For a long time we thought emotions and reason (or logical processes) were separate entities and that the best thinkers (and therefore the best business leaders) would separate the two.
Neurological evidence aplenty demonstrates how wrong-headed this notion has been, even though for many it persists. Processing emotions, especially during decision-making that involves mixed feelings, or decision-making that is highly complex yields better decision-making. Shunting, ignoring, or otherwise trying to "put emotions aside" during decision-making generally yields lower quality decisions.
Facts and emotions work together. My research has argued that in a similar manner facts, emotions, and symbolic processes also work together and are as integrated as the emotional/logical processes. Researchers have long concluded that if someone uses a strong emotional word or image during a task it causes a "blink," or a temporary pause in the task as the mind attends just to the emotional word or image.
A recent study using "attentional blink" theory and technique indicates that the presence of emotional language during a task will interrupt the task only if the word or image has to be processed semantically, meaning a part of the symbolic processing system has to be activated. One group of researchers following this study suggest that emotional words distract - but only when they mean something in the context of the work at hand.
This research is part of a growing body of evidence that shows how integrated our brain processes are in terms of communication and language. We used to study parts of the brain and made drastic conclusions about the entire process based upon the one part we could study. Those that studied the left brain or those that studied the limbic system (or even more refined would just study the amygdala or hippocampus portions of the limbic system) would make declarations of how the brain worked from their narrow view. It would be like HP or Apple technicians who make either keyboards or screens declaring they knew how the entire computer worked from their narrow field of expertise.
Newer techniques with finer levels of analysis are helping us see how integrated neurological processes are - which leads me to repeat the advice I give to those who attend my workshops - upgrade your knowledge. If you think that left brain/right brain theory is the most up-to-date model of the brain, then by comparison you think floppy disks are the way of the future for computers.
The image above is from Yang-Ming Huang's slide deck on one of the related studies he has conducted. Clicking on the link will download his entire presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint format.
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