The Self of

Thoughts,
Feelings and
Behaviors
MODULE #1
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

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 THE SELF OF…
Thoughts

Feelings

Sensations and
To understand the self as a holistic being with interconnected
Behaviors
thoughts, feelings, sensations and behaviors

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THE THINKING
SELF
 Ponder on these…
What’s on your mind?

Why do you think about

it?

How do you assess about

how you think?
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 Case #1
Your nephew describes his new girlfriend as a student who is artistic and loves
poetry. With no other information to go on, it is more likely that she is
studying:
A.) Chinese Literature
B.) Business Management

 How did you arrive at that thought?

*Even if every female student of Chinese Literature is artistic and loves poetry, the
population of Business Management students is so much larger.
( Burkeman , 2011)
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 Case #2
Imagine you’re a doctor, faced with the choice of operating on a cancer
patient or recommending a course of radiation instead. In the long term,
operating is best. But in this case, there is a 10% risk of mortality in the first
month following the operation.
Do you take the risk? Why?

*Only half the doctors asked a similar question would operate. But when the 10% mortality
rate was rephrased as “90% survival rate,” 85% of the doctors chose to operate.
( Burkeman , 2011)
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 TWO SYSTEMS OF THINKING
SYSTEM 1 SYSTEM 2
Fast Slow
Intuitive Deliberate
Emotional Reflective
Automatic Analytical
Less cognitive effort Complex
(due to practice) Effortful
Reflective
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TSU PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
 Stroop Effect

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 Are the
horizontal
lines
straight or
not?

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 Functions of the Systems
•System 1 is capable of making quick decisions, based on very little
information
 Fleeting impressions, and the many other shortcuts you’ve developed
throughout your life, are combined to enable System 1 to make these decisions
quickly, without deliberation and conscious effort.

• System 2 is usually engaged in types of decisions that require attention and

slow, effortful, considered responses.
Situations like choosing which college to attend, which house to buy, or
whether to change careers would likely require much more thoughtful and
rational approach than just using your gut feeling
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 Remember…
 Both systems have respective functions and that one is not
necessarily better than the other

While writing a detailed list of pros and cons may be an appropriate

approach for choosing a college or career path (in line with System 2),
applying this approach to the hundreds of tiny decisions we make every
day would prevent us from ever taking action. This is where System 1
comes in.

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 How well did you
understand?

2x2= ??? Which thinking

process/system would you
300 + 450= ??? use in this situation?

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  Caughtbetween empty and
heavy lane, which road
would you take???

Which thinking
process/system might you
use in this situation?

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 In filling up an
application
form, which
system would
you use?

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 How can you focus on the
voice of the person you are
talking to in a crowded and
noisy room?

Which system of thinking

would you engage in?

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 INTERACTION OF SYSTEMS 1 & 2
Scenario 1: When there is a problem to be solved
Was the problem solved?

SYSTEM 1 - YES
PROBLEM assesses the
situation -tries to
solve it NO SYSTEM 2
-approaches the
problem in a logical
way

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 INTERACTION OF SYSTEMS 1 & 2
Scenario 2: When there is NO problem (or when stakes are low)
SYSTEM 2 -biased to
SYSTEM 1 DOUBT &
-biased to BELIEVE QUESTION... (but is
Everyday situations
with limited often busy & lazy)
information (e.g.
meeting a new Form opinions & jump
person) into conclusions Adopt suggestions
with little
modification

INTUITIONS --------- BELIEFS

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 System 1: Examples
• Detect that one object is more distant than another.
• Orient to the source of a sudden sound.
• Complete the phrase “bread and . . .”
• Make a “disgust face” when shown a horrible picture.
• Detect hostility in a voice.
• Answer to 2 + 2 = ?
• Read words on large billboards.
• Drive a car on an empty road.
• Find a strong move in chess (if you are a chess master).
• Understand simple sentences.
• Recognize that a “meek and tidy soul with a passion for detail” resembles an occupational
stereotype.

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 System 2
• Brace for the starter gun in a race.
• Focus attention on the clowns in the circus.
• Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room.
• Look for a woman with white hair.
• Search memory to identify a surprising sound.
• Maintain a faster walking speed than is natural for you.
• Monitor the appropriateness of your behavior in a social situation.
• Count the occurrences of the letter a in a page of text.
• Tell someone your phone number.
• Park in a narrow space (for most people except garage attendants).
• Compare two washing machines for overall value.
• Fill out a tax form.
• Check the validity of a complex logical argument.

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 COGNITIVE BIASES
Implications:
• Thinking may be prone to systematic errors.

• Some beliefs might not be based on evidence, but we continue to

consider them as “truths.”

• Even though you know what the objective reality is,

it does not change the way you see the lines.

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 1. PEAK END RULE
REMEMBERING SELF
EXPERIENCING SELF
-writes, reads, and replays your
-Lives through the moment
autobiographical history

◦Peoplejudge an experience largely based on how they felt at its

PEAK and its END...
◦Total sum of pleasantness or unpleasantness is entirely disregarded!
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 1. PEAK END RULE

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 What would you rather go
through:

◦Short period of intense joy > long period of

moderate happiness

◦Short period of intense, but tolerable suffering >

longer period of moderate pain

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 2. REPRESENTATIVENESS
◦When people are asked to judge the probability that
an object or event belongs to a category

◦Assumption that any object (or person) sharing

characteristics with the members of a particular
category is also a member of that category.

