I have been wondering about whether I should keep writing the blog. I have been doing a lot of reflecting and reviewing and have appraised that at least 90% of my posts are awful. But would I be generating the few good posts if I were not generating all the crap?
And then this guy Seb has emailed me and has encouraged me to continue with my blogging, and I got another jolt of inspiration. So onward ho, another year of the blog is comin. It’s comin baby…

That being said, I do want to hear your criticisms. I want to hear what you like about the blog and I want to hear what you hate about the blog. PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO EMAIL ME. Or write it as a comment. But perhaps you feel criticism is an efficient way to make another person dislike you. So what I propose is sending it to me anonymously. Here is a feedback form you can use.

http://zacharyburtblog.wufoo.com/forms/zacharyburtcom-blog-feedback/

Optionally, leave positive encouragement in the comments, too.

By providing feedback you will get more value in the long run. Help yourself by helping me.

By the way, this next post right here just sucks. It lacks cohesion, it’s more abstract than concrete, and what good is theory if it can’t be distilled into practice? Yet I post anyway because I hope:

- some of you will find it edifying
- writing this is preparation for writing something better; I treat my writing like I treat my software: release early, release often.

OK, Emotions Revealed. Here goes..

Paul Ekman defines emotion so well: “Emotion is a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of physiological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the situation”. All humans have the same 5 basic emotional states: happy, sad, angry, disgusted and afraid. Also, emotions all automatically activate facial expressions in people – even blind people, suggesting that emotional expression is encoded into our DNA.

Table of Contents:
1. Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Disgust & Fear: Evolutionary Themes, Body Language & Facial Expressions
2. Autoappraisers: Automated Triggers
3. Empathy / mimicing
4. Refractory Period and Scripts
5. The Difference Between Emotions and Moods
6. Practical Tips for Integrating This Knowledge To Enhance Your Life
7. Questions I have about emotions
8. Conclusions

Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Disgust & Fear: Themes, Body Language & Facial Expression of each emotions

Sadness indicates that we are going to be faced with some sort of physical or psychological loss. The posture will slump in withdrawal.

• drop mouth open, pull corners of lips down, raise cheeks (pulls agaisnt lip corners)
• let eyes look downward and upper eyelids droop
• corners of eyebrows up
• vertical wrinkle between the brows
• lips stretched horizontally, lower lip pushed up, trembling
• wide open mouth = intensity
• chin boss (skin between tip of chin, and lower lip — that produces a pout) is wrinkled and pushed upward

Happiness as a theme might best be described social/object pleasure. In relief, we will experience a relaxation of body posture. We may also orient ourselves toward a source of pleasure.

• very strongly signaled in voice
• smile via the zygomaticus major muscle (smile) AND contraction of the orbicularis oculi (muscle around eye). When people tell you “smile, it’ll make you happy!” they’re neglecting to mention that you must also smile with your eye to achieve the same effect.

Anger indicates that something is interfering with us or our goals. If we think the interference is deliberate, not incidental or required, if the interfering person chose to interfere with us, our anger may be stronger. Anger causes blood to flow to our hands. This may lead to people clenching their fists. Not surprisingly, people who in experiments are told for unrelated reasons to clench their firsts – report feeling more powerful. In anger we may also move closer to the object. Hence the popular urban phrase “Step Up.” (Resentment is an emotional attitude; hatred is an emotional attachment.) It is best to be angry towards people’s behaviors rather than people themselves, but even the Dalai Lama admits that it can be productive to be angry against a person when they derive pleasure from their abusive actions (e.g., it’s ok to be angry at a bully.)

