Unconscious Reactions Quotes

We often disguise our reflexes as deliberate actions.

I spent half my life being hurt. The leftovers of hurt are an automatic gesture, like a dog that salivates.

I did not think that I was angry, but clearly anger was reflected in my writing. I did not think that I had been affected emotionally, but it was clear from my writing that I was still very emotional about the trial some six months after it ended.

Behaviorism proposes to study human behavior according to the methods developed by animal and infant psychology. It seeks to investigate reflexes and instincts, automatisms and unconscious reactions. But it has told us nothing about the reflexes that have built cathedrals, railroads, and fortresses, the instincts that have produced philosophies, poems, and legal systems, the automatisms that have resulted in the growth and decline of empires, the unconscious reactions that are splitting atoms.

It is certain that the inanimate objects by which you are surrounded have a direct action on the brain.

Family relationships trigger childhood wounds, and those wounds often trump our rational thinking. We can't 'rationally' transcend the kind of primal pain that such relationships can arouse.

People don't know that when there is something running in my mind, I start smiling. If I'm angry, I smile and blush.

Laughter is a strange response. I mean, what is it? It's a spasm of some kind! Is that always joy? It's very often discomfort. It's some sort of explosive reaction. It's very complex.

Can you design a Rorschach test that's going to make everyone feel something every time - and that looks like a Rorschach test? It's easy to show a picture of a kitten or a car accident. The question is, how abstract can you get and still get the audience to feel something when they don't know what's happening to them?

What people think in their heart gets out, no matter how much they try to hide it.

Put me on telly, and I think I have a relaxation on camera that makes an audience relax, too. It's not a conscious thing. Cameras don't bother me, whereas other people try to perform to them.

Everything you say in a family carries meaning from all that was said before. So with friends, there is less likelihood of a few words triggering associations from childhood, where our deepest emotions often are rooted.

I don't think any songwriter who comes up through playing clubs can really claim to have independently developed their art. All along the way so much information is coming, the writer inside the performer unconsciously reacts to all of that. By the time they get to be thirty, the writer is gone.

No one tries to cry. You try not to cry. No one tries to laugh. You try not to laugh.

I laugh when I see people in pain. Sometimes I think it is a defense mechanism from childhood, where you're in so much pain you have to laugh. It is a survival mechanism.

There's stuff that everybody does that they don't know they do.

The unconscious mind has a habit of asserting itself in the afternoon.

A female voice can automatically trigger a reaction. The reasons why? Sound is the initial thing, and I've had people tell me that.

our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, and we can't look inside that room. but with experience we become expert at using our behavior and our training to interpret - and decode - what lies behind our snap judgment and first impressions.

I'm always very fearful when academics get ahold of comedy. Comedy is such a clear thing - people laugh, or they don't laugh. It's involuntary. I'm not saying it can't be scrutinized, it's just that they take the enjoyment out of it.

You can understand so much about how consumers perceive a brand by analyzing their spontaneous, subconscious responses.