
You Are Not So Smart: Misattribution of Arousal - kqr
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/07/07/misattribution-of-arousal/
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kqr
Interesting article on the psychology of emotion and how little the brain
really cares about what causes a sensation.

One of the best-written pieces I have read in a long time.

Excerpts:

“The scientists knew the fear in the men’s bellies would be impossible to
ignore, and they wanted to know how a brain soaking in anxiety juices would
make sense of what just happened. [...] When they compared the stories the
subjects made up about the illustration, they found the men on the scary
bridge were almost twice as likely to come up with sexually suggestive
narratives.”

“This isn’t the action-roll-out-of bed-feeling you get when a fire alarm snaps
you out of a deep sleep. No, arousal is prolonged and total, it builds and
saturates. Arousal comes from deep inside the brain, in those primal regions
of the autonomic nervous system where ingoing and outgoing signals are
monitored and the glass over the big fight-or-flight button waits to be
smashed. You feel it as a soldier waiting to see if the next mortar has your
name on it, as a musician walking on stage inside a sold-out stadium, as a
crowd member elevated by a powerful speech, in a group circling a fire and
singing and drumming, as a member of a congregation swimming in the Gospel and
swaying with hands raised, in a couple at the center of a packed dance floor.
Your eyes water with ease. You want to weep and laugh simultaneously. You
could just explode.”

“It is easy to pinpoint the source of your contorted face and toothy grin if
you took peyote at Burning Man and are twirling glow sticks to the beat of a
pulsating lizard-faced bassoon quartet. The source of your coursing blood is
more ambiguous if you just drank a Red Bull before heading into a darkened
theater to watch an action movie. You can’t know for sure it if it is the
explosions or the caffeinated taurine water, but damn if this movie doesn’t
rock.”

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adrianN
Or the group of people choosing to cross a scary bridge is statistically
different from the group choosing the sturdy bridge and the study is bogus.

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kqr
It's a shame they didn't verify with later studies.