• glare: brows lowered and upper eyelids are raised
• pull eyebrows down and togehter, inner corners go down towards nose
• while holding brows down, open eyes wide s.t. upper eyelids push against lowered eyebrows, staring hard
• once you are confident that you are making the eyebrow and eyelid movements, relax the upper part of your face and concentrate on the lower part of your face
• press lips together tightly and tense
• jaw tightly clenched, thrust forward
• teeth exposed sometimes
• lowered brow (wrinkles)
• narrowing the lips

Disgust is a feeling of aversion, either physical or moral. (Disgust towards a partner is one of the best predictors of whether a romantic relationship will end.) In disgust, you will likely move away from the offensive object – and in this case, a person may be an object. disgust keeps the sex drive in check as well, because the disgust emotion can override our natural urge to procreate. This may explain a lot of the rationalization (healthy [for social stability, though not necessarily for personal well-being] defense mechanism!) implicit to the attraction process: commonalities and cultural values (=> morals), triggering/preventing attraction.

• nose wrinkling
• upper eyelids not raised, brows not drawn together
• cheeks raised, upper eyelids pushed up. eyelids relaxed rather than tensed.
• raised upper lip. unbalanced raise = contempt
• lip corner tightened and slightly raised on only one side of face = clear contempt expression.
• upper lip raised high. lower lip raised, protruding slightly
• lowering of brow creating wrinkles.
• wrinkles extending from above nostrils dowward to beyond lip corners –> forming inverted U

Fear, worry, anxiety indicate a threat of harm, either physical or psychological. In fear, blood flows to our legs. That makes it easier to run away from the fear-provoking stimulus. You also fixate your attention on the object, opening your eyes to collect more light (and see better).

• raise upper eyelids as high as you can, and if you are able, also slightly tense your lower eyelids
• let your jaw drop open
• stretch lips horizontally back towards your ears
• eyebrows are raised and drawn together
• chin pulled
• surprise rather than fear? indicator = lower eyelids are not tensed, eyebrows are not drawn together

We are remarkably obvious in revealing our emotional state via our voice. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear and disgust all offer clear vocal patterns with respect to (absolute or relative?) tonality, inflection, volume, etc. Emotions as expressed in the voice are also remarkably accurate, most people don’t modulate their voice when lying. (The researcher Klaus Scherer is perhaps the leading researcher in the field of emotion and voice.) We have great voluntary control over many of our bodily muscles (due to our capacity for and regular practice of skilled coordinated movement, e.g. walking). Therefore you can see why it’s it’s easier to prevent/monitor/micromanage an emotion-related action (as described earlier: moving towards, moving away, etc.) than to remove any sign of emotion in face or voice.

Autoappraisers: Automated Triggers

We are constantly scanning the environment (sensory input goes to the thalamus, then to the amygdala & prefrontal cortex). When we detect that something important to our welfare is happening, an emotion goes off: this is called an autoappraiser. The further removed the variation is from the theme, the longer it may take for the autoappraiser to function, until we get to the point where *reflective appraising* occurs. Our “emotion alert database” is open and easy to add to; when we encounter new events that may be similar to a previously learned database item, an emotion gets triggered. When the learned trigger is more distantly related to the theme, our conscious knowledge may be better able to interrupt the emotional experience. In other words, if our concerns are only distantly related to a theme, we may be able to override them by choice.

There are seven paths to accessing emotion, in addition to autoappraisers and reflective appraisal: memory of past, imagination, talking about a past emotional event, empathy, others instructing us about what to be emotional about, violation of social norms, and voluntarily assuming the appearance (moving our facial muscles, altering our vocal tone).

Intensity of emotion is determined by six factors:
Closeness to the evolved theme (loss; threat; interference; aversion; pleasure/social enjoyment) – how closely current instances of the triggering event resemble the original situation in which the trigger was first learned – how early in a person’s life the trigger was learned – the initial emotional charge when the trigger was created – the density of experience (repeated episodes, highly charged emotionally, during a short period of time) – natural capacity of the person for emotional regulation

Empathy / Mimicry

Emotions often transmit socially, with the stronger emotional expresser transmitting to the less-expressive. But transmission won’t occur if we don’t care about, or in some way identify with, the person. (Emotional patterns often relate to psychological consequences, not just physical consequences; hence, the importance of the link in identity.) And sometimes we witness someone’s emotions and feel an entirely different emotion. We might be contemptuous of someone for getting so angry or afraid, or afraid of the anger they show. If we’re enemies with the person, we will feel positive emotions when they feel negative emotions; see @50cent ‘s joyous tweets about Ja Rule going to prison. I suspect that (culturally) dominant people, naturally prone to stronger emotional expressions regardless, also have more control over people’s emotional lives because so many people identify with them.

