Reddit reviews Emotions Revealed, Second Edition: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life
We found 16 Reddit comments about Emotions Revealed, Second Edition: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Owl Books NY
I can add some information here, in that Dr. Paul Ekman is the foremost expert on the relationship between emotions and facial expression - all of his books are great and easily accessible, not literary texts by any means. I often recommend Emotions Revealed to anyone looking to do a bit of introspective self-study.
His group was consulted for the Fox show, Lie To Me, which I thought was great but ended a bit prematurely - the skeptic in me says it was due to giving the public an easily-digestible psychoanalytic lens, but the pragmatist in me says people probably didn't find it as interesting as I did.
It's science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile#Duchenne_smiling
Paul Ekman has a really good book introducing you to emotions and their corresponding facial expressions, really interresting what you can learn to read in peoples faces. The series Lie to Me is based on his work.
http://www.amazon.com/Emotions-Revealed-Second-Recognizing-Communication/dp/0805083391/ref=la_B002FSXSVI_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381177004&sr=1-1
fun fact: you can enter a temporary psychopathic state if you become emotionally aroused enough (like rage, terror, depression, etc...). your cognitive ability deteriorates when this happens.
in this common context, when people say you're a fucking idiot, it's usually compelled by an emotional impulse and not reason. I'm honestly surprised most of us manage to type anything out when we're upset.
This is why we often say things we mean but quickly regret afterwards. That thing you felt and thought but never meant to say. In some cases, I expect some people to feel no regret and if anything... to feel completely justified. It depends on the context.
note: i'm just a regular person... i'm not a specialist or psychologist. i just find emotions really fascinating mainly because i'm terrible in social contexts and because i suffer from anxiety and depression. paul ekmans emotions revealed is an awesome (albeit dense) read.
fyi: i do get the joke, i just wanted to share this interesting information since this post made me think of it.
Here are a couple of really good books:
If you do like the show Lie To Me, the main character is based on Dr. Paul Ekman, who wrote Emotions Revealed. He has a series of web-based trainings on his website:
http://www.paulekman.com/
For me I think I have a genetic thing or something about anger, as my dad will get some crazy rage episodes over simple things and it is the same with me. But who knows!
For example, the last rage episode all started because I stubbed my toe and my internet cord wouldn't reach my laptop and I just became so overfilled with anger that I felt afraid of myself after I had calmed down.
BUT, I have not had an 'episode' in quite a long time as when ever I feel the anger coming on I have learned to shift it and defuse it quickly. I think it is because I started reading and learning about what emotions really are and how they start and just learning about emotions and what not has helped me a lot (it also helped me with my depression a few months ago).
But you could always try learning more about your emotions on the scientific level and that could help you control them. You don't want to try and hide the emotions seeing as you dislike feeling them, you can't really pretend they aren't there. But you need to understand them, find the source, and stomp it out before it can ignite. At least, that is what I believe. I also am personally against medicine of any type (I won't even take meds to get rid of a cough unless it prevents me from sleeping) so learning is a nice alternative to those.
Oh and one of the books I read was this one even though it focuses mainly on identifying emotions on other peoples faces, it also will talk about the emotions in fair detail, although there are other books that you could probably find that would be more fitting.
So yeah, sorry for the wall of text and I hope you can solve whats going on with you. =)
If you're up for some reading, go for Psychologist Paul Ekman. He's the guy that convinced the scientific world that emotions are not learned, but rather innate. It's called Emotions Revealed. It's basically a primer for all of the most basic and popular emotions, and even spotting them when people are trying to suppress it all. It should get you started. Sorry for not giving anything more direct.
That's a great talk. Another resource that has helped me tremendously are the books of Paul Ekman specifically Emotions Revealed. It's a great primer on the basic human emotions and facial expressions that reflect them. Reading this book really helped my ability to read people (that and the computer training tool that you can buy to go along with it). Definitely recommend it.
