General Psychology

Primary and Secondary Emotions

Understanding Primary Emotions

Primary emotions are in- the- moment emotional responses to a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus. They happen as a direct result of an external cue that affects us emotionally. That is, they occur in close proximity to the event that brought them on. Primary emotions are important because they provide us with information about our current situation and get us ready or motivated to act in some way.

Primary emotions can be extremely pleasant and they can also be extremely unpleasant. Crucial to understanding our emotional reactions and how we behave, either in a healthy and self-actualising way, or conversely in an unhealthy detrimental way, is being aware of our primary emotions and that they all have value. They are important cues to our humanity and growth on a personal level as well as interpersonally and socially.

We can look at our primary emotions as a human ...

Political Personalities

In a way much like MBTI, I've come up with a very, very basic way of classifying political stances. In a way, it looks like MBTI, but acts like the Big 5 in that each trait absolutely IS a sliding scale -- NOT an absolute -- and it certainly is possible to be right on the line. People of the same type will definitely differ from others within the type; this is a very broad classification system, but I thought it was kind of interesting. It's not perfect, but...yeah, interesting. See what you think (I'm open to helpful suggestions), or perhaps what type you are!

I'm a DLIP (Internationalist Libertarian), for example: weaker on the D but strong everywhere else. A dL|I|P, if you will.

The Dichotomies
Diplomatic vs. Unengaged: International relations
Hands-On vs. Laissez-Faire: Economic issues
Individualistic vs. Conventional: Social issues
Militaristic vs. Passive: Military intervention ...