On love and empathy: Love privileges another to see us in ways that would shame us and disgust others without the intervention of love. The suspension of disgust establishes intimacy and is a mark of personal commitment. There are three types of empathy: in cognitive empathy, we recognize what another person is feeling; in emotional empathy, we actually feel what that person is feeling. And in compassionate empathy, we want to help the other person deal with his situation and his emotions. We must have cognitive empathy in order to achieve either of the other forms of empathy, but we need not have emotional empathy in order to have compassionate empathy.

Refractory Period and Scripts

We can’t control our emotions; they’re automatic. And after an emotion is triggered, we enter what’s called a “refractory period”. While we are in a refractory state, our thinking cannot incorporate information that does not fit, maintain, or justify the emotion we are feeling. Other information becomes inaccessible for a time! (Consider the phenomenon of refractory periods in relation to the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy **link**). Different factors affect the length of the refractory period. A lack of sleep and excess stress correlate to a longer refractory period– for me, this prompts questions about the relationship between working memory and the refractory period.

Sometimes, when faced with a situation we will import a “script” based on our past experiences. We “fill in the emotional blanks” with predictions about others behavior, based on past experience. Scripts are typically imported when people have unresolved feelings, feelings that were never fully or satisfactorily expressed, or if expressed did not lead to a desired outcome. Scripts distort current reality, causing inappropriate emotional reactions and lengthening the refractory period. It is clear that resolution of past emotions will lead to improved cognitive ability and emotional wellness; I’m not sure whether it’s possible to artificially resolve emotions (by tricking yourself, e.g. through visualization or writing in a diary–self-help writers would certainly have you believe so) or whether the resolution must truly be experienced.

A good way of realizing we’re importing a script into a situation is if a word related to a past emotional situation pops into our head. For example, if I was always bullied by a kid named Joe, and then I see some guy on the street who in some way resembles him, I might think “Joe” – and then I could realize that I’m importing a script. Perhaps the guy on the street has behavioral cues that cause me to compare him to Joe. Either way, it suggests that I need to (1) Be Aware that I am importing a script, (2) Be Aware that the guy probably, but may not, have behavioral resemblance to Joe, and (3) Work towards attaining emotional resolution of my feelings towards Joe.

The Difference Between Emotions and Moods

Emotions and moods are not the same thing — mood is a period of time where our physiology is saturated by a specific emotion, whereas the emotion itself is much shorter. A mood primes you to experience specific emotions; we seek the opportunity to feel an emotion the same color as our mood. Moods make us less responsive to changing nuances in our environment — they bias our interpretation and our response. (What are the most productive moods for accomplishing specific goals?) Mood-relevant emotions are stronger and they last longer. Once an emotion has begun and we’ve become aware of it, we can usually point to the event that caused it (though some people may have difficulty with this skill, it can definitely be built — I know from personal experience). Moods can be brought about by highly dense emotional experiences, but also, possibly, unknown neurochemical and autonomous changes. Emotional triggers that have become cool through effort (e.g. anger management), become hot again in moods. You can probably trigger a mood in someone the same way you can trigger an emotion in someone — just keep triggering that emotion.

Practical Tips for Integrating This Knowledge To Enhance Your Life

Keep a log of intense emotional events. Entered into the log should be as much information as possible about what transpired in the moments and, if possible, time period before you felt {emotion x}. A friend or psychotherapist might be able to help you learn more about your triggers. I myself have started keeping a diary of the circumstances around my salient emotions, so I can do actively trigger things that make me happy, rather than chasing arbitrary triggers I may or may not be conscious of. This is probably something that I should have started doing after I read Dan Gilbert’s Stumbling upon Happiness, but it took this, that, and an article by Steve Pavlina {link} to make the concept hit home.

