Have you ever sent a harsh message to someone that you regretted, or posted something on social media that you later determined needed some tweaking?
Maybe, you've even found yourself at the dinner table with extended family actively avoiding talking politics because you know it'll be a topic of contention.
Well, you're not alone if that's the case. And especially when it comes to politics, a record 80% of Americans believe the nation is greatly divided on important values.
The divide may not seem unusual. But in the three decades this has been measured by the Gallup poll, this is the highest proportion of people who agree that Americans can't come to a consensus on key values.
On "The Florida Roundup," Shankar Vedantam, with the psychology show "Hidden Brain," provided insight on emotional states and how people can approach moments when they feel themselves getting upset discussing issues of importance to them.
"Hot" versus "cold" emotional states
"Our emotions in some ways act like a lens," Vedantam told host Tom Hudson. "They basically shape our perceptions of the world. They shape what we see."
He added that these emotions are designed to drive us toward some sort of action. For example, sadness might cause someone to withdraw from their environment. Anger could cause a person to approach something.
"All emotions, in some ways, are designed to both give us signals about what the world is telling us, but also signals about how we should behave," he said.
Vedantam explained how there are two different emotional states you may find yourself in: Hot or cold.
Researchers often describe this as an empathy gap between logic and reason, where you're "cold" versus a heightened emotional state where you're "hot."
When we're self-reflective of our actions, it typically means we're in a cold state. Vedantam described this as being thoughtful, open to ideas and taking in information.
Whereas, when you're in a hot state, you could be more likely to fire off a social media post you later come to regret.
The gap comes into play as it can be difficult to understand how we will behave when we're in either emotional state.
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"So, I think the answer to the hot, cold empathy gap is certainly to be more reflective, to be more mindful, to be more aware of what we're doing," Vedantam said. "But really, that's another way of saying, try and get in a cold state if you really want to think about what you do before you do it."
He added that there are mechanisms to use technology to help you get to a cold state. For example, some email platforms will say they will delay sending an email for two minutes so you have a chance to think about it. Vedantam also recommended writing a social media post, but waiting around 20 minutes before you hit that publish button.
"So many social media platforms reward the hot takes, they reward outrage, they reward sort of very short-tempered outbursts with people," Vedantam said. "But I think that's what so much of social media has become. It's become sort of an ongoing spectacle."
How do you return to a "cold" emotional state?
The "Hidden Brain" host also told Hudson that if people do not want to respond out of agitation, there's a key way to get back to a self-reflective state: Humility.
Intellectual humility is a more well-known term. Vedantam said this is when people remind themselves that they don't know everything and that there might be other people out there who know more about a subject.
But there's also another type: Moral humility.
This involves one person disagreeing with another who has completely different moral concerns.
"Moral humility says my moral concerns and preferences should not take priority or precedence over your moral concerns and considerations," Vedantam said. "Humility in terms of moral humility tells me, even though I don't feel what you're feeling, I need to respect the fact that what you feel might be authentic."
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He added that many of the disagreements and passionate fights people have stem from being unable to recognize or acknowledge that other people's concerns are valid.
"So we basically feel that our concerns are extremely valid, and we are outraged that other people don't recognize the intensity and fervor with which we feel our concerns. But we don't extend that to others," Vedantam stated.
He said that people can often have difficulty conceding that an issue matters to someone else when they don't care much about it. But Vedantam said that when you recognize that an issue is important to someone, it takes some of the sting out of conflicts.
"Because we recognize when we exercise moral humility that the people who disagree with us are not disagreeing with us because they're bad people or because they're stupid people or because they're uninformed, but just because they have different moral criteria for how to judge the world," Vedantam said.
But Vedantam said, just like intellectual humility, practicing moral humility is a lot easier said than done.
This story was compiled from interviews conducted by Tom Hudson for "The Florida Roundup."
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