These are quotes from Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. I think they provide great insight into why it can be so challenging to hold intelligent debate, explore new ideas, and find consensus on issues involving dramatic change. Change generates worry. And as Goleman explains, worry undermines our abilities to consider facts and arguments objectively. Think about how this could apply to the public debates we see in White Rock on development issues.
When a worry is allowed to repeat over and over unchallenged, it gains in persuasive power; challenging it by contemplating a range of equally plausible points of view keeps the one worried thought from being naively taken as true. – page 69
Students who are anxious, angry, or depressed don’t learn; people who are caught in these states do not take in information efficiently or deal with it well. – page 79
Worry is the nub of anxiety’s damaging effect on mental performance of all kind. Worry, of course, is in one sense a useful response gone awry – an overly zealous mental preparation for an anticipated threat. But such mental rehearsal is disastrous cognitive static when it becomes trapped in a stale routine that captures attention, intruding on all other attempts to focus elsewhere.
Anxiety undermines the intellect. – page 83