bungula comments on Why do people ____? - Less Wrong

25 Post author: magfrump 04 May 2012 04:20AM

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Comment author: bungula 04 May 2012 02:43:08PM 20 points [-]

It's called Intrusive Thoughts, and apparently most people have these:

London psychologist Stanley Rachman presented a questionnaire to healthy college students and found that virtually all said they had these thoughts from time to time, including thoughts of sexual violence, sexual punishment, "unnatural" sex acts, painful sexual practices, blasphemous or obscene images, thoughts of harming elderly people or someone close to them, violence against animals or towards children, and impulsive or abusive outbursts or utterances.[6] Such bad thoughts are universal among humans, and have "almost certainly always been a part of the human condition".[7]

Comment author: byrnema 06 May 2012 02:00:10PM *  3 points [-]

I don't think the phenomenon of 'intrusive thoughts' is relevant. Intrusive thoughts feel differently than what Mark is describing. The difference is that intrusive thoughts are 'intrusive', and almost feel like someone else is having them, whereas fantasizing about being angry is more active and more pleasant.

Comment author: Kevin92 23 March 2014 08:18:09PM *  0 points [-]

I've had intrusive thoughts too and I've wondered how common they are. Thank you for letting me know that they are something most people experience. I would share some on here, but they're pretty embarrassing.

Comment author: Manfred 06 May 2012 01:16:20PM *  0 points [-]

If these are the "common" ones, then from my experience they're related to what's going on in one's life. By which I mean that I've had similar thoughts, but only during a time when there was a person who I wanted to fight, was afraid of fighting, and couldn't fight, and not any other times.

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