Ever notice that when emotions run high, thinking critically and strategically is almost impossible? In a previous popular blog, we discussed how emotions and critical thinking are intricately linked with each other in high-level sports.

But sports is not the only context in which emotions affect our critical thinking abilities; many of us are in situations in which we need to be able to think critically and adapt strategically despite the fact that we are in intense emotional situations. This is true not only for athletes in high-level competition as mentioned in the previous blog, but also for individuals in many walks of life – frontline healthcare workers facing life or death crises, individuals in harm’s way, people involved in extremely meaningful negotiations with others, or those who deal with difficult situations with loved ones.

For all, being able to think critically and strategically despite being very emotional can be a very useful skill to have. But doing so is extremely difficult, because emotions and critical thinking are on a see-saw; the more intensely we experience emotions, the more difficult it is to think critically and strategically.

Where does this come from?

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes a lot of sense, especially because emotions and affective experiences existed much earlier in our phylogenetic history than did the complex critical thinking skills modern humans have. We needed those emotional reactions to help us navigate our complex social world and to adapt to threats in the environment in order to survive with minimal conscious deliberation.

Emotional reactions helped us deal with the tiger jumping out at us all of a sudden, when we found our valuable food or mates were absconded, or when we ingested spoiled foods or drinks. If we didn’t have emotional reactions that allowed us to adapt to those and many other situations, we wouldn’t be here today! Or more precisely, those individuals who did not have those emotional reactions were selected out of the gene pool naturally, and those with the emotion system (that is, the rest of us today) were selected in to survive. Even though many situations in our evolutionary history may not exist today, we still have that emotion system in us.

We don’t have emotions. They have us.

When emotions are elicited, essentially they take over our critical thinking abilities. In English we like to say we “have” emotions but in fact this is a misnomer. When we are emotional, they “have” us, and they take over many of our cognitive and behavioral systems. Recovering our ability to think critically takes some time.

Everyone is born into the world with natural propensities and individual differences in this timing characteristic; some people naturally recover quickly while others may take some time. For some, it takes a LOOOOOONG time! Some people are like quick, intense flames that spark rapidly but go out equally quickly. Some people take a long time to simmer but once boiling point is reached, remain boiling for a long time. Thus, there’s definitely an inherited and genetic component to consider.

What the research says.

Academia likes to pigeonhole very complex concepts like cognition and emotion into simple-to-understand dichotomies. While those dichotomies are useful for teaching and discussion, unfortunately they ignore the complex interconnections and high degrees of overlap among them. Ample research from the last two decades has demonstrated that emotions and cognitions are not entirely distinct, separate, independent systems in our minds and brains, but in fact are highly interconnected with each other. This is true not only psychologically but also neurophysiologically, as recent brain research has demonstrated.

You might notice the addition of the words “and strategically” to thinking critically. This addition qualifies what should be referred to when thinking about critical thinking. Critical thinking generally refers to something like “the ability to analyze information at multiple levels of complexity.” And to some extent, people can do so when they are intensely emotional. When extremely angry, for instance, many people can think about one’s anger in many destructive ways, and similar associations in the past, present, and future, come fairly easily. To some degree, this is critical thinking.

But that’s not necessarily the kind of critical thinking that is constructive for us at the moment. What’s more important is strategically thinking about “how to deal with the context or situation one is in in order to achieve a goal, despite or in addition to the fact that one is very emotional.” This then leads us to understand important issues related to emotions and critical thinking a bit better: what we want is to be able to think critically and strategically even while experiencing intense emotions, that is, to be able to achieve constructive goals in intense situations.

Where to go from here?

Given the somewhat biologically hardwired nature of the association between emotion and cognition, and our extremely long evolutionary history with it, how can we “override” that system to be able to think critically and strategically in the moment in order to achieve constructive goals despite experiencing intense emotions? Is it an inborn, unchangeable aptitude? Or is it a skill that can be trained and improved?

The answer is that it is both. Regardless of whatever natural timing characteristics we come into the world with (which is related to our genetic composition), we can still train and improve this skill. This skill has been called a bunch of names in the past: emotional skills, emotional competence, emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, etc. But whatever it is called, here’s the secret: IT’S NOT EASY! We are talking about overriding something that is largely inborn and inherited, is part of our evolutionary and phylogenetic history, and that we have had practice with for XX years (insert your age). Given that backdrop, anyone who says that training the emotional system is easy is nuts.

Practical Tips (to be continued…)

As many of you know, I have studied and conducted research on the emotion system for over three decades. In addition to my academic work, I have also had the very practical problem of how to train individuals to think critically and act strategically in intensely emotional situations. For decades I have had the problem of needing to train athletes for high-level competition in a combat sport (judo) in which they needed to think critically, strategically and tactically on the fly in intense situations.

Because of my scientific background in emotion and affective science, I have studied, experienced and tried many, many different methods and systems to do so. These have included critical incident analyses (there are many ways to do so), journaling (but it needs to be directed and focused analytically), mindfulness meditation (and there’s a ton of ways out there), yoga (all different types) and many others. And we have actually done many of these methods.

