The hot cold empathy gap means that we all have a misunderstood inner monster who's ready to burst out whenever we experience intense emotions. The solution isn't just to develop willpower, self-control and be a better person. It's how can we think about restructuring the situations and the context that you find yourself in so that you are less often tempted. There's no way to cure the Incredible Hulk's lurking inside us. But there are strategies to at least acknowledge those hulks and better plan for their arrival.
When mild-mannered David Banner gets mad he transforms into the raging Incredible Hulk. Dr Laurie Santos loves this comic book tale - because it reflects real life. Intense things like anger, pain, even hunger, can cause us to act in extreme ways that we might not predict beforehand or forgive afterwards.
When we're in so-called "hot states" we might become a total stranger to ourselves. This can have a serious impact on our happiness, by stopping us properly planning for how we'll react to strong emotions and causing us to be unfairly harsh on our inner Hulks.
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