@estelle Now that I’ve reviewed the posts here more closely, I’ve realized that in the process of encoding and decoding the memory of engaging in this conversation, it became a site of rumination in my mind, and its meaning appears, in my present state, to have twisted. Interestingly, this relates I think to this particular subject, as I was somewhat prompted to perform a recursive check of myself and my thought processes in order to verify with truth. Thus, this truth about what actually happened in the conversation was obtained through a kind of self-consciousness, which is probably where my subjective guiding line originated from in my initial thought process here. Obviously, this idea isn’t empirically validated via statistical analyses and the application of an inductive rigor, so it’s only telling of my own experience, not an ubiquitous one.

@estelle I’ve reflected on this thought of mine, and have since realized that this very much poses a question of whether, in this case, these people are neurotic so they engage in these kinds of recursive self loops, or if they’re neurotic because they engage in them. Then, when is the supposed intelligence it grants introduced to the subject who is experiencing this? Does neuroticism have some positive correlation with openness to experience, or, more likely, is it just specific to this particular experience, as it is distinguished from a broader facet of neuroticism as might be called depression? https://getmona.app/rich_text/246377609761

@estelle Yes, that’s an excellent observation, thank you for pointing it out. I do believe that opinion and subjective thought inevitably shape both perception and analysis, as interpretation is never fully divorced from the one who interprets. I assume the portion of my post you’re referring to as opinion is the reevaluation of neuroticism not as a weakness, but as an evolutionary advantage. If so, I would clarify that my post was intended as an interpretation of neuroticism, rather than a strictly objective or empirical report.

@estelle @psychology Fascinating study, and very relevant to an interpretation of neuroticism that I’ve developed. It is almost as if neuroticism, the personality trait of the Big Five most clearly associated with depression, allows individuals to experience a greater breadth of emotions and cognitive aspects of human experience that skew perception away from the optimistic bias. These neurotic individuals are sensitive and attuned to the negativities of the world through the percepts supplied by emotion, and through this tempestuous proclivity towards emotion, their perception is shaped. Thus, they can feel the pain that is naturally associated with depression. This, however, may not be an evolutionary weakness or inherent flaw, but an advantageous ability to accurately perceive threats in the environment. I believe that this may be a sign of a cognition oriented towards self-doubt and recursive checks of truth, thereby raising self-awareness through their more rigorous interpretations at the cost of being self-conscious.

#psychology #neuroticism #personality #evolution #depression #thebigfive #theoryofpersonality