ir faculties in terms of IQ and cognitive ability, yet "Despite their intact intelligence, they make disastrous choices in business and their personal lives, and can even obsess endlessly over a decision so simple as when to make an appointment." Dr. Damasio explicates this problem by pointing out that these individuals make such bad decisions because "they have lost access to their emotional learning" (Goleman, 2006, p. 28). Without emotional memory, thoughts "take on a gray neutrality," and the thoughts that used to be evoked by certain triggers no longer bring up those associations (Goleman, 2006, p. 28). Dr. Damasio interprets these findings to mean that emotional learning is an integral part of the decision-making process and that feelings are "indispensable for rational decisions: they point us in the proper direction, where dry logic can then be of best use" (Goleman, 2006, p. 28).
Anyone that has experienced emotional learning knows that the ideas or images that have been acquired through this learning often arise through an immediate, hair-trigger response when the appropriate cue is received. Like Proust's character in Remembrance of Things Past who takes one taste of a tea-soaked madeleine and remembers an entire book full of his personal history, we all have many moments when a look, a sound, or a thought triggers an avalanche of memories from the past. This is more than just an interesting quirk of human nature; it can actually be a life-saving device, as Goleman suggests when he recounts the story of a man who was vacationing in England and taking a stroll along a canal. Suddenly, he saw a girl staring down into the water, her face a picture of fear, and without thinking he jumped into the water clad in his coat and tie. It was then that he realized that the girl was staring at a toddler that had fallen into the water, whom he was able to rescue (Goleman, 2006, p. 17). Likewise, Goleman (2006, p. 23) rec...