They all work if done regularly and as intended. Thus there’s more than one way to improve emotional skills (whatever you call it). But for me, the most important takeaway has been what I believe is the lowest common denominator of all approaches, that is, the one elemental component that is the basis of all approaches. Knowing what it is has been especially helpful both academically and practically in my applied work.

In my next blog, I’ll discuss more about what that is and equally important, what to do about it. See you then!

The post Emotions and Critical Thinking – Update 2021 first appeared on Humintell.

The Face is Special

Those of you who have been following us (thank you!) know that faces do many things, and one very special thing that faces do is express emotion. 

Over half a century of scientific research has documented that seven facial expressions of emotion are universally expressed and recognized, all around the world, regardless of race, culture, nationality, religion, gender or any other demographic variable. 

They are: Anger, Contempt, Fear, Disgust, Happiness, Sadness, Surprise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read our previous blog for cues on how to identify the seven universal basic emotions listed above.

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Basic Emotions

These findings led to decades of research that led to the identification of what are known as basic emotions. 

Basic emotions are a class of emotion for which there is abundant research evidence for certain characteristics, including 

1. Universal, underlying psychological triggers or antecedents
2. Unique physiological signatures
3. Pan-cultural cognitive gating
4. Cross-cultural feelings and experiences
5. Universal nonverbal expressions in the face, voice and body. 

Of course, basic emotions are not the only kind of emotions humans have; we have many other, very different types of emotions. But basic emotions are a special type of emotion because research has demonstrated that they have those unique characteristics above that others do not (or more precisely, research has yet to find them in other emotions).  

Our view of basic emotions is based on universal, observable nonverbal behavior in facial expressions. But our view is not the only way to characterize basic emotions. Scholars have differed in what they call “basic emotions.” We believe that different characterizations of the emotion system in humans do not necessarily argue against each other (although scholars and researchers love to argue with each other); rather they are different ways of understanding the very complex emotion system. For discussion about other ways to classify basic emotions, read this past blog.

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The Universality of Facial Expressions of Emotion

Some scholars have argued against the idea of basic emotions and the universality of facial expressions of emotion. We have reviewed very closely all of those claims (that recycle themselves every couple of decades) and the evidence cited in support of them. As we have mentioned before, we are very happy to have a scientific, technical discussion about that evidence with anyone. 

We stand by our conviction that facial expressions of emotion are universal and biologically innate, and that the link between a spontaneous, intense, and meaningful emotional reaction and a corresponding facial expression has never been refuted by any study. For more info on why we think so, read this past blog on the topic.

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Emotions and Nonverbal Behavior

 

Research of the last two decades have furthered our understanding of emotions and nonverbal behavior. 

Much of this research has linked facial expressions with other nonverbal channels – gaze, head, and whole body movements – to express emotions across cultures, such as shame and embarrassment, love, gratitude, sympathy, pride, and triumph.

Read more about our research on triumph here.

 

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The Latest Research

The latest research findings continue to expand our knowledge about emotion, nonverbal behavior, and facial expressions. A recent study published in Nature Research reported that 16 facial expressions occur in similar contexts worldwide (amusement, anger, awe, concentration, confusion, contempt, contentment, desire, disappointment, doubt, elation, interest, pain, sadness, surprise, triumph). 

To be sure, not all of these are emotions (e.g., concentration, confusion; but that depends on one’s definition of emotion), and those that are emotions are likely variants of the original seven universal facial expressions of emotion. Interestingly, there were no cultural differences in the facial configurations of these expressions, but there were cultural differences in how strongly they were expressed.  

Thus, today we can still safely conclude that there are at least seven emotion families that are primarily expressed in the face that are universally expressed and recognized. These emotions and expressions likely serve as the basis by which variants occur, and these variants may likely be universal as well. Additionally, there are other types of facial expressions that are likely universal, not of emotion but of cognition or cognitive processes. And facial expressions combine with other bodily movements to convey other emotions.  

All this research is leading to more nuanced understandings of emotions and nonverbal behavior. Although we know that emotions, when elicited, recruit coordinated, whole-body responses, there are likely different parts of the body that are more salient for some emotions with regard to expressive behavior observable by others. We believe that different nonverbal channels were recruited to convey specific emotions based on their function within our evolutionary history. For example, conveying fear with our faces and bodies was more adaptive for humans in the past because people could observe fear reactions from farther away than just by seeing faces alone. Recognizing emotions such as surprise or disgust from a distance was not as important, so these were more easily conveyed more solely by faces. This is one reason why accuracy rates in multiple studies of judging fear solely through facial expressions are generally lower than rates for other emotions.  

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What Else Our Faces Do

Finally, let’s not forget that expressing emotion is just one thing that faces do. We also know that facial behavior has many other functions such as:  

• Signaling cognition and cognitive processes (which the research described above demonstrated) 
• Signaling specific verbal words or phrases 
• Articulating speech 
• Signaling physical exertion or physical effort 
• Other idiosyncratic things 

See our blog here for more discussion. All in all the research to date continues to demonstrate the power of faces all around the world.  

 

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Stay tuned here and subscribe to the right —-> to keep up with more about the latest research on faces, emotion, and nonverbal behavior!

 

The post The Universality of Facial Expressions of Emotion first appeared on Humintell.