Emotions

I'm reading a book called Emotions Revealed by Paul Ekman. I'm finding it to be a very interesting book. His research focuses on how facial expressions are tied to our emotions and that these expressions are universal for (but not necessarily limited to) the emotions of amusement, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, and contempt.

But, he also delves into how we can better understand emotions as they rise up in us. He also gives tips in how to deal with the emotions of others as we better learn how to read them on other people's faces.

Emotions are bound very much to our motivations and needs, or to those objects perceived as obstacles standing between us and our needs and desires.

Anger is an emotion that signals something is standing between us and our goals-- and we want to move it out of the way before it thwarts us. Sometimes with violence, if we're bothered enough.

Sadness is an emotion that tells others we need help. We've lost something or someone dear to us. We may feel helpless or our anger has turned into some sort of resignation. We may be going though or have recently experienced trauma of some sort emotionally. Perhaps the trauma was a long time ago, but remains unresolved.

Contempt is most interesting to me. I used to simply think of contempt as hate. But that's not quite right, according to Ekman's research. Contempt is a feeling of superiority as one looks down on another. Contempt is someone taking pleasure in knowing that he or she is better than someone else, and therefore, it's reasonable to mistreat the object of contempt. It has been reported that terrorists often have this look of contempt before they carry out their plans. Surveillance videos and interrogation reports under the lens of Ekman's research has brought this phenomena to light.

I worry about this emotion. I will be sure to look for it more often upon other people's faces.

And, I will try to pay more attention to see if I ever feel the muscles in my face form a look of contempt. Once you learn how to better identify facial expressions, you can identify them a bit better on yourself as well.