Try anything written by Paul Eckman. He's one of today's leading experts in these sorts of things, and he pioneered the discovery and research on "microexpressions", which are facial expressions that last 1/25th to 1/15th of a second and are key to deciphering many strong human emotions. I've read both this book and this book that he's written on the subject and found them fascinating.
I'm actually quite adept at talking to people. I read these books:
Emotions Revealed,
Influence,
How to win friends and influence people
The first one is about how to read emotions through facial cues. Very helpful. The second book is about persuasion. And the third you've probably heard of.
Incidentally what the 3rd books says about winning friends is very true. If you ask a person lots of questions, not in an interrogative way of course, but just ask them questions about themselves as they talk to you about something they enjoy, that person will end up liking you.
In general I don't have a problem talking to people. Nor do I have a problem with people.
I do try to keep people at a distance but it's probably not for the reason you think. Years ago at my first major job out of college I was having trouble adapting so I read up on how to act around people.
I was quite successful. I probably racked-up over twenty "friends". The problem came when I began being invited to social gatherings and parties. I went to a few but they were so boring. And it wasn't that the people I went to work with were boring--I worked with a pretty healthy sampling of people from nerdy movie types, to people with families, to recent college grads who were still in frat boy mode, etc...
I didn't read these books to make friends. I read them so I could function better when I'm around people. I got invited out to several different get-togethers over several months and I went out of curiosity. I really wanted to see what the big deal was. I was shocked at how boring and stupid it all was. I'd rather be at home reading a book.
After that I began declining social invitations. The problem is that I still acted friendly at work. I guess this confused people. Lots of people began getting upset with me because I wouldn't go out drinking or to their BBQ or whatever.
So now I try to stay pleasant with people but not friendly or too interested.
Alright, some things I've done over the years to help with this stuff.
When it comes to picking up non-verbal clues, I rely almost entirely on Dr. Paul Ekman's Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. This book changed my life and drastically affected my communications. It's getting to the point that I'm getting better than other people when it comes to recognizing emotions in others. I use the book as a sort of guide to a game that I never learned the rules of. I still make mistakes, but overall I do a pretty good job picking up emotional cues. Treat it as a game (think the conversation bosses in Deus Ex Human Revolution) where you need to figure out the emotional response and respond accordingly.
Second, try learning one of those religious conversion conversation guides. Even if you're not religious, they work wonders. The idea is that religious conversation guides are designed to make the other person feel as comfortable as possible and to feel like you understand them and love them (for the purpose of conversion, but you'll do fine with just letting them feel good.
Personally, I use the FORT method. (Link for an example for a sales version of it called FORM that also contains a good example)
F is for friends (who do stuff together) and family
O is for occupation (job)
R is for religion/recreation (essentially, beliefs/hobbies)
T is for testimony. This is the deeply personal stuff from their life.
So, here's how to use FORT method. The idea is that each stage of FORT represents a new stage in personal relations. You start off with asking basic questions about their family or friends (I'll give an example conversation here in a little bit to demonstrate how it works) and then progressively move down the list as they feel comfortable sharing.
Next, it's helpful to think of these four letters as four rungs of a ladder. If you keep asking about hobbies, but they keep changing it back to their job, then that's a sign that they don't want to get more personal with you, so you back off and stay within that "rung" (only F and O type questions). But, if you ask an F type question and they carry it over to an R type question, then move with them straight to R type questions. Also, you don't have to always try to move down the rung. You can just stay in the FO questions and that's perfectly fine. Many friendships don't enter the RT questions for months.
Second, as you are in a conversation, listen for key words and phrases that you can use to steer the conversation or restart it if it's dying out. For example, you notice that they mentioned their mother 3 times, even when you are asking O type questions. It's fine to just straight up say something like "I noticed you've mentioned your loving mother several times while talking about D&D. When I think of mothers and D&D, disdain is what comes to my mind more than love [soft chuckle as humor is important to communicate that it's a joke and that you're not talking ill of your own mother]. Any particular reason why you brought her up so much?" (NOTE: asking this type of question can jump down to a T type question as you're asking a very personal question about their past. Only do this if you have the time and energy to handle emotional issues. If you do do this, the person will be deeply grateful and consider you a personal friend more often than not).
