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csandrinic's picture

Action-Feeling vs. Feeling-Action

Last week’s class made me think about the connection between feelings, actions, and experience. There is obviously a correlation between what we feel and how we act. However, which one comes before the other is significant, because it determines the importance of previous experiences on our actions and emotions. We determined in class that feeling is what the I-function uses to try to explain action. The I-function obviously involves previous experience. This is most probably why everyone experiences certain events, objects, etc. in different ways and associates them with different things. If I see a dog, I automatically feel like cuddling it, therefore going towards it to pet it. My friend, however, who had a traumatic experience with a dog at a young age, will literally run to the other side of the street when she sees the same dog. I understand that when we look at the feeling-action model, there is a reason why we are all so different and feel and act differently. However, I would be interested in knowing why our primal experiences, which are based on an action-feeling model, are not the same; if they are unconscious and impulsive signals that seem to have nothing to do with the I-function, then how is it possible that people can have different primal experiences? Wouldn’t our reactions be more or less the same? I’m not sure if I understand this all correctly, but I would certainly like to learn more.

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