My latest post, a discussion and review of "The Hurt Locker" spotlighted emotional intelligence, specifically the psychological ability to mind-read others known as empathy and its deceivingly high importance in successful foxhole behavior. Coincidently, today's NY Times health section features an article that reiterates and expands upon much of what I wrote. As this article contains more in-depth information about a wider body of research on the human mind and bomb detection, I wanted to disseminate the link as well as some thoughts.
Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/health/research/28brain.html
What is becoming increasingly clear with recent research findings is that some soldiers (like James in The Hurt Locker) are much better than most other individuals at detecting danger. Some confluence of cognitive and psychological abilities allows these super mind-readers of detection to constantly hone on an above-average, invisible mental radar. This radar comes in the form of a gut instinct or subtle physical sensation that hits the body a few seconds/minutes before it hits the conscious mind. Benedict Carey, author of the abovementioned article, likens this "moment" to when you pause as you are leaving your house but only well after the pause do you realize you've forgotten your wallet.
If you are a U.S. soldier patrolling an Iraqi marketplace, empathy can become a mildly prophetic power in identifying buried bombs. Empathy is so widely discussed in the literature that many fields have tweaked its definition to accommodate the purpose of study. Here, the purpose is things that are central to avoiding imminent threats, and empathy is discussed as the speed with which the brain reads and interprets sensations like the feelings in one's own body and emotions in the body language of others.
In my blog post, I discussed how the world of intelligence testing embraces rational processes like memory and all but discards emotional processes like empathy, despite the potentially high value this skill has in a military-specific context. This article notes the turning-of-the-tide. Yes, emotions are still viewed as the perpetrators of reckless, rebellious behavior (as James was accused of in "The Hurt Locker") but now emotions are also being seen as the key elements of the most sensitive detection equipment available, the human mind. "We understand emotions as practical action programs that work to solve problems, often before we're conscious of it. These processes are at work continually, in pilots, leaders of expeditions, parents, all of us," says Dr. Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California.
Another important point that the article notes but does not sufficiently analyze is the buffering effects that empathy and emotional intelligence exerts on PTSD. Without explicitly saying so, the article builds a persuasive case that bomb detection is a much too perfect occupation for developing PTSD. This is due to the genealizability of uncertainty.
The soldiers interviewed in the Times article describe the search for buried bombs as never routine, and never obvious. Bombs might be ticking away in an innocent looking divot in or a pile of discarded cans. In fact, one story tells of real bombs buried in fake rocks and fake bombs in plain view. Our brains are designed in such as to learn the association between life threatening danger and a pile of discarded cans in as quickly as one-trial. Walk past an explosion of this sort and when you return home taking out the garbage may feel like a life-or-death chore. Essentially, PTSD is learning in a new and dangerous environment that sticks even after a return to the old, safe environment. Due to such deceitful bomb burying tactics soldiers are unconsciously learning to fear that which is routine, mundane, and seemingly safe from all sides.
Empathy and emotional intelligence can become a bullet-proof vest against PTSD because it fights off one of its top predictors - peri-trauma dissociation. This occurs when you become so freaked out during a traumatic event that you curl up into the fetal position, psychologically, tune out and simply hope that danger will be averted. You fail to manage your emotions enough stay grounded and collected, accept the unfairness of it all and escape danger with speed and skill and, subsequently, self-efficacy (the knowledge that you can keep yourself alive). Walking around with a perpetually firm grasp on what you and others are feeling (empathy) and managing intense feelings and converting negative emotions to positive ones (all skills under the rubric of emotional intelligence), prevents this sort of mental fleeing.
Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/health/research/28brain.html
What is becoming increasingly clear with recent research findings is that some soldiers (like James in The Hurt Locker) are much better than most other individuals at detecting danger. Some confluence of cognitive and psychological abilities allows these super mind-readers of detection to constantly hone on an above-average, invisible mental radar. This radar comes in the form of a gut instinct or subtle physical sensation that hits the body a few seconds/minutes before it hits the conscious mind. Benedict Carey, author of the abovementioned article, likens this "moment" to when you pause as you are leaving your house but only well after the pause do you realize you've forgotten your wallet.
If you are a U.S. soldier patrolling an Iraqi marketplace, empathy can become a mildly prophetic power in identifying buried bombs. Empathy is so widely discussed in the literature that many fields have tweaked its definition to accommodate the purpose of study. Here, the purpose is things that are central to avoiding imminent threats, and empathy is discussed as the speed with which the brain reads and interprets sensations like the feelings in one's own body and emotions in the body language of others.
In my blog post, I discussed how the world of intelligence testing embraces rational processes like memory and all but discards emotional processes like empathy, despite the potentially high value this skill has in a military-specific context. This article notes the turning-of-the-tide. Yes, emotions are still viewed as the perpetrators of reckless, rebellious behavior (as James was accused of in "The Hurt Locker") but now emotions are also being seen as the key elements of the most sensitive detection equipment available, the human mind. "We understand emotions as practical action programs that work to solve problems, often before we're conscious of it. These processes are at work continually, in pilots, leaders of expeditions, parents, all of us," says Dr. Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California.
Another important point that the article notes but does not sufficiently analyze is the buffering effects that empathy and emotional intelligence exerts on PTSD. Without explicitly saying so, the article builds a persuasive case that bomb detection is a much too perfect occupation for developing PTSD. This is due to the genealizability of uncertainty.
The soldiers interviewed in the Times article describe the search for buried bombs as never routine, and never obvious. Bombs might be ticking away in an innocent looking divot in or a pile of discarded cans. In fact, one story tells of real bombs buried in fake rocks and fake bombs in plain view. Our brains are designed in such as to learn the association between life threatening danger and a pile of discarded cans in as quickly as one-trial. Walk past an explosion of this sort and when you return home taking out the garbage may feel like a life-or-death chore. Essentially, PTSD is learning in a new and dangerous environment that sticks even after a return to the old, safe environment. Due to such deceitful bomb burying tactics soldiers are unconsciously learning to fear that which is routine, mundane, and seemingly safe from all sides.
Empathy and emotional intelligence can become a bullet-proof vest against PTSD because it fights off one of its top predictors - peri-trauma dissociation. This occurs when you become so freaked out during a traumatic event that you curl up into the fetal position, psychologically, tune out and simply hope that danger will be averted. You fail to manage your emotions enough stay grounded and collected, accept the unfairness of it all and escape danger with speed and skill and, subsequently, self-efficacy (the knowledge that you can keep yourself alive). Walking around with a perpetually firm grasp on what you and others are feeling (empathy) and managing intense feelings and converting negative emotions to positive ones (all skills under the rubric of emotional intelligence), prevents this sort of mental fleeing.
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