Understanding Human Emotionalism

Why You’ll Never Win An Argument on Social Media

You’ve never made a logical decision in your life.

And the sooner you realize this, the better.

Your choice of college, career, spouse. Even the shoes on your feet. All of these have been emotional decisions.

We are emotional beings, and there is no getting around it.

Every choice you make is driven by your feelings, desires, and the insatiable need for connection and satisfaction.

We’re taught that successful people make decisions based on cold, hard facts, devoid of emotional influence. The myth of human rationality is pervasive. It’s a comforting idea to be safe in the arms of logic.

Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist from Portugal, conducted pivotal research in understanding the role of emotions in decision-making.

Damasio studied patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex — a part of the brain involved in emotion regulation. He found them unable to make decisions despite having intact logical reasoning abilities. These individuals could analyze options logically but were unable to make choices because they lacked the emotional inputs necessary to weigh the pros and cons meaningfully.

Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate, and Amos Tversky, a cognitive psychologist, demonstrated through their work on prospect theory that people often make irrational decisions based on biases and heuristics rather than purely logical analysis. Their research showed that people value potential losses more heavily than equivalent gains, a bias known as loss aversion. This emotional bias influences financial decisions, risk assessment, and highlights that our choices are deeply rooted in emotional responses rather than objective logic.

David Hume famously asserted that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” Hume argued that emotions drive our actions and that reason serves merely to navigate the means to achieve our emotionally driven ends. His perspective challenged the Enlightenment ideal of pure rationality, which continues to dominate today.

Understanding that emotions underpin our decision-making processes can be incredibly liberating. It frees us from the unrealistic expectation of being purely rational and allows us to acknowledge and embrace the reality of human nature. Namely,

• Humans seek their own self-interest.
• Humans naturally avoid pain and discomfort.
• Humans crave social connection and belonging.

You will never win battles in the comments section on social media. Emotional beings attempting to duel through logic is a futile endeavor, wasting time and energy.

Victory is elusive, and now you understand why.