Feigning Emotion

[Nezaros]

Does anyone else, whether unconsciously or semiconsciously, find themselves feigning emotion on a regular basis? Not to be confused with consciously feigning emotion for the benefit of others, but feeling as if you care about something when in reality you don't. I've found that I've done this quite a lot in the past, perhaps consciously at first in order to elicit a response from others, but then got so used to it that it felt real.

 

[JASSY]

I have .
I feel as though I've formed a habit of doing so.
And then feeling I'm betraying who I am just to please others.
So then I ask myself should I stop that and risk being even more withdrawn from others or keep feigning emotion being it is "normal" and an acceptable response.?

 

[GodOfOrder]

Well, because it is emotion, if it feels real then it is real, regardless of if it is justified or not. So in your attempt you end up inducing a change in your emotional state, it is real.

But on feigning emotion, yes I occasionally try to simulate it, though it often fails to convince me. Mostly it is because i find that it is a moment where a normal person would feel something, and I know I don't.

It is like holding one's hand over a fire and realizing that it should hurt, but not actually feeling pain. But out of this recognition, you move your hand away anyway, and then offer a rather unconvincing "ouch".

 

[Nezaros]

I have .
I feel as though I've formed a habit of doing so.
And then feeling I'm betraying who I am just to please others.
So then I ask myself should I stop that and risk being even more withdrawn from others or keep feigning emotion being it is "normal" and an acceptable response.?

Not quite what I meant. I mean feigning emotion unconsciously, if that makes sense. Perhaps a better way to explain it is that you pretend to feel something for long enough that you actually begin to feel it, but upon going back and analyzing that thought you realize that you really weren't feeling anything.

 

[Proletar]

Yes. I can even force myself to cry even when I'm not sad.

 

[Beat Mango]

All the time.

On Sunday I decided not to, and was walking by a city pub where people were celebrating St Patricks Day. Someone yelled out, "hey you, Mr Serious!" I thought wow, is it that obvious?

 

[Hawkeye]

I can only do it if I feign truth so to speak. That is if I convince myself that something false is actually true, I will naturally begin to apply a variety of emotions subconsciously. It's not easy though and can be quite taxing on the mind, not to mention time consuming. It has it's uses however.

I think some actors do this sort of thing to aid in acting a particular roles. They apply back stories and convince themselves that they are those people to the point where the emotions feel slightly more genuine.

 

[Etheri]

Yes. I can even force myself to cry even when I'm not sad.

I couldn't cry even when I was so sad I truly would have felt better trough it. Whelp.

I mostly fake emotions for the sake of others, but I've gotten so good at it I might've fooled myself a couple times . 99% of the time, I don't entirely fake emotions, I only absolutely overdo them. Not to fool people, simply because it's a very clear means of communication and it seems to be required to be understood clearly.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Yeah, in fact I often have a hard time realizing whether I do it or not until I reach a critical point, or when I'm able to remember how I felt and contrast it with my current state.

I can tell when I'm experiencing paranoia, stress, and angst, but I have a hard time telling if I'm being genuine or just going with the flow in a convo.

Putting it in MBTI terms, I guess it's because Ni has me percieving, and Fe has me agreeing. I require harmony around me or I get stressed out and afraid that things will escalate, and I tend to know what to say or how to word what I say in order to avoid any disharmony.

If I'm with people I know and respect somewhat I take it upon me to try and be more honest, I bring more Ti to the table so to speak. When I do that I find myself knowing what I think about stuff, but it doesn't really involve feeling. Even though there's an underlying Ethos to my thoughts.

 

[Montresor]

Are you talking about psychopathy?

Faking emotions? I believe that would be a conscious effort ... specifically excluded from the OP.

Pray tell how could one unconsciously feign emotions?
Wikipedia describes the "unconscious mind" as processes which are unavailable to introspection, which makes the OP somewhat contradictory. These processes are said to include (among others) automatic reactions and repressed feelings.

Care to refine your definitions? Are you saying that feigning emotion is an unconscious "automatic reaction"? To what, your environment? Emotions in others? In either case, I believe responding emotionally would equate to ... responding emotionally.

 

[SpaceYeti]

There's a term for it in the military. It's called "Faking the funk". It isn't necessarily on purpose, but often you will act as though you're excited about a thing not because you are, but because why not be excited? You gotta do the stupid shit, so at least be happy where you can be.

 

[Nezaros]

@Montresor

I mostly fake emotions for the sake of others, but I've gotten so good at it I might've fooled myself a couple times . 99% of the time, I don't entirely fake emotions, I only absolutely overdo them. Not to fool people, simply because it's a very clear means of communication and it seems to be required to be understood clearly.

Yeah, in fact I often have a hard time realizing whether I do it or not until I reach a critical point, or when I'm able to remember how I felt and contrast it with my current state.

I can tell when I'm experiencing paranoia, stress, and angst, but I have a hard time telling if I'm being genuine or just going with the flow in a convo.

There's a term for it in the military. It's called "Faking the funk". It isn't necessarily on purpose, but often you will act as though you're excited about a thing not because you are, but because why not be excited? You gotta do the stupid shit, so at least be happy where you can be.

Basically, all of these. It's not that you're consciously faking emotion, which I know for a fact most people (Well, Rationals at least) do. It's more that you either consciously feign emotion for long enough that you're now doing it subconsciously, but it's still fake, or your subconscious decides that it's more socially acceptable to show emotion than to not, so you do. Like ordinary faking of emotions, but you happen to believe it as well. But it's still not real, because if you were to stand back for a second and think about it, you'd realize you don't actually feel that way after all.

