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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Really Brainwashed?
Message-ID: <1781@hao.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 15:26:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: hao.1781
Posted: Tue Oct  1 15:26:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 05:41:28 EDT
References: <1683@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 35

> I often get the impression that people generally fall into
> one of two categories with respect to their responses to social situations.
> On the one hand, we have those whose responses are essentially automatic.

> One the other hand, however, my personal experience leads me to surmise the
> existence of a second class which does NOT acquire automatic reactions. 

  I think we ALL tend to acquire automatic reactions. I also maintain that if
you wish to, you CAN overcome them. You do not HAVE to react in the automatic
way. So, I would describe your two classses of people this way: those who
know that their automatic reactions are one possible way of many to react to
a situation, and those who feel that they don't have a choice and HAVE to
respond in a certain way. This does NOT say that those in the first class
NEVER respond in the automatic way. Often, it is quite appropriate to do so. The
problem with people in the second class is that automatic responses are often
negative, and cause people to experience a lot more negative feelings than
they really have to.

> We (and I say "we" because I think I fall into [second class]) are forced to
> deduce a new response for each interaction

  This is not necessarily true. As I said above, I think we ALL have automatic
reactions to things built in. Some people are more AWARE of what their
automatic responses are, and that they have other options, but that does not
preclude their responding in the automatic way.

--Greg
--
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!noao}
       		        !hao!woods

CSNET: woods@NCAR  ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY

"I don't know, but I've been told, it's hard to run with the weight of gold
On the other hand I've heard it said, it's just as hard with the weight of lead"