Lastly, constantly ask questions. Let the other person talk. Every response should contain a question. Every response.
Using the FORT method as a guide, you can get some good conversations going. Treat it as a game where you try to keep the conversation going and keep them interested in that conversation. Last, here's an example of FORT in action.
Conversation Example
NOTE: I will be using a conversation between me and a student as an example
Me: Hello! How are you doing student? How was your weekend?
Student: I'm doing well teacher. This weekend was pretty good.
Me: What did you do over the weekend? I hope you had some fun with your friends (F type question)?
Student: Yeah, I did. We played some Overwatch. Have you seen the new Genji skin? The Japanese one?
Notice, completely skipped O type questions as he is a student and doesn't want to talk about quizzes and tests.
Me: Yeah! That skin is so awesome with the red sword and everything. Have you gotten any of the new summer skins? I am still missing soldier 76's golf pose. (now in R type questions).
Student: Haha, that was the first thing I got (soldier 76 golf pose). I haven't gotten the genji skin or D.Va's Korean skin.
Me: (remembering he mentioned he was playing with friends) Ah, that's a shame. Those are good skins. Hope the games were good over the weekend though. Have any games with your friends that stand out in your mind?
Note: I switched over to a more positive aspect of his recreation. Instead of focusing on the negative (skins he doesn't have that I do have), I switched over to highlights of his gaming experience.
Student: proceeds to tell lengthy story about him pulling off some great play that won him a game
Me: Haha, nice. I'm a terrible Hanzo player so I doubt I could pull off that play. Well, I need to get back to work, but it was good catching up with you.
Student: Yeah, it was good catching up with you teacher!
Further reading for the interested:
Donald Nathanson - Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex and the Birth of the Self
(http://www.amazon.com/Shame-Pride-Affect-Birth-Self/dp/0393311090)
Paul Ekman - Emotions Revealed
(http://www.amazon.com/Emotions-Revealed-Second-Recognizing-Communication/dp/0805083391/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309779886&sr=1-1)
Peter Fonagy et al - Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self
(http://www.amazon.com/Affect-Regulation-Mentalization-Development-Self/dp/1590511611/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309779915&sr=1-3)
Learn to read faces like a champ. Emotions Revealed
If you want to focus on facial expressions I can recommend the following:
> Personally I love the work of Paul Ekman. His book "Emotions Revealed" taught me how to interpret and fake facial expressions.
> I stumbled across it because of the TV series "Lie to Me", which should be based on his work/life.
> There are great books about body language, too.
Check out the books Emotions Revealed and Telling lies by Dr. Paul Eckman who is an expert in facial expession analysis (main character in the show Lie To Me was loosely based on him). The first book goes into detail about how facial expressions are hardcoded and intrinsically linked to our emotions. It turns out that facial expressions linked to the basic emotions (happy, sad, fear, surprise, anger, contempt and disgust) are universal and by studying the facial expressions connected to these emotions, you can become better at reading people. Also in many cases when people are hiding their emotions they display subconscious cues of how they are actually feeling and sometimes micro expressions. Reading this book and studying it really helped my ability to read people.
The second book is a more thorough study of how lying works on a biological basis and lie detection works, but also discusses why it's really really diffict to do accurately (also describes why polygraph tests are bullshit). Both are great books and definitely worth a read.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805083391
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This book provides fantastic insight into understanding how emotions work on the psychological and physiological level. This is extremely useful information to know if you are striving to become more mindful and focused on your own emotional awareness.
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ETA: This book also helps you recognise emotions in others. For someone that isn't terribly self-aware it's a huge benefit to be able to pick up on subtle cues from others as you interact with them. Assholes typically go about the world with blinders on. It's important to incorporate the a habit of observing the emotional state of others when we are communicating or interacting with other people.