Principlev1PR-1669
Use 'what' questions rather than 'why' questions…
Use 'what' questions rather than 'why' questions when investigating emotions, as causal narratives generated post-hoc are systematically unreliable while descriptive data remains valid.
Why This Is a Principle
Derives from Automatic Narrative Generation Precedes Conscious Evaluation (brains automatically generate causal narratives before conscious evaluation) and Memory is reconstructive, not reproductive—humans rebuild… (memory is reconstructive). 'Why am I feeling this?' generates plausible but inaccurate stories. 'What am I feeling? What triggered it?' produces usable descriptive data without false causality.