Externalism

Externalism is a belief that our thoughts and feelings can be influenced by things outside of ourselves. For example, if you walk into a room and it smells funny, that might cause you to feel sick or anxious. Your thoughts and feelings are being influenced by something in the external environment - the nasty smell. Externalism also applies to how we think and feel about our lives, like if other people treat us nicely we might feel better about ourselves and our lives than if people treat us poorly. So, externalism is an idea that our thoughts and feelings can be affected by things that are outside of us.