What is character if it is not related to action? "I let my emotions get the best of me," says Elizabeth Lambert. [video] Ah, this notion of character falls into the dualistic error that has caused the Western world no end of trouble, separating reason from emotion, treating emotion as the crazy cousin to lock away in the attic, and assuming that the conscious mind is typically in charge of our actions. Wrong, all wrong.
We know from decades of experiments that the unconscious mind is typically in charge of our actions (Uleman & Bargh, 1999). Emotion systems underlie all our capacities. Emotions are key guides in helping us reach our goals and in determining value in the world.
Our mostly unconscious intuitions, including our emotions, are "trained up" by our experience, whether we know it or not (Hogarth, 2001). So carefully pick your activities and places you hang out. Early life sets us on a trajectory towards Bunker morality or Harmony morality. Early conscience development comes from successful emotional signaling between the child and a sensitive parent (Kochanska, 2002). Individuals who are unable to signal with their emotions may act impulsively on their intense emotions. They lack flexible thinking and engage in fragmented or polarized thinking (Greenspan and Shanker, 2004).
When people lock up and throw away the key on their emotions, they are more likely to have half a character rather than virtuous character (Siegel, 2001). Their social character is underdeveloped or deformed. They are more likely to have social problems because they are poor at reading the emotions of others. They will have difficulty communicating their own emotions to others before they get out of hand and become explosive. Think of all those "quiet neighbors" who suddenly go on a shooting spree.
Aristotle, the father of virtue theory, emphasized the importance of cultivating the right sensibilities for virtuous character development. Emotions are part of the moral self. In many ways, they are the essence of good character. Cultivating the right emotions for the situation is part of virtue development-and one must do this deliberately. Feeling the wrong emotion for the moment is part of an underdeveloped or even a vicious character. A good illustration of poor character is the episode, The Understudy, on Seinfeld where Jerry Seinfeld's actor girlfriend who cried when her hotdog fell on the ground but had no emotion after reading a telegram about her grandmother's death.
"A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." - Mathew 7:18-21
It is not what you say, believe, or intend that matters for moral character. Moral character is made visible through action. It is in the 'doing.' Through her failures, Elizabeth Lambert reminds us of this ancient truth.
References
Greenspan, S.I., & Shanker, S.I. (2004). The First idea. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
Hogarth, R. M. (2001). Educating Intuition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kochanska, G. (2002) Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: a context for the early development of conscience, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(6), 191-195.
Siegel, D.J. (2001).The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are New York: Guilford Press.
Uleman, J.S. & Bargh, J.A. (1989, Eds.). Unintended thought. NY: Guilford Press
