These are things which helped our species to survive just like negative emotional fears such as fear of the night, fear of heights, etc. also helped preserve us.

There are probably a million books concerning human behavior and I may be oversimplifying but our emotional, instinctual responses are generally stronger than our intellectual ones. This has long been understood by demagogues who use crowd mentality to stir up support for things which intellectually most individuals would reject. The emotional response stays with us after the mob has dispersed allowing actions which seem illogical to proceed. Also because it is an emotional response, it can be triggered despite evidence that shows the position to be false. Take our current and past opposition to immigration.

As immigrants have come from different parts of the world, we have reacted in mob fashion throughout history to oppose them. We didn't want the Irish, the Italians, the Eastern Europeans, the Asians and now the Latin Americans. Each previous wave was pretty easily persuaded to oppose the future waves. They are all people trying to take care of their basic needs and wants and not a wave of evil people intent on destroying the American lifestyle. They just want to be part of it.