Missing the good old days? How it might be helping you hold onto your best and oldest friends.
A study flips the script on emotions and misinformation: this could be a secret weapon against online lies.
This study flips the script on emotional decision-making by gender.
People who dealt with emotions this way were happier and less likely to be depressed.
People who dealt with emotions this way were happier and less likely to be depressed.
People who allow themselves to feel negative emotions are happier and less depressed.
Feeling emotions like anger and hatred at appropriate times is linked to greater satisfaction with life.
It is the first study of its kind to find this link between happiness and feeling negative emotions.
It makes sense given that positive emotions do not always have ‘good’ outcomes and negative emotions do not necessarily have ‘bad’ outcomes.
For example, love could make a person stay with an abusive partner.
Anger could help that person leave the abusive relationship.
Dr Maya Tamir, the study’s first author, said:
“Happiness is more than simply feeling pleasure and avoiding pain.
Happiness is about having experiences that are meaningful and valuable, including emotions that you think are the right ones to have.
All emotions can be positive in some contexts and negative in others, regardless of whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.”
In general, people naturally wanted to experience more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions.
Around one-in-ten people, though, said they experienced too much love and empathy.
Another one-in-ten said they wanted to feel more unpleasant emotions like hatred or anger.
Dr Tamir said:
“People want to feel very good all the time in Western cultures, especially in the United States.
Even if they feel good most of the time, they may still think that they should feel even better, which might make them less happy overall.”
The results come from surveys of 2,324 students in the US, Brazil, China, Germany, Ghana, Israel, Poland and Singapore.
They were asked about the emotions they actually felt and those they wanted to feel.
The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Tamir et al., 2017).
Your texting habits may reveal your deepest attachment tendencies.
Uncover the mystery of human emotions. Learn about the theories, from six basic emotions to modern discoveries of 27 emotional states.
This article explores the complex question of how many emotions humans experience.
Emotions are a fundamental part of the human experience.
They influence our thoughts, behaviours, and interactions with the world around us.
But how many emotions do we actually experience?
This question has intrigued psychologists, scientists, and philosophers for centuries.
Defining emotions can be challenging, as they encompass a broad range of feelings, physical responses, and cognitive processes.
Understanding emotions is key to enhancing emotional intelligence and improving mental well-being.
Paul Ekman, a renowned psychologist, proposed that there are six basic emotions shared universally by all humans.
These emotions are happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust.
Ekman’s research demonstrated that people from different cultures could recognise these emotions through facial expressions.
This theory has been influential, but some argue it oversimplifies the vast spectrum of human emotions.
Robert Plutchik expanded on Ekman’s work by introducing the “wheel of emotions.”
This model includes eight primary emotions: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation.
Plutchik also highlighted how emotions can combine to create complex feelings.
This model emphasises the dynamic and multifaceted nature of emotions.
Recent studies suggest that the number of basic emotions could be far greater than previously thought.
For example, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, identified 27 distinct emotional states, ranging from admiration to nostalgia.
These findings challenge traditional models and highlight the complexity of human emotional experiences.
Culture plays a significant role in shaping how emotions are expressed and interpreted.
For instance, some cultures encourage the open display of emotions, while others value emotional restraint.
These cultural differences influence our understanding of what constitutes an emotion and how many emotions we might experience.
Individual factors, such as personality, upbringing, and life experiences, also affect emotional perception.
Some people may experience emotions more intensely or interpret situations differently, leading to unique emotional responses.
These variations underscore the subjective nature of emotions.
Emotional intelligence involves recognising, understanding, and managing our own emotions while also empathising with others.
Developing emotional intelligence can improve relationships, enhance communication, and lead to better decision-making.
It is a critical skill in both personal and professional contexts.
Understanding emotions is essential for mental health.
Emotional awareness can help individuals identify and address feelings of anxiety, depression, or stress.
Therapies like cognitive-behavioural therapy often focus on helping people manage their emotional responses to improve overall well-being.
Over time, theories about emotions have evolved significantly.
Early models focused on basic emotions, while modern research explores complex emotional states and their neurological underpinnings.
Advances in neuroscience have provided deeper insights into how emotions are processed in the brain.
Emotions play a crucial role in decision-making.
They influence everything from everyday choices to major life decisions.
Understanding these dynamics can help individuals make more informed decisions.
