20 fascinating facts about emotions
3 min readDec 10, 2015
- Emotions behind the scene are subjective experiences that trigger cognitive processes (emotion labeling & reasoning), physical sensations (flush), behaviors (facial expressions), mental and physical changes.
- Emotions' are the biggest motivator of human actions. They make you survive, make love (reproduce), create social bonds and be moral.
- Men experience similar amount of emotions as women. Women are just taught to express emotions differently and more often.
- There’s 100+ different human emotions we know about.
- 7 basic emotions are anger, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt and happiness.
- Happiness is the most confusing emotion of all :) Why? Because it can mean a lot of things: joy, delight, excitement…
- You have 43 facial muscles expressing the whole spectrum of emotions.
- Emotions can last from less than a second to several minutes. Sad emotions tend to affect you for longer than the positive ones.
- Mood lasts much longer than an emotion. From minutes to several days. It also affects how you experience emotions. For instance, if you’re in an irritable mood, you tend to experience anger more readily than usual.
- “I feel it in my gut.” You actually do. Emotions activate autonomic nervous system, which controls basic bodily functions like digestion, blood flow, breathing, and sexual response.
- Emotions are universal. Facial expressions of New Yorkers and Papuans are the same when experiencing the same emotions. Emotion triggers will of course differ.
- Love is not an emotion. It’s an attachment within which you can experience a lot of emotions or moods: joy, awe, anger, worry…
- You can cultivate and change your emotions. Thanks to amazing prefrontal cortex you can shift your attention from an emotion, interpret it in your own way or even change the meaning of it, thus your reaction to it.
- Self-awareness is the key. The earlier you recognize an emotion, the more choice you have in dealing with it. You gain more self-awareness through meditation or try tools like Liwely.
- Imitating some emotions as disgust or anger in facial expressions, will make you feel disgusted or angry.
- EQ > IQ. 85% of your financial success is due to your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Shockingly, only 15% is due to your IQ.
- Emotions of morality. Your concerns over fairness, obligations, virtue, kindness, and reciprocity is given by emotions of morality like compassion, gratitude, embarrassment, and awe. These emotions evolved after thousand years of human social evolution. So morality is literally embodied in us. Crazy, right?
- Just 1% of the population can hide their emotions successfully. Definitely not politicians. :D
- 10% of population don’t know how they feel. It’s a severe dysfunction called alexithymia — an inability to describe one’s emotions in words, thus distinguishing emotions and understanding emotional states of others. You can test yourself for alexithymia here.
- Botox people still experience emotions. Although botox, the wrinkle killer, does paralyze some facial muscles, it doesn't ban the patient from experiencing emotions. Imagine botoxed alexithymic — a disaster! 🤐
What facts about emotions do you find the most fascinating?
BONUS: Great overview of emotions on the valence/arousal schema.
Resources:
- Keltner, Dacher (2009). Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
- Goleman, Daniel (2005). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
- Jensen, K. (2012). Intelligence is overrated: What you really need to succeed.
- http://www.paulekman.com/research/
- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/health/conversation-with-paul-ekman-43-facial-muscles-that-reveal-even-most-fleeting.html
- https://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Moods-Emotions-And-Traits.pdf
