The Head-Heart Conflict: My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own

The conflict between the heart and the head, i.e., between emotional attitudes and intellectual considerations, is common in everyday life. Emotions are personal and partial experiences, while intellectual considerations are broader and more objective. Most of the time, the head has been deemed superior and the heart inferior. This has also been the case when considering the nature of education. Contrary to this notion, I wish to take the side of the heart, though not wholeheartedly. I will argue in favor of promoting emotional and intuitive capacities, both of which integrate the broader and impartial perspective of the head into the heart.

Two central issues are relevant in this regard: 1) the relative weight of emotional and intellectual education within the educational system, and 2) the relative weight of promoting versus preventing emotional behavior. I believe that we should considerably increase the role of emotional education and in particular the promoting type of education. Following Tory Higgins, we can distinguish between promotion-focused behavior, concerning with strong ideals and hopes, and prevention-focused behavior, related to protection. In the prevention mode, interactions occur only when something is going wrong. The promotion mode is characterized by ongoing activities that create optimal conditions for fulfilling strong ideals. While education should refer to both types of behavior, promoting emotional behavior is of greater significance. Unlike preventing education, which has more to do with survival, promoting education is concerned with our flourishing.