Psychology says the people who appear emotionless in a crisis were usually the children who learned that someone had to stay calm or everything would fall apart - Silicon Canals

"Research on parentification - the process where children are forced into adult emotional roles - shows that many of the people we admire for their composure developed it as a survival mechanism. They weren't born calm. They were made calm, usually by environments where someone's emotional dysregulation demanded that a child become the steady one."

"A seven-year-old watching a parent spiral into anxiety, rage, or despair, and somewhere in their developing brain, a calculation happens: If I react too, this gets worse. If I stay still, I can hold this together. That's not maturity. That's adaptation under duress."

"The calm one in a crisis isn't feeling nothing. They're feeling everything - and running a parallel process that suppresses the output. It's like watching someone carry two conversations at once: one internal, one external. The external one is measured, logical, solution-oriented. The internal one is often screaming."

People perceived as calm under pressure are often assumed to possess an innate personality trait, but psychological research reveals a different origin. Many develop composure through parentification—a process where children assume adult emotional roles to manage dysregulated parents or caregivers. A child learns that remaining emotionally controlled prevents situations from worsening, creating an adaptation mechanism rather than genuine maturity. This composure comes at a cost: internally, these individuals experience intense emotions while externally maintaining measured, solution-focused behavior. Research on stress responses shows some people default to "tend-and-befriend" patterns, managing others' emotions as a coping strategy. The calm person carries dual emotional processes simultaneously—suppressing internal reactions while projecting external stability.

Read at Silicon Canals