I came across this website after googling “how to quantify emotions”. This website seemed appropriate and so far it is fascinating. I have a question, and it may have been answered through one of the videos, so forgive me; I just started watching and learning yesterday. So my question:
If I wanted to record my emotions and plot them, but I also wanted to insert variables such as: Mediation, reading, martial arts, and their effect on my emotions/behavior, is it possible to do this without bias, given the test subject is myself? Of course I think of myself as unbiased but… I must remain unbiased!
Hi Tyler, good question. It is hard to blind yourself to what you are thinking, and it is hard to be unbiased about yourself. Copious medical research shows that people misreport things about themselves. Also that the act of self-monitoring frequently improves that which you are monitoring over time (e.g. weight, pedometer steps). I would think tracking emotions would be even more subject to some form of bias, since emotions are so - emotional.
That said, I am sure you could find a way to track yourself in a productive way. You could just record how many minutes of martial arts/meditation/reading you did, and record how happy you are on a scale of 0-10. I am doing that very activity myself and it is enlightening.