Emotions
One of my hobbies is the slow development of a fictional group called the Prussian Alliance. I've mentioned it on occassion here and also covered it on my other blog. Anyhow the concept of emotions within any sort of organization that relies heavily on teamwork has been on my mind. Lars and I have talked about this to some extent as he helps to coach the UWSP Women's VB team here.
Do emotions make teams work better? Certainly people do unbelievable things while under the influence of love, hate, anger, sadness, happiness, you name it. We have all probably heard tales of people going above and beyond for comrades or loved ones. Its a distint fact that under certain conditions we can push ourselves far beyond our normal physical means to levels that can only be described as superhuman.
On the other hand people who act unemotionally act off trained instinct. They do something not because they feel or think about it but because somewhere in their heads its drilled into them: "when A happens do B". Rather then wasting precious moments deciding on what to do they simply respond with B regardless of the circumstances that caused A to happen. This gives a reaction speed that is essentially as instant as can be possible for a human being. Think about what happens when a bright light comes on suddenly in your face. How much happens in reaction to that? What of that do you think about?
The thought relating to my "Prussians" is on what the drawbacks are to having a military that to a large extent is trained to react to a given situation the same way regardless of the context. Simply put the way I figure is that this is a phenomal trait for shock troops. The first people into very unfriendly areas are probably the least likely to run into civilians whom they will have to interact with (other then watching them flee/take cover). This is also the point where the most determined, regular opposition would occur.
A far worse place would be any sort of occupation force. While perhaps just as risky interactions with non-hostile forces that could accidently trigger a response (remembering that a response is basically autonomic) that would harm innocents who just happened to do the wrong thing. To interact requires more emotion and less logic. To attack requires more logic and less emotion.
Probably a very simple conclusion for a lot of thought but oh well.
Applied to our real world: sports teams should really reign in personalities and run things in a bit colder style. Drive people to react. A well trained team that plays in silence or with minimal communication because they are trained what to do will by far out perform an emotional team no matter the overall personal skill of any given individual.
Do emotions make teams work better? Certainly people do unbelievable things while under the influence of love, hate, anger, sadness, happiness, you name it. We have all probably heard tales of people going above and beyond for comrades or loved ones. Its a distint fact that under certain conditions we can push ourselves far beyond our normal physical means to levels that can only be described as superhuman.
On the other hand people who act unemotionally act off trained instinct. They do something not because they feel or think about it but because somewhere in their heads its drilled into them: "when A happens do B". Rather then wasting precious moments deciding on what to do they simply respond with B regardless of the circumstances that caused A to happen. This gives a reaction speed that is essentially as instant as can be possible for a human being. Think about what happens when a bright light comes on suddenly in your face. How much happens in reaction to that? What of that do you think about?
The thought relating to my "Prussians" is on what the drawbacks are to having a military that to a large extent is trained to react to a given situation the same way regardless of the context. Simply put the way I figure is that this is a phenomal trait for shock troops. The first people into very unfriendly areas are probably the least likely to run into civilians whom they will have to interact with (other then watching them flee/take cover). This is also the point where the most determined, regular opposition would occur.
A far worse place would be any sort of occupation force. While perhaps just as risky interactions with non-hostile forces that could accidently trigger a response (remembering that a response is basically autonomic) that would harm innocents who just happened to do the wrong thing. To interact requires more emotion and less logic. To attack requires more logic and less emotion.
Probably a very simple conclusion for a lot of thought but oh well.
Applied to our real world: sports teams should really reign in personalities and run things in a bit colder style. Drive people to react. A well trained team that plays in silence or with minimal communication because they are trained what to do will by far out perform an emotional team no matter the overall personal skill of any given individual.
posted by Beeks at 6:30 PM
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