Impulsivity is the ability to make quick and spontaneous decisions without taking into account the negative consequences. This character trait is the result of self-confident categorization and impatience. An impulsive person is guided more often by feelings and emotions than by reason. This set of qualities gives rise to unconscious tactlessness and rudeness, harshness and temper.
Such behavior complicates the relationship of the individual with the people around him - relatives, friends, work colleagues. An impulsive person can burn too much of his own psychophysical energy due to an excessive emotional outburst, after which he experiences weakness and fatigue.
This character trait is possessed by energetic, explosive people. They are said about them, what they first do, and then think. An impulsive person is usually a poor conversationalist. Having asked, he does not listen to the answer. His thoughts jump from one object to another. He may be overly talkative, but he doesn’t care much if the other person is listening to him or not.
The landowner Nozdrev, the hero of Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”, can serve as a classic example of such an impulsive character. This literary character never thought about his actions. And if a thought flashed in his brain, he immediately began to act, not in the least conforming to human logic. He often became the initiator of fights and conflicts, could lose to smithereens, never draw the right conclusions from his actions.
More often unmotivated impulsivity is possessed by children and adolescents. Most of them with age acquire the ability to analyze their actions, to logical actions. But some retain a penchant for such behavior for life. An impulsive person is often eccentric, that is, prone to strange, unusual behavior.
Impulsive actions can be triggered by stress or some kind of unusual situation. It is under the influence of such events that an impulsive reaction can break out even among people who are quite adequate and reasonable in a calm and familiar environment. There are also frequent situations where nervous tension builds up over a long period of time, fueled by jealousy, anger, longing, envy and other circumstances, so that one day a splash of impulsive action splashes out. Under the influence of the latter, crimes are committed, while the culprit is not always able to explain why he committed this act.
But if this kind of reaction is random one-time in nature, then impulsive behavior is the norm for such an individual. This behavior is often the result of emotional and mental instability, the lack of adequate reactions, which managed to go into the usual form. The state of intoxication can affect the impulsiveness and inadequacy of actions. Often, impulsive acts are committed because of the person’s desire to assert himself, ensuring his superiority over others, or simply because of the desire to throw out the accumulated negative emotions.