Why Do People Give Us A Bad Feeling?

Have you ever wondered why there are people who give us a bad feeling? Has a person ever caused you rejection without knowing them? Why does this happen to humans? What happens to us at the brain level so that we can experience that feeling of rejection? Well, we will resolve these and other issues as we progress through the article.

There are many expressions in which the word “thorn” is used and whose meaning refers to pain, discomfort or suffering. As a curious fact, it is thought that the expression “give a bad thorn” has its origin in the suffering of the crown of thorns that Jesus Christ held on his forehead and head in Christian iconography.

Next, we are going to delve into the fact that there are people who give us a bad feeling and we will try to define this expression that we have probably heard or that we have even used on more than one occasion throughout our lives.

What do we want to express when we say that someone gives us a bad feeling?

Before talking about why there are people who give us a bad feeling, we are going to make known what this expression means for those of you who do not know it. Giving a bad feeling is used when a situation makes us feel or anticipate that something bad is going to happen and that even makes us be in a position of alert. When we notice the tragedy in the face of an event or event that is coming or that is happening at that very moment.

It can also happen that a person produces us some suspicion or rejection when we suspect that he is a “bad person”, even though we do not know how to identify the facts that have motivated this thought ; or perhaps because of the interpretation we make about something that has been said or done at a certain moment and now we have a feeling of mistrust towards that person.

People who give us a bad feeling: what happens in the brain?

At the brain level, it is the amygdala that is responsible for this process. Any type of activity considered threatening is recorded in the amygdala, it is the one that triggers the alert or alarm signal in human beings.

In other words, the amygdala is in charge of evaluating the importance and qualifying as positive or negative the previous situations with which it resembles it by past situations, the same or similar. It acts as a survival mechanism that alerts us to circumstances that our brain has classified as dangerous or threatening.

Lazarus (1991), in his appraisal theory , describes this assessment process as the set of decisions that are made according to the perception, at a specific moment, of the effects that the information received may have on personal well-being.

In this sense, for Bisquerra (2000) “ emotions are reactions to the information that we receive in our relationships with the environment (…) that drive the situations that have provoked emotions towards a defined form of behavior” .

It should be clarified that the intensity of the reactions varies depending on the subjective evaluations that people make about the way in which the information received affects our well-being. That is, an emotion depends on what is important to us, and in this process previous knowledge, beliefs, personal goals, perception of the environment, etc. intervene.