Neuroscience
ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind just ran a 4 part series on emotion. They covered Sexual Desire (arguably not an emotion), Anger, Jealousy, and Joy.
They feature comments from real people who experience the emotion in question, interspersed with interviews with scientists in the field. Tidbits that I liked:
From Jealousy:
David DeSteno (Associate Professor, Psychology Department, Northeastern University):
“Engaging in satisfying relationships is associated with all kinds of wonderful things: lower cardiovascular threat, greater immune system response, greater wellbeing. And so what jealousy does is it alerts you and impels you to the threat that your relationship is going to be lost.”
DeSteno categorizes jealousy as a “social emotion” rather than a more basic emotion like anger and fear, adding that social emotions “help us navigate our social landscape, much as more basic emotions help us navigate the physical one.”
From Joy:
Lea Williams (Associate Professor, Brain Dynamics Centre, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney) and Susan Turk Charles (Assistant Professor, School of Social Ecology, University of Southern California) suggest that as we age we get happier. Well, they can’t prove it in so many words, but Williams has found “the part of that that regulates negative emotion actually becomes better able to do that with older age, and, in a sense, takes the brakes off the positive emotions.”
Charmin Härtel (Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Department of Management, Monash University):
“There’s an old saying that if you took three people and you put them in a room and two of them were positive and one of them was negative that they’d all come out depressed. And there’s a little bit of truth in that, it’s a lot easier for the emotional tone of a place to go negative than it is for it to go in a positive way or create a positive environment.”
Transcripts, citations to articles for more information, as well as podcasts & RealAudio of the show are available for all stories.
- A Touch Emotional
Researchers have documented a new form of synaesthesia - the brain condition that leads people to experience a crossing over of the senses. While synaesthesia often involves letters or sounds triggering the perception of specific colours, celebrated brain...
- Inside The Brains Of Men And Women Controlling Their Emotions
Women do seem to cry more readily than men, but is that because they are less able to control their emotions? According to Ute Habel and colleagues, research does suggest women are more 'emotional'. They cite the fact that women are more vulnerable...
- Depression Linked With Ultra-sensitivity To Other People’s Emotions
Depressed people are normally thought of as being somewhat disengaged from the rest of the world, but psychologists at Queen’s University in Canada have found that mildly depressed students actually have a heightened ability to detect other people’s...
- Chairs Of Despondence And Dread
Despondence Form Emoticon, by Kallbrand (aka Tomas Ekström) Emoticons – The emotional meaning of form, shape & music is a multimedia project of Kallbrand that explores design and emotion. The four basic emoticons -- rapture, dread, repose, and...
- Neuroscience & Real Life
Interesting application of neuroscience to real life over at the Creating Passionate Users blog. Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain. Kathy Sierra posted (almost a year ago; I'm slow sometimes) three reasons why it's good to avoid...
Neuroscience
Emotions are All in the Mind
ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind just ran a 4 part series on emotion. They covered Sexual Desire (arguably not an emotion), Anger, Jealousy, and Joy.
They feature comments from real people who experience the emotion in question, interspersed with interviews with scientists in the field. Tidbits that I liked:
From Jealousy:
David DeSteno (Associate Professor, Psychology Department, Northeastern University):
“Engaging in satisfying relationships is associated with all kinds of wonderful things: lower cardiovascular threat, greater immune system response, greater wellbeing. And so what jealousy does is it alerts you and impels you to the threat that your relationship is going to be lost.”
DeSteno categorizes jealousy as a “social emotion” rather than a more basic emotion like anger and fear, adding that social emotions “help us navigate our social landscape, much as more basic emotions help us navigate the physical one.”
From Joy:
Lea Williams (Associate Professor, Brain Dynamics Centre, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney) and Susan Turk Charles (Assistant Professor, School of Social Ecology, University of Southern California) suggest that as we age we get happier. Well, they can’t prove it in so many words, but Williams has found “the part of that that regulates negative emotion actually becomes better able to do that with older age, and, in a sense, takes the brakes off the positive emotions.”
Charmin Härtel (Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Department of Management, Monash University):
“There’s an old saying that if you took three people and you put them in a room and two of them were positive and one of them was negative that they’d all come out depressed. And there’s a little bit of truth in that, it’s a lot easier for the emotional tone of a place to go negative than it is for it to go in a positive way or create a positive environment.”
Transcripts, citations to articles for more information, as well as podcasts & RealAudio of the show are available for all stories.
- A Touch Emotional
Researchers have documented a new form of synaesthesia - the brain condition that leads people to experience a crossing over of the senses. While synaesthesia often involves letters or sounds triggering the perception of specific colours, celebrated brain...
- Inside The Brains Of Men And Women Controlling Their Emotions
Women do seem to cry more readily than men, but is that because they are less able to control their emotions? According to Ute Habel and colleagues, research does suggest women are more 'emotional'. They cite the fact that women are more vulnerable...
- Depression Linked With Ultra-sensitivity To Other People’s Emotions
Depressed people are normally thought of as being somewhat disengaged from the rest of the world, but psychologists at Queen’s University in Canada have found that mildly depressed students actually have a heightened ability to detect other people’s...
- Chairs Of Despondence And Dread
Despondence Form Emoticon, by Kallbrand (aka Tomas Ekström) Emoticons – The emotional meaning of form, shape & music is a multimedia project of Kallbrand that explores design and emotion. The four basic emoticons -- rapture, dread, repose, and...
- Neuroscience & Real Life
Interesting application of neuroscience to real life over at the Creating Passionate Users blog. Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain. Kathy Sierra posted (almost a year ago; I'm slow sometimes) three reasons why it's good to avoid...