I've found that for people with an analytical mindset like me, there are a few different stages of how to approach people who respond to feelings rather than reasoning.
1. Ignorance: I was in this stage for a long time, which meant that I considered other people to be stupid when they reacted in a way that seemed illogical or unreasonable to the situation.
2. Changing the other person: I'm still in this stage quite frequently, especially with my girlfriend; I realise that she responds to thing differently than I do, but I perceive my intrepretation of issues as the correct one and attempt to change her view by arguing with her. Usually to no avail.
3. Humility and compassion: Once in a while, I realise that everyone (including me) has got some emotional baggage, childhood experiences etc. that almost nobody can hold a "correct" or "logical" view of things, and the only way I can respond effectively to them is to actually listen to what they have to say and try to express the emotions that I feel when interacting with the other person.
The third one is hard, because I have grown up perceiving emotional people as weak, considering reasoning and an analysis to be superior to "feelinsg", but I've come to learn that if you really want to get to know other people, you have be open and flexible with your own emotions.
4. put yourself in a position where you deal with other people who value logic and reason.
I mean, you need some of 3, as well... Personally, I have succeeded at 4. to the point where I am one of the more emotional and irrational people in my life.
I think my life got a lot better when I stopped listening to people who said I was too analytical. Sure, we are none of us completely rational, but I think there is a difference between striving for rationality and consciously avoiding it.
I have no idea why it's so common for people to consider it a virtue to coddle insane and irrational behavior.
Look, if someone tells you they feel very strongly that running across a busy highway is a safe thing to do, you'd think that person was nuts, right? because we recognize that emotion is not a tool of cognition, and that using it in that manner is a really really bad idea. So what about a person who doesn't know how to communicate properly and tries to deal with various problem solving tasks that come up in life via emotion? does the fact that it's a few levels of abstraction removed from concrete facts somehow make it fundamentally different?
Have you read anything like Predictably Irrational, or the less famous Stumbling On Happiness, or maybe The New Brain? Or Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)?
They all make psychology and behavioral economics research very digestible, and all underscore the point: we're not rational. Even if we think we are. Our brains are essentially wired to be tangled up and self-deluding.
Moreover, lots of people use "logic and reason" as shield to hide behind when they say and do unfeeling, cutting things to other human beings who happen to react with emotions.
re-read my comment. I recognize that we are not completely rational. Rationality and logic, though, are still very powerful tools, even when wielded by emotional beings such as ourselves. Some of us are more comfortable with logic and rational models than we are with emotions.
What I am speaking of has much to do with cultural values. Just like a Scientist is not going to feel valued by a community that believes science can teach us nothing, I didn't feel valued when I was around people who valued emotions over logic.
I'm not really sure where you think you are in conflict with what I said.
Emotional people can have high value, and you are missing out if you avoid them completely. I earn about 300% more when I let a recruiter get me a gig than when I contract myself out.
All I'm saying is that when I feel like 'everyone' doesn't value rational thought and logic as much as they value some emotional quality I don't understand, yes, I don't feel valued. I have seen programmers in environments like that quit and dedicate their lives to creating mediocre music. (Not that musicians aren't valuable... but I have seen some really awesome world-class programmers go on to be mediocre musicians, which just seems like a waste.)
"I don't know everything" and "I might be wrong" are core to creating a useful rational model from incomplete data. I think that surrounding myself with people who are more rational and/or more intelligent than I am helps to develop that humility. Spending my days amongst managers does the opposite.
1. Ignorance: I was in this stage for a long time, which meant that I considered other people to be stupid when they reacted in a way that seemed illogical or unreasonable to the situation.
2. Changing the other person: I'm still in this stage quite frequently, especially with my girlfriend; I realise that she responds to thing differently than I do, but I perceive my intrepretation of issues as the correct one and attempt to change her view by arguing with her. Usually to no avail.
3. Humility and compassion: Once in a while, I realise that everyone (including me) has got some emotional baggage, childhood experiences etc. that almost nobody can hold a "correct" or "logical" view of things, and the only way I can respond effectively to them is to actually listen to what they have to say and try to express the emotions that I feel when interacting with the other person.
The third one is hard, because I have grown up perceiving emotional people as weak, considering reasoning and an analysis to be superior to "feelinsg", but I've come to learn that if you really want to get to know other people, you have be open and flexible with your own emotions.