Can an emotion ever be a choice?

Question

This question was brought up when I was with some friends last night, and I found it to be particularly interesting.

Personally, I say 'no', only the reaction *to* that emotion can be a choice, but I'm interested in other opinions.

Some excellent and intriguing answers. Thanks to all.

Answer 1

I agree with you to an extent. Usually when we first have an emotion, we can't control it. We can control how we react to it, as you say, but nothing beyond that. But other than the initial emotion, I think we can chose them or not. I have chosen not to be angry. I have chosen not to be jealous. Sure these emotions hit me at first, but then I choose (sometimes) to get rid of them. I can force myself to be happy if need be.

Maybe that's the same thing as what you call the "reaction" to the emotion, I don't know.

Answer 2

Jung: your sensory organs give you the world outside
your brain can tell you what to do with it
your emotions tell you what it's worth.

To answer your question: The emotion itself is a reaction, the amount of personal involvement governs its force and by the time you get the hang of your emotions, if ever, others will have had a lot of influence on how you feel about things

Answer 3

No. I do not believe that an emotion is ever a choice. An emotion is an involuntaryspontaneous psychological process that occurs within an individual which evokes either a positive or negative response to outward and sometimes inward stimuli. Emotions are based on personal experiences, beliefs, and perceptions.

The choice is in our actions after we experience an emotion.

Answer 4

Basically, it's a...
Thought > Emotion > Action loop (although sometimes the action is nonaction).

A thought comes first and then the emotion. You can't control the thought, but you can control the emotion--even more so, how you express that emotion. In the diagram above, you can control each of the arrows (>). I believe that it's far easier to control the action than the emotion, but both are possible.

And, the same theory would apply regarding a reaction to someone else's display of emotion (action).

Am I making sense?

Just a theory...

Answer 5

Yes, I have psyched myself into one emotional state or another by choice. I have done this for theatrical purposes on stage, and off. But it's not a good thing to do unless you're changeing your state of mind from negative to positive. The other way around is very draining.

Answer 6

Interesting question, Deke. I basically agree with your conclusion, but I suppose it boils down to fine details. For instance - in the case of anger management practices - if your first response is to blow up at a situation but you want to change this, with practice you can. So when you've established the new reaction as a habit - is that a choice? Or does it even really count in context to your question?

You feel what you feel, though - it just is. Just playing with technicalities.

Answer 7

Sometimes we can control our emotions a little, at least it feels that I have control of what I felt. Sometimes if something bad happens and it makes me sad, then I see that I am sad and don't like it, I (to me anyways) make myself get angry. I don't know about other emotions, maybe it would be possible for positive emotions. If only I could figure those things out, hehe.

Answer 8

An emotion is a spontaneous reaction to an external stimuli and we cannot choose it because it happens before we can make a choice. But we can choose to response in the right way or to react to it in the wrong way.

Answer 9

Yes.

I was about to say "of course", but you wouldn't be asking the question if it was blatantly obvious to you.... would you?

Granted, with some emotions it isn't the easiest thing to conquer them, but it is entirely possible.

Once you can figure out those things in your life that would trigger emotions however.... identify and isolate them.... it is a fairly simple matter to cut off that trigger mechanism and thereby result in no emotional reaction. Naturally the difficulty with this is the sheer number of things that we are hardwired to respond emotionally rather than rationally to.

It is only thanks to my obsessive compulsive quest for self-control that I have been able to shut down my own emotions in as many circumstances as I have.

Furthermore, it isn't that difficult to force an emotion in a non-emotive situation either. I can make myself happy if I so feel like it by simply emulating in my mind the trigger effect which usually activates it.


But yes... it is entirely possible, despite what the ignorant animals who are entirely emotion-driven might tell you.

Answer 10

No I don't think so either.

I started thinking about how people can force themselves to be happy. Like in The Sound of Music. Think happy thoughts and you will make yourself happy. But then I started thinking, the initial emotion there was sadness, then you chose to try and make yourself happy, and either when you stop focusing your mind on making yourself happy (or if the Captain barges in the room and forces the kids to go to bed) the preemptive emotion comes back to surface.

Answer 11

The emotion itself is an electrochemical state preceded and prompted by earlier states (and in some cases wired by billions of years of evolution). As such, we have little control over it. What you do based on that emotion depends on its intensity and your predispositions (from earlier experiences).