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 Ponder on these…
Tom is a college student in a state university. He is of high intelligence,
although lacking in creativity. He has a need for order and clarity, and
for neat and tidy systems in which every detail finds its appropriate
place. His writing is rather dull and mechanical, occasionally enlivened
by corny puns and flashes of imagination of the sci-fi type. He has a
strong drive for competence. He seems to have little sympathy for
others & does not enjoy interaction with others. But he does have a
deep moral sense.

What course in Tom most likely enrolled in?

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2. REPRESENTATIVENESS
 3. ANCHORING AND
ADJUSTMENT
“How old is person A?” / “What is person A’s weight?” “Was Mahatma
Gandhi more or less 144 years old when he died?”

Decision is based on:

-ANCHOR based on the given reference point
-ADJUST the anchor (either higher or lower)
◦ In making judgments under uncertainty, people start with a certain
reference point (anchor), then adjust it insufficiently to reach a final
conclusion.
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3. ANCHORING AND ADJUSTMENT
 GUARDING AGAINST COGNITIVE BIASES

Recognize the signs that you are in a cognitive minefield, slow

down, and ask for help from System 2

Identify practices and tasks that you do and the kind of

thinking they demand

“Listen to understand it, rather than listen to answer it.”

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 Summary:

INTERACTIONS
SYSTEMS COGNITIVE GUARDING AGAINST
BETWEEN
1&2 BIASES COGNITIVE BIASES
SYSTEMS 1 & 2

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ANY
QUESTIO
NS SO
FAR?
THE FEELING SELF
 Identify the emotion being
evoked in the following pictures

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TSU PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
 WHO IS PAUL EKMAN?
* Clinical Practice:
◦Depression
*Research:
◦Papua New Guinea: Facial expressions are
universal.

◦Studied patients who claimed they were not

depressed and later committed suicide:
MICROEXPRESSIONS
*Current Research:
◦How to respond to others’ emotions
◦Working with Dalai Lama
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 EMOTIONS and its FEATURES
Physiological: biological reactions -
Cognitive: role of the nervous system (brain &
thought processes - neurotransmitters) in emotions
ANTECEDENT:
cause, trigger interpretation of an
event
Behavioral: expressions & response
- Display Rule: variations of
emotional expression across culture

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 Antecedent Condition
•Events, contexts, or situations
that trigger an emotion

•Universality of antecedent
events elicit same emotions
across cultures

•Cultural differences
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 Cognitive Appraisal
Thoughts and beliefs can impact how you feel
and how you behave.

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 Physiological
• Distinctive patterns of
biological activities for each
basic emotion
• the role of:
◦ Autonomic Nervous System
◦ Central Nervous System
◦ Neurotransmitters &
Hormones
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 Emotional Expressions
Display Rule
• cultural rules that dictate how emotions
should be expressed; when and where
expression is appropriate

• may require people:

◦ to overtly show evidence of certain emotions
even if they do not feel it
◦ to disguise their true feelings
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TSU PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
 Theories of Emotion

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 EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE AS A PROCESS

Activating Beliefs Consequences

Event - Evaluations - Emotions
- Actual event - Rational - Behaviors
- client’s - irrational - Other
immediate thoughts
interpretation
of events

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 APPLICATION: DEPRESSION
(Williams, et al.)
CONSEQUENCES
ACTIVATING EVENT BELIEFS
(emotions and
(antecedent) (cognition)
behaviors)

“I must be completely competent in everything I

do, or else, I am worthless”
“It’s my fault”
“I am a failure”

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 APPLICATION: DEPRESSION (Williams, et al.)
NEW STRESSOR BELIEFS are CONSEQUENCES
reactivated! Depressive
symptoms

“What is wrong with me?’

“Why do I always fall into this
dark hole?”
“Why can’t I snap out of it”
“I am worthless” “I SHOULD NOT BE DEPRESSED!”
“It’s always my fault’
“I’m a failure”  DOING MODE:
So a new Problem Solving
 BEING MODE:
cycle
Accept and allow
begins…
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 Interconnectedness Among The
Three Components Of The Self

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 Habit Formation
•Process by which certain
behaviors become automatic

•May be harmful or health-

promoting

•Different from routine

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 Habit Loop

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 Habit Loop

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Do you have good or bad habits? What
are they?

What habits would you like to learn?

 To be that self which one
truly is…

—
Søren Kierkegaard

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 Activity #1
Write about a personal challenge you are experiencing at present -
this may be a challenge in a relationship, or in schoolwork, or some
other problem that is affecting your thoughts, feelings, and
behavioral responses or actions.

You are to write about this personal experience, IN THE THIRD

PERSON (i.e. using "he", "she", rather than "I" or "me").

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 Activity #1
◦What patterns of thinking (e.g. Systems 1 and 2) does the
protagonist (that is you) find himself or herself applying with respect
to this experience?
What cognitive biases are evident?
◦What basic emotions are present in this experience?
Describe the sequel of the emotional experience (i.e. What is the
protagonist’s cognitive appraisal or interpretation of the event?
What physiological reactions and behaviors are elicited by the
antecedent situation?).

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