夫妻为什么会吵架
在人际情感交流中,权力的作用不可忽视。在两个人的交往中,通常权力较小的那个人会更多地调整自己的情绪。[29]如何界定权力的大小是个很复杂的问题,但是在夫妻关系中,“权力”可以大致通过一些实际情况来衡量。比如,谁对对方情绪的影响力更大、谁掌握家庭财产大权、谁安排日常家庭生活(比如决定是否去参加一个派对)等。
当然,夫妻双方也有可能在不同的领域有着权力分工。比如,一方掌握财产大权,另一方负责社交活动。但是在情感方面,权力较小的一方会在情感融合中做出更大的调整来迎合另一方。
在两个人的交往过程中,如果其中一个能像精神治疗师一样,有意识地采取中立的态度,他就能更好地观察到这些调整。从弗洛伊德开始的精神治疗师们都注意到他们自己也会受到病人情绪的影响。比如,当病人回忆痛苦的往事而哭泣时,他们也会眼眶湿润;当病人因恐怖的回忆而受到惊吓时,他们的心里也会产生恐惧的感觉。
弗洛伊德指出,精神治疗师们可以通过观察自己身体的反应,打开一扇通向病人情感世界的窗户。大部分人都能够读懂公开表露的情感,而精神治疗师则有更高的本领,他们甚至能够解读病人自己都意识不到的内心情感。[30]
直到弗洛伊德指出这种微妙的感觉共享100多年之后,精神治疗师们才找到一种科学的方法来跟踪监测交流双方的生理变化。[31]这种方法是运用新型统计学方法和计算技术,分析现实对话中的大量相关数据,比如心率等。
这些研究显示,当夫妻吵架时,双方都会模拟对方内心的激动。而随着冲突的加剧,他们会使对方感到越来越愤怒、悲哀和伤心。当然,这一科学发现在现实生活中并无多少新意。
更有趣的还在后面。这些精神治疗师们把那对夫妻吵架的经过录了下来,然后让不认识那对夫妻的人来观看,并且请他们猜测吵架过程中那对夫妻的情绪。[32]结果发现,当这些志愿者们做出猜测时,他们自己的生理系统也产生了他们所观察到的情绪。
这些志愿者的身体越能模拟他所看到的情绪,他们就越能精确地感受到那种情绪,特别是不良情绪,比如愤怒。同理心,即感受到他人的情绪,不仅是生理上的,而且是心理上的。当同理心发生时,使别人产生同理心的人会影响对方的生理状态,使之与自己的生理状态一致。
面部表情越明显的人越能准确体会他人的心情。总的来说,某一时刻,两个人的生理状态越相似,他们就越容易产生同理心。
这种同理心是下意识产生的。我们产生了共鸣,因此,即使我们不想受到影响,对方的情绪也会感染我们。
总之,感染他人的情绪会给我们带来一些影响。因此,我们更要好好研究一下如何消除其中的不良影响。
- When I refer to the amygdala or any other specific neural structure, I usually mean not just thatregion but its connective circuitry to other neural areas as well. The exception occurs when I discusssome aspect of the structure itself.
- Brooks Gump and James Kulik, “Stress, Affiliation, and Emotional Contagion,” Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 72, no. 2 (1997), pp. 305–19.
- This investigative function gets carried out through the amygdala’s links to the cortex, which guidesour attention to explore uncertainties. When the amygdala starts firing in reaction to a possible threat, itdirects cortical centers to fixate our attention on the possible danger, and we feel distress, uneasiness, oreven a bit frightened as it does so. So if someone has a high level of amygdala activation, their world isan ambiguous and perpetually threatening place. A devastating trauma, like being mugged, can ratchetup the amygdala’s vigilance of the world, heightening levels of the neurotransmitters that keep usscanning for threats. Most of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, like overreaction toneutral events that are vaguely reminiscent of the original trauma, are signs of such an overreactiveamygdala. See Dennis Charney et al., “Psychobiologic Mechanisms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,”Archives of General Psychiatry 50 (1993), pp. 294–305.
- See, for example, Beatrice de Gelder et al., “Fear Fosters Flight: A Mechanism for Fear ContagionWhen Perceiving Emotion Expressed by a Whole Body,” Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences 101, no. 47 (2004), pp. 16, 701–06.
- At least that’s one way we recognize emotion. The existence of other neural routes might mean, forinstance, that we don’t have to feel happy to recognize that someone else does.
- Affective blindsight, in which a functionally blind person with certain brain lesions can registeranother person’s emotions from facial expressions via the amygdala, has been found in other patientstoo. See, e.g., J. S. Morris et al., “Differential Extrageniculostriate and Amygdala Responses toPresentation of Emotional Faces in a Cortically Blind Field,” Brain 124, no. 6 (2001), pp. 1241–52.
- The classic work on emotional contagion is Elaine Hatfield et al., Emotional Contagion(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
- The high road, however, can be used to intentionally generate an emotion; actors do so routinely.Another example is the systematic generation of compassion in religious practices; this purposefulgeneration of positive emotion uses the high road to drive the low.
- Of course, cognition and emotion are usually not at odds. Most of the time the “high road” and the“low road” act synergistically, or at least weave closely parallel paths to the same place. Likewise,cognition and emotion typically work seamlessly together, to motivate and guide our behavior towardreaching our goals. But in some circumstances they diverge. These divergences produce theidiosyncrasies and seemingly irrational behaviors that have so puzzled behavioral scientists (includingpsychologists and economists). They also tell us much about the distinct characteristics of these twoconstituent systems in our brain—when two systems are working closely together, it is hard to tell whatis contributing what; when they are in competition, it is easier to distinguish the contribution made byeach.
