The Ash Twins Blog

Loewenstein (2000) writes,

Visceral factors have also traditionally been seen as an erratic and unpredictable influence on behavior, but again the popular view distorts reality. Certainly, as highlighted above, feelings fluctuate, often rapidly. Their changeability should not be confused, however, with  unpredictability. In fact, both the determinants of visceral factors and their influence on behavior are highly systematic, whereas cognitive deliberations, which are commonly seen as the source of stability in behavior, are a major source of unpredictability. Thus, cocaine-addicted rats that are given free access to cocaine simply self-administer the drug repeatedly until they collapse from exhaustion or die. The behavior of human addicts is far more complex than rodents’ because human drug-takers cognitively deliberate the long-term consequences of drug-taking. They binge, go “cold turkey,” relapse, and engage in elaborate self-control strategies and self-deception. As Roy F. Baumeister and Kristin L. Sommer (1997 p. 77) write, “consciousness is not an essential mediator of human behavior because behavior can occur in elaborate, lawful, and predictable patterns without consciousness. Instead, … the function of consciousness is precisely the opposite: it overrides those lawful and predictable patterns.”

In an article on emotions in economic theory, Elster (1998) writes,

In societies where blood feuds are common, revenge can be a lifetime obsession. In his outstanding study of blood feuds in nineteenth century Corsica, Stephen Wilson (1988, pp. 30, 280) refers to one case in which a man killed six persons who had testified in the trial of his brother, and to another in which a man killed all 14 witnesses who had testified against his brother. Other studies of feuding (Milovan Djilas 1958, Miller 1990) confirm the view that the passion for revenge or “”wrath” (Frijda 1994) can be a lifetime concern. Unlike love or limerence, however, the durable thirst for revenge is not a universal phenomenon. The spontaneous urge to retaliate may be universal, but its transformation into a lifelong passion occurs only in societies where it is amplified by strong social norms.