 

[Montresor]

Wow this is an absolutely foreign concept to me. I do not act that way.

Except for Etheri's response, condensed version (above), which does ring home somewhat. I'm known for overdoing it and the thought of it makes me cringe every time I think of examples.

Aside from that, none of those are convincing as "unconscious efforts" but I'll leave it alone.

@SpaceYeti I suspect in your position I'd be inclined to start out as a private observer of this behaviour in others, content to understand it without being a part of it. After a certain amount of time however I think I'd have to try very hard to avoid being sucked in completely. I understand there's times you're probably (more or less) forced to participate in proactive group activities. So you become good at faking it, like you said; next you internalize it.

 

[SpaceYeti]

@SpaceYeti I suspect in your position I'd be inclined to start out as a private observer of this behaviour in others, content to understand it without being a part of it. After a certain amount of time however I think I'd have to try very hard to avoid being sucked in completely. I understand there's times you're probably (more or less) forced to participate in proactive group activities. So you become good at faking it, like you said; next you internalize it.

I've also always been a jolly guy. We recently had to clean our berm liners, which is boring, tedious work. You put water, and maybe a cleaning product, on the liner, then you squeegee it off. So I made it fun by being the guy who grabbed the five gallon water cans and spun in circles while dumping them on the liner while shouting "Wooooo!". I wasn't doing a fun thing, I was doing a boring thing, but I made it less boring than it had to be. Faking the funk is not a thinking thing. It's more intuitive, more social. You have to charm people, you have to present yourself in a friendly way, but you have to be acceptably weird, too. It's all attitude. That is, the joyful attitude causes the fun. It's kind of like leading other people into fun.

Living around plenty of more serious and emotional people my entire life, I've learned some tricks to defuse stressful situations. I think due to Ne. Also, I think "Faking the funk" is an expression of this skill. Why worry about how much shit the work we're doing is since we have to do it either way? Let's have the fun we can and move on. I'm not sure exactly how like what the OP discusses this is, but it's as close as I can understand from my experience.

 

[Montresor]

Basically, all of these. It's not that you're consciously faking emotion, which I know for a fact most people (Well, Rationals at least) do. It's more that you either consciously feign emotion for long enough that you're now doing it subconsciously, but it's still fake, or your subconscious decides that it's more socially acceptable to show emotion than to not, so you do. Like ordinary faking of emotions, but you happen to believe it as well. But it's still not real, because if you were to stand back for a second and think about it, you'd realize you don't actually feel that way after all.

Sorry for double posting and all, but I re-read this, and I'm here to tell you, that to me, it looks like you're mistaken about the role your unconscious or "subconscious" is playing in "feigning" emotion.

I believe you are referring to either unconscious emotional responses (genuine) or conscious emotional faking (ordinary variety - not psychopathic), or a third variety altogether - specifically psychopathic.

Just because you are not cognitively aware of it at the time? Is that what drives it into a whole other subconscious category? I believe that's the layman's definition of the subconscious ... so you have internalized the behaviour of feigning emotion to the point that it occurs without deliberate effort (i.e. happens subconsciously) however you can reflect upon it and decide later that you didn't really feel your feelings that you expressed?

My argument (in case it is not clear yet) - is that it is a cognitive effort of the conscious mind. You're a Ti dominant, n'est-ce pas?

Try going a day expressing no feelings or having no emotions. See if you can do it.

What I'm saying in my above post is that I occasionally behave in a way (driven by feeling) that I can look back upon and describe as irrational. It comes from the core.

 

[Mr Write]

It's not entirely fake; we're emotional sieves.

Though we often hate it, Fe just might be our saving grace in society. Otherwise, we'd be pretty INTJ-like

 

[Mia]

All the time. I do so for social peace.

 

[Brontosaurie]

fake it til you make it

 

[Vrecknidj]

All the time. I do so for social peace.

Ditto. When I was little, I wasn't quite certain whether everyone did this. Then I watched a bunch of TV and realized everyone on TV was a fake, so I just assumed it was the norm. Then I go to middle school and high school and realized quite a few people were completely unaware of themselves and couldn't be faking it because that would be too hard for them.

That made me sad for them.

 

[Wolf18]

I've never been good at it, although I really should be. I'm usually just cold, and it makes people mad at me (this happened twice yesterday). The problem is, I rarely see it coming. Feigning emotion would be a useful skill to have.

SW

 

[Bonbonnom]

Well what happens is that when you feign your emotions it sets a trigger in your brain and if you do it repeatedly it slowly reorganizes the makeup of your brain just as any habit would. Now here's what's interesting about this. You've developed a habit of lying, which is common, but instead of lying to others, you are also lying to yourself. Now this is not to sound preachy i swear, but that is literally what you are doing. You are forcing yourself to lie to your brain about what responses it should be showing. So now your brain has most likely structured itself to somewhat separate the part of your brain that piques interest and allows for focus from the part creates emotion. So while it is possible to get an agreeing response between the two, it will make it far more difficult to do it on purpose rather than by random chance. I actually have the same problem which is why i did some studying into brain plasticity. One thing you could do which is the beauty of brain plasticity is relate a third part of the brain to this process. What i do is i create an image representing an emotion in my head of what i really want to relate to the stimuli rather than what my false emotions are. It's been months so far for me and while i haven't come far, i don't socialize enough to put it into practice enough to change as fast as i'd like. But of course, this is all based off of habit, so the more you do it, the faster and more effective it will be. you can try to use other techniques too if you can think of one easier for you. I hope this helps