- The amygdala, in the midbrain below the cortex, handles automatic emotional processes; theprefrontal cortex, in its executive function, draws inputs from many other neural regions, integratesthem, and makes plans accordingly. See Timothy Shallice and Paul Burgess, “The Domain ofSupervisory Processes and Temporal Organization of Behaviour,” Philosophical Transactions of theRoyal Society B: Biological Sciences 351 (1996), pp. 1405–12.
- The high road, however, is not immune to bias and perceptual skewing. On the high versus the lowroad, see Mark Williams et al., “Amygdala Responses to Fearful and Happy Facial Expressions UnderConditions of Binocular Suppression,” Journal of Neuroscience 24, no. 12 (2004), pp. 2898–904.
- For the two modes, see John Dewey, Experience and Nature (LaSalle, Ill., 1925), p. 256.
- Roland Neumann and Fritz Strack, “ ‘Mood Contagion’: The Automatic Transfer of MoodBetween Persons,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 2 (2000), pp. 3022–514.
- On facial mimicry of emotions, see Ulf Dimberg and Monika Thunberg, “Rapid Facial Reactionsto Emotional Facial Expression,” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 39 (2000), pp. 39–46; UlfDimberg, “Facial EMG and Emotional Reactions,” Psychophysiology 27 (1990), pp. 481–94.
- See Ulf Dimberg, Monika Thunberg, and Kurt Elmehed, “Unconscious Facial Reactions toEmotional Facial Expressions,” Psychological Science 11 (2000), pp. 86–89.
- Edgar Allan Poe is quoted in Robert Levenson et al., “Voluntary Facial Action GeneratesEmotion-Specific Autonomic Nervous System Activity,” Psychophysiology 27 (1990), pp. 363–84.
- David Denby, “The Quick and the Dead,” New Yorker 80 (March 29, 2004), pp. 103–05.
- On the way movies play the brain, see Uri Hasson et al., “Intersubject Synchronization of CorticalActivity During Natural Vision,” Science 303, no. 5664 (2004), pp. 1634–40.
- On salience and attention, see, for example, Stephanie D. Preston and Frans B. M. de Waal,“Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2002), pp. 1–20.
- Our brains are preprogrammed to pay maximal attention to such cues presumably because in thewild, moments of perceptual and emotional intensity may signal danger. In today’s world, though, theymay simply signal what’s playing tonight.
- Emily Butler et al., “The Social Consequences of Expressive Suppression,” Emotion 3, no. 1(2003), pp. 48–67.
- That very attempt at suppression spurs repetitive thoughts about the matter; such thoughts intrudewhen we are trying to focus on something else or merely relax. Despite our desire to exert voluntarycontrol and veto our natural impulses, we can’t always do so one hundred percent. If we intentionallysuppress our heartfelt emotions—putting on a placid face when we actually feel troubled—our feelingsleak nonetheless. Rapport grows stronger as we more openly show our feelings to others. By the sametoken, the more we try to suppress those feelings, and the stronger those hidden feelings are, the morewe inadvertently heighten the tension in the air—a feeling familiar to anyone whose partner “hides”strongly felt emotions. On the costs of suppression see E. Kennedy-Moore and J. C. Watson, “How andWhen Does Emotional Expression Help?” Review of General Psychology 5 (2001), pp. 187–212.
- The neural radar converged on the ventromedial area of the prefrontal cortex. See Jean Decety andThierry Chaminade, “Neural Correlates of Feeling Sympathy,” Neuropsychologia 41 (2003), pp. 127–38.
- On trustworthiness, see Ralph Adolphs et al., “The Human Amygdala in Social Judgment,” Nature393 (1998), pp. 410–74.
- On wiring for trust, see J. S. Winston et al., “Automatic and Intentional Brain Responses DuringEvaluation of Trustworthiness of Faces,” Nature Neuroscience 5, no. 3 (2002), pp. 277–83. In short, theamygdala scans everyone we meet, making an automatic judgment of trustworthiness. When it judgessomeone “untrustworthy,” the right insula activates to transmit that to the viscera, and thefaceresponsive region of the fusiform gyrus lights up. The orbitofrontal cortex responds more stronglywhen the amygdala judges someone “trustworthy.” The right superior temporal sulcus operates as anassociation cortex to process the verdict, which is then labeled by the emotional systems, including theamygdala and orbitofrontal cortex.
- On gaze direction and lies, see Paul Ekman, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace,Politics, and Marriage (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985).
- On clues to lying, see ibid.
- On cognitive control and lying, see Sean Spence, “The Deceptive Brain,” Journal of the RoyalSociety of Medicine 97 (2004), pp. 6–9. Lies demand extra cognitive and emotional effort from neuralcircuitry. This finding has spawned the notion that an fMRI could one day be used as a lie detector. Butthat day will come only after those using this imaging technology have solved knotty logisticalchallenges, such as the artifacts created in the signal by someone speaking.
- On the way the partner with less power converges more, see Cameron Anderson, Dacher Keltner,and Oliver P. John, “Emotional Convergence Between People over Time,” Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 84, no. 5 (2003), pp. 1054–68.
- Frances La Barre, On Moving and Being Moved: Nonverbal Behavior in Clinical Practice(Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press, 2001).
- Though in the 1950s and 1960s there was a spate of psychophysiological studies of two peopleinteracting, the methods of the time were not precise or powerful enough, and the line of research fadedaway, not to be revived until the 1990s.
- On empathy and shared physiology, see Robert Levinson and Anna Ruef, “Empathy: APhysiological Substrate,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63 (1992), pp. 234–46.
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