The digital age has introduced new emotional experiences, often referred to as “neo-emotions.”
These include feelings like “FOMO” (fear of missing out) and the unique frustrations of online interactions.
Social media has also amplified certain emotional responses, such as envy or validation-seeking behaviours.
Quantifying emotions remains a challenging task due to their subjective nature.
Tools like facial recognition software and self-report surveys aim to measure emotional responses, but they have limitations.
Accurately capturing the nuances of emotions requires both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being designed to recognise and respond to human emotions.
Emotion-sensing technologies have applications in customer service, mental health, and more.
However, these developments raise ethical questions about privacy and the potential misuse of emotional data.
Emotions are a complex and multifaceted aspect of human life.
From basic models like Ekman’s six emotions to advanced theories identifying dozens of emotional states, our understanding continues to grow.
Cultural and individual differences further enrich the emotional landscape, while applications in mental health, decision-making, and technology highlight their importance in everyday life.
As research progresses, we will likely uncover even more about the fascinating world of human emotions.
Ancient Akkadian texts give us a new perspective on feelings in the body, including love in the knees and anger in the feet.
Study uncovers how our eyes expose true feelings.
Study uncovers how our eyes expose true feelings.
A wrinkling around the eyes means facial expressions are more sincere, research finds.
Whether it is signalling pleasure, sadness or pain, a tightening of the muscles around the eyes means a truer expression with greater intensity.
The study helps to demonstrate that there is a universal language for reading emotions.
The research involved showing people pictures of expressions with and without the characteristic wrinkling around the eyes, known as the ‘Duchenne marker’ after the French neurologist who first discovered it.
Below are some examples of Duchenne and non-Duchenne facial expressions.
People consistently rated the Duchenne facial expressions as more sincere.
They also thought faces with the characteristic wrinkling around the eyes were either more intensely sad or more intensely happy, depending on whether it was a smile or a frown.
Dr Nour Malek, the study’s first author, said:
“These findings provide evidence of a potential universal language for reading emotions.
In other words, a given facial action may have a single role across multiple facial expressions — especially if that facial action shapes your social interactions.
For example, knowing if a stranger’s smile is genuine and whether that person can be trusted, warns you whether you should evade or not.”
Professor Julio Martinez-Trujillo, who led the study, said:
“When you have social interactions you need to perceive whether a person is sincere or not.
So my interest now is, what will be the results if we do this same test with people with autism spectrum disorder.
They often have trouble reading out emotions from other people, so we wonder if that might have to do with their ability to read this marker for sincerity.”
The study was published in the journal Emotion (Nour et al., 2018).
Discover why more content isn’t solving your boredom but making it worse.
What is your skin saying about your emotions right now?
What is your skin saying about your emotions right now?
People are surprisingly accurate at reading emotions from the colour of the face alone — even when the expression doesn’t change, research finds.
Based on subtle changes in the skin colour around the nose, cheeks and chin, we can identify happiness, sadness, surprise and many other emotions.
Happiness, for example, involves red cheeks and temples.
However, the same face, but with a redder forehead, signals surprise.
Disgust creates a blue-yellow cast around the lips and red-green appears at the forehead and nose.
People are able to read these signals automatically, without learning them.
The conclusion comes from a study which draws a novel link between the central nervous system and facial expressions.
The colours on the face are such good predictors that the researchers were able to construct a computer program that could identify human emotions with 90% accuracy, just from facial colours.
Professor Aleix Martinez, who led the study, said:
“We identified patterns of facial coloring that are unique to every emotion we studied.
We believe these color patterns are due to subtle changes in blood flow or blood composition triggered by the central nervous system.
Not only do we perceive these changes in facial color, but we use them to correctly identify how other people are feeling, whether we do it consciously or not.”
For the study people were shown pictures of faces with a neutral expression, but with the colours for different emotions superimposed over the top.
When asked to guess how the person was feeling, people were right up to 75% of the time, depending on the emotion.
They got the emotion right, despite the only clue being changes in the colour of the face.
Man or woman, whatever ethnicity, everyone displayed the same pattern for the same emotion, the researchers found.
Professor Martinez said:
“People have always said that we use makeup to look beautiful or younger, but I think that it is possible that we actually do it to appear happier or create a positive perception of emotion—or a negative perception, if you wanted to do that.”
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Benitez-Quiroz et al., 2018).
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