Exploring Emotional Granularity and Unique Emotion Words

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In this chapter, they delve into the concept of emotional granularity and discuss their favorite emotion words from different languages, including a Japanese word for post-bad-haircut unpleasantness, a word for the feeling when seeing a cute baby, a German word for emotional overeating, and a Finnish word for the satisfaction of falling on a soft cushion. They also introduce their own invented emotion word, 'emotional flu,' to capture the sensation of feeling physically imbalanced.

Emotions are like opinions — everyone has them. Thanks to the pioneering research of today’s guest, we know that it’s possible to transform our feelings by changing how we think and talk about them. Lisa Feldman Barrett is a psychologist and neuroscientist at Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School. In this episode, Lisa and Adam bust myths about how emotions are constructed in the brain and experienced in the body. They discuss the surprising evidence that language doesn’t just describe emotions — it shapes them. And they examine how managing your emotions is easier than you may realize. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts