Mood - Our blazing fast heuristic for subjective experience
emotional intelligenceLet me ask an easy question: “How are you feeling?”. How long did it take you to answer? Less then a second? Impressive. Now a harder question “What makes you say that?”, or even harder “How do you ‘compute’ how are you feeling?” What is going on? Human’s have a super fast heuristic called mood giving them an insant assessement of their sujective reality. Mood is critical to understand as it drives our behaviors, has an outsized influence on our subjective experience, can be in conflict to our pursuit of happiness, and most importantly has several bugs which can be exploited by the resistance and other bad actors.
- Why mood matters so much
- Theory and model
- Mood disorders vs working moods responding to life
- Objectively my life is great. I have just about everything anyone can want, but I am not happy. What’s wrong with me?
- Actual moods
- Quotes
Based heavily on Mood and Mood Disorders
Why mood matters so much
Mood does not equal quality of the present
From a practical standpoint, awareness of the connection between ‘mood’ and the perceived quality of the present can reduce the cost associated with the making of erroneous conclusions about the quality of one’s life.
As is the case with worsening mood, awareness of the link between ‘mood’ and the perceived quality of the present can help identify the bias in judgment and reduce the potential cost of mood-driven misperceptions of the quality of one’s reality.
Another example of the practical value of understanding the connection between ‘mood’ and ‘quality of reality’ comes from the role that ‘mood’ can have in interpersonal relationships: Deliberately or not (i.e., subconsciously), we “broadcast” our mood to communicate our perception of the quality of the present to a person (or persons) around us. Broadcasting a ‘bad-mood’, by sulking for example, is a way of communicating one’s perception of the present as lacking quality. At the receiving end, noticing that someone in a ‘bad-mood’ is typically interpreted as criticism, or even as an accusation, of that present’s lack of quality.
Our actions are heavily influenced by our mood
Our subjective reality is heavily infuenced by our mood
Good Mood does not equal the pursuit of happiness
See Happy
The heuristic is buggy
The heuristic is bi-directional
Theory and model
TODO: Move this to its own page
Reminder: Mood != Pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of Happiness is a process or a skill, we over focus on mood, and underfocus on PoH.
Mood is an in the moment evaluation of the quality of the present moment.
Mood = Heuristic Fast Assess(Quality of Present Reality)
Why do we have mood? Mood is a shortcut we use to know if things are going well. Without needing to spend brain power on evaluating the situation we can “know” if it’s good. In general it works. Pain is bad, loved ones are good. But, the heuristic has bugs.
Is it a one way street? Interestingly it’s bi-directional. The link between mood and the brain’s assessment of the quality of the present is bidirectional. Smiling when in a bad mood makes you in a good mood.
Is it balanced? “Reality” can be formed Combiation(Self, Other, Process). Even if one of these components is good, you may over attribute to the others, and vice versa. For exampe, if you’re in physical in pain, you’ll perceive a relationship as worse then it is.
As a model,
| State | Description |
|---|---|
| Self | My assessment of self |
| Other | My assessment of others (including inanimate objects like possions) |
| Process | My interactions with said objects |
| State | Past | Present | Future |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self | |||
| Other | |||
| Process |
Mood vs Energy/Arrousal
Mood disorders vs working moods responding to life
Under normal conditions, mood-states are transient, changing in response to changes in the surrounding circumstances. Mood disorders, in comparison, are generally hallmarked by a persistent, relatively unchanging mood-state. The persistent mood-state is experienced subjectively as uncomfortable (which is putting it mildly; pathological mood states can be extremely painful) and objectively with so called “vegetative symptoms” (e.g., physical and mental slowing, changes in sleep and appetite) and problems functioning which all too frequently become disabling.
Mood-regulation problems come in two types: In the first type the mood gets “stuck” in one point or in a narrow region of the emotional spectrum. It is a loss of ‘affective modulation’ — the ability to shift moods, i.e., to experience different moods, in response to changes in the surrounding environment. A patient suffering from this type of disorder is akin to a pianist whose keyboard has only a few working keys, all in one area, with most of its keys muted. Depressive episodes are states in which the patients’ mood is “stuck” at the low-end of the emotional spectrum. Their emotional keyboard can only play a few low-end notes, with most of the rest of the range muted. Manic episodes are states in which the patients’ mood is “stuck” at the high-end of the normal emotional spectrum. During a manic episode (specifically, ‘pure’ or ‘euphoric’ mania; there are other variants of mania that are outside the scope of this discussion) patients only experience the upper-end of the emotional spectrum, the rest of their emotional spectrum is silenced.
In the second type of mood-regulation failure, the experienced mood-states are persistently incongruent with, or poorly-fitting, the surrounding circumstances. These are states hallmarked by erratic mood changes that are out-of-step with social convention, are generally perceived as inappropriate, and typically are functionally problematic. To use the piano analogy again, this type of mood disorder is akin to playing a badly out of tune piano. A pianist playing this piano will trigger wrong notes — sounding arbitrary and incompatible, or dissonant, with the background harmonic context. It is difficult to produce meaningful, pleasing music on a piano in this state.
Mania - Everything feels good, I’m told that’s what cocaine’s like. Feels awesome!
Patients tend to recall their past experiences as better than they actually were and they relate to the future with boundless optimism. Overall, the ‘quality of reality’ experienced during a manic episode is so high it is often longed for by many patients after the episode resolves, somewhat reminiscent of the way addicts long to a “high”. In both cases the illusion of a high ‘quality of reality’ that is created by an elevated mood is seductive, self-defeating, and unaffordable
Depression - It’s not sadness, it’s a lack of feeling.
Major depression tends to exert a similar effect, in the opposite direction: Depressed patients typically perceive their present reality – i.e., themselves, the others around them, and the processes they are involved with, as lacking quality. Consequently, major depression often manifests with lack of self-confidence, social isolation, and a loss of interest in most activities. In addition, under the influence of their mood, patients with major depression often recall past memories as having a lower quality than the actual quality of the experiences they had and patients tend to relate to their future with an unwavering conviction of its negative quality, which manifests as non-negotiable hopelessness.
Objectively my life is great. I have just about everything anyone can want, but I am not happy. What’s wrong with me?
Failure to make the distinction between ‘happiness’ and ‘good-mood’ or, ‘happiness’ and ‘pleasure’, and, by extension, their pursuits, is surprisingly common.
It is a common reason for seeking the help of a mental health professional. Typically, these patients are financially secure, able to sustain a comfortable lifestyle, and have ample opportunities for pleasurable experiences. Yet, they are burdened by a confusing and frustrating sense of failure in their pursuit of happiness. They typically present with a variation on the following theme: “To an outside observer, my life appears great. I have just about everything anyone can want, but I am not happy. What’s wrong with me?” (Sometimes they add, somewhat apologetically, “I know it’s a ‘First World’ problem, but it still weighs me down”.)
It’s not rare that by the time they present they have accumulated multiple financial, relationship, and substance abuse problems which appear to have started as futile attempts to address the core dynamic — doing well in the pursuit of pleasure and failing in the pursuit of happiness.
In my clinical experience, some of these patients are somewhat relieved to discover that ‘happiness’ is unattainable and that, therefore, no one is ‘happy’ (regardless of what their Facebook and/or Instagram feeds suggest). Some are pleased when they are told they are not suffering from a psychological disorder or a psychiatric illness. But others are disappointed to hear that there is no pill they can take that will fix what ails them.
In my opinion, the primary affliction behind this problem is ignorance: The lack of required knowledge about happiness — what it is and how to pursue it effectively. The diagnosis of ignorance incorporates both good news and bad news (putting it in medical terms): The good news is that ignorance is a treatable condition. The bad news is that the treatment is not easy. It requires a lot more effort, time, and commitment than taking a pill requires.
Be that as it may, when the problem is ignorance, the remedy is learning which, to take effect, needs to be implemented through a practice that puts that which has been learned to use. There is no other treatment for ignorance and for the incalculable suffering it causes.
Actual moods
Joy
Happy
Anger
Regret
Quotes
In the original, it’s about comfort, not pleasure.