The difference between left and right – the online counseling

(Part 6 from: The Man-Woman-conflict from evolutionary-psychological view)
(How spiritual assessments from the primeval times guide and influence love relationships)
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Cerebral hemispheres control our behavior differently

Hominization – the becoming of a human – starting with the primate as precursors and ending with the present modern Homo sapiens, is to be attributed to the remarkable development of our cerebral hemispheres.

Here, evolution led to a division of labor, which does not exist among any other living being: Our left half of the cerebral hemisphere partially accomplishes different tasks than our right half; we denote this as functional asymmetry. Located on the left side is our sense, with the ability to think logically and to act according to plans, whereas our emotions are represented by the right hemisphere; Millions of cable connections intercon- nect everything to a whole.

 

Left dominates right

Besides – this is extremely important – left-hemispheric dominance rules. This means the left brain half dominates, or at least should dominate the right one. This oddity is one of the criteria which distinguish us humans from animals, like for example from a chimpanzee.

High emotional states of mind, which forced our monkey like ancestors to act instantly, can be, among modern human, kept in balance through the control of the left hemisphere, that urgent seeming behavior patterns could be deferred, proceeded, attenuated or even ceased completely. This leads to a short time window for a fast analysis of the situation and to go through different behavior varieties intellectually.

This enables us humans to keep cool and act with reason, even in a difficult situation – sometimes more sometimes less.

The following example clarifies the interaction of the two cerebral hemispheres:

If my girlfriend upsets me to such an extent that out of rage, I want to break the glass table with the ashtray, this behavior is strongly expression oriented and has it represented in the right half of the brain. Shortly before I implement the action, my left side of the brain speaks up and reminds me that the glass table cost 990 Euro. Subsequently, I let go of my intention.

So we have acquired the ability, controlled through our reasoning guided control mechanism, to leave old behavior patterns from immemorial times behind and to replace them with better adjusted rational actions – unfortunately, with restrictions.

Rationality is a young discipline

For one, this reasonable behavior admittedly suppresses the old behavior programs, but is mostly not able to dissolve their emotional background music. This is why we humans can get into situations, in which we act reasonable and do exactly the right thing with the wisdom of our mind. But the old archaic programs have already started the escape reflex, which is now spinning in a senseless idle standby-action and which lets us feel our heartbeat up our neck…..

The human gets sick when such situations chronify because the rationally adapted behavior takes away the possibility of expression from the affective circumstances. Left behind are tensions – which strain the vegetative nerve system.

Or even more drastic: Our mind is overwhelmed emotionally exceptional situations regularly. This is when the old programs from prehistoric times „preventively” take over again – without us being able to prevent it.

According to his brain function, the modern man is neither fish nor meat. The evolutionary-biological development status of our reasonable abilities currently represents a form of interim solution – on the way to Homo sapiens superior(?) of the future – who might be able to control his behavior and

emotions completely. Anyway, the distinctiveness of our cerebral hemispheres is the reason for our broad array of human behavior, which varies from uncontrolled temper tantrums to “stone-cold” logical acting.

This functional “division” of the human mind puts a stamp on all our behaviors: Our social behavior is always determined by two psychological components at the same time – an expression oriented from the right hemisphere and a goal oriented from the left hemisphere.

Expression oriented behavior is always authentic behavior – this means, the behavior and its emotional background coincide. A goal oriented behavior is – like the name already says – directed toward a certain purpose, the individual wants to achieve. The state of mind and the behavior can face each other like this diametrically. Purely expression or purely goal oriented behavior are seldom, because the base of an action is usually a mix of motivations.

I will give you a small example to understand this very theoretical point of view better:

I am nice and friendly to my aunt because I like her. This behavior would be expression oriented, because it coincides with the emotional state which I have toward my aunt. My behavior would be authentic. Or – even though I don’t like her, I am nice and friendly to my aunt because I want her to consider me in her will.

This behavior, which does not coincides with my inner self, would be solely goal oriented or functionalized because it’s only directed toward a certain purpose.

Then, there is the combination out of the two, which is the best case: I am nice and friendly to my aunt because I like her and she leaves me something in her will to which I won’t object.

The Man-Woman-conflict from evolutionary-psychological view: next page

 

 

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