Hm.. repetition surfaces yet again. Learning things from different angles, in different environment.. worming their way into my consciousness. The other day, I was talking to a friend about support groups, and he talked about how the more people that are there, the more effective it is. It’s because of social proof, we build our realities off of people in our environment, therefore, the more people in our environment who offer a belief to us the more likely we are to accept it and integrate it. (Perhaps the leadership strength of an individual affects his influence?) I’m just going to let these thoughts keep building…

Train yourself to understand people’s emotional expressions. PaulEkman.com offers digital, interactive courses on subtle expressions and micro expressions: there’s SETT (the “subtle expression training tool”) and METT (the “micro expression training tool”). Microexpressions are fleeting automatic expressions that people cannot control. They are instant and rely on the processing from the thalamus to the amygdala, not the prefrontal cortex; therefore they are not subject to conscious control and intervention and are true revealers! Learning to read microexpressions(which last between 1/25 and 1/5 of a second) can help you spot a liar but also helps you read normal people in everyday situations. If I were running a sales organization I would make it a mandate for every salesperson to take both the METT and SETT. In fact, I specifically emailed the Ekman Group to request they create an affiliate program for this service but they don’t have any plans to offer it.

By changing our physiology we can change our emotional experience. You know how they say “smiling will make you happy”? That’s bad advice because most people think just to smile with your mouth, and that always makes me feel like a fool. Make sure that you smile with your eyes as well (orbicularis oculi)!

Take posture classes to make sure you slouch less, helping you maintain the physiology of a happy and confident disposition more continuously. Again, I have a bone to pick with the common advice. Most people tell you to just “stand up straight” and “don’t slouch!” But in my case, I have weak upper back muscles, which makes (continuously) maintaining effective posture an impractical if not impossible challenge. So, I actually hired a personal trainer at my gym to help me specifically with my posture – and he designed a workout that focused specifically on the the areas of my shoulders and back that are weak. Incidentally, as someone who is 6’3″, it can be frustrating to have people under-guess my height. It just makes me feel bad about myself.

Ekman also says:

a) become more consciously aware of when you are becoming emotional, even before you speak or act
b) choose how you behave when you are emotional, so you achieve your goals without damaging other people
c) carefully use the information you acquire about how others are feeling

But since I can’t translate these abstract notions into actionable habits, I don’t know how to deal with them.

Questions I have about emotions

When in a social situation, are we automatically more likely to express/broadcast emotions? (e.g. mirth leads to laughter when in the presence of others) does BROADCASTING emotions cause us to feel them stronger?
Do people ever have “Emotional anxiety”, wondering what is acceptable to feel? This is because emotions are often based on values — cultural cues conflicting with internal ones?
What causes posture to erect then crumple?
What causes side side back and forth head tilts?
What motivates facial stroking of the mustache-area?
Can you gather data on what MEs make people more likely to be pitched? sell training to sales organizations.
Document emotions of a group; timing (order, direction); measure liking, influence, etc.
Learning data: repetition of abstract vs. concrete principles.
Learning: body language – recall – emotion based recall – body language and emotion
what are my insecurity triggers? Is insecurity necessarily rooted in the emotion of fear? Then I have to figure out when I feel fear and then document these episodes in my emotion diary. And then perhaps I have to confront and habituate myself to these fears via exposure. First I need to better understand the physiology of fear.
What about partial facial expressions? could they only be directed towards ONE person / object? for example, anger in half of face oriented towards offending object, but in a social situation we choose to neutralize?

Conclusions

Emotions so important and fundamental in the governance and shaping of our behavior. They are paramount in understanding culture, decision making, influence, advertising, behavior — getting what you want emotionally! Although some of us are blessed with innate emotional intelligence (or have been [un]consciously cultivating it for years), I feel that having a cognitive framework in which to work can only enhance our performance. Emotions Revealed (Paul Ekman) and Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman) are my favorite books on emotion so far; I have found them the most edifying. I want to learn more.

P.S. One more solicitation for feedback ~ http://zacharyburtblog.wufoo.com/forms/zacharyburtcom-blog-feedback/

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