227: Where emotions come from (and why it matters) Part 2
Oct 21, 2024
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Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, a leading researcher in emotion science and author of "How Emotions Are Made," joins the discussion to unpack the origins of emotions. She highlights how understanding emotional processes can transform parental approaches to children's feelings. Dr. Barrett emphasizes the importance of emotional granularity, teaching kids to accurately label their emotions, and the role of body budgeting in emotional regulation. She also offers practical tools for parents to help kids navigate their feelings and support emotional understanding during conflicts.
Understanding the concept of body budgeting is crucial for emotional regulation, highlighting how energy management impacts both children and parents.
Developing a richer emotional vocabulary empowers parents to help children articulate their feelings, fostering more effective communication and emotional awareness.
Deep dives
Understanding Emotions in Children
Children's emotional experiences can be complex and often misunderstood by parents and educators. Research cited suggests that autistic children displaying significant meltdowns are experiencing stress, which may be overlooked by adults. Instead of merely needing to learn emotion regulation strategies, these children expend considerable energy managing their emotions, leading to eventual breakdowns. This insight challenges traditional views and highlights the importance of recognizing the underlying emotional struggles faced by children, particularly in stressful situations.
The Importance of Body Budgeting
The concept of body budgeting plays a crucial role in emotional regulation and overall well-being. It refers to how our brain allocates resources like energy for essential functions such as movement, learning, and recovery. When these basic needs like proper nutrition, sleep, and physical activity are neglected, it can significantly impact our ability to cope with daily parenting challenges. Maintaining a balanced body budget is essential for both parents and children, particularly in uncertain or chaotic environments that can heighten stress levels.
Navigating Uncertainty and Parenting Challenges
Families operating under conditions of high uncertainty, such as poverty or neurodivergence, face distinct challenges that demand additional energy and resources. High levels of chaos can drain both parents and children, making stability and emotional regulation more difficult to achieve. It is important for parents to recognize the additional demands of their circumstances and exhibit compassion towards themselves. By implementing small strategies, like establishing routines or social connections, parents can reduce uncertainty and foster healthier emotional environments for their children.
Expanding Emotional Vocabulary and Regulation Strategies
Developing a richer emotional vocabulary enables individuals to better understand and articulate their feelings, leading to improved emotional regulation. Recognizing nuanced emotions instead of defaulting to broad categories allows for more precise responses to feelings. Parents can assist their children in this process by modeling emotional awareness and language in interactions. Moreover, employing various strategies, such as seeking empathy or guidance from their children about what they need, can create more effective communication and support within the parent-child relationship.
Understanding Emotions: Insights from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett
In our last conversation with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett [Where emotions come from (and why it matters) Part 1] a couple of weeks ago we looked at her theory of where emotions originate. This has important implications for things like:
How our 'body budgets' affect our feelings
How we make meaning from our feelings so our internal experience makes sense
That we don't always understand other people's feelings very well!
The introduction to the theory plus the conversation plus the take-home messages would have made for an unwieldy episode, so I split it in half.
Today we conclude the conversation with Dr. Barrett and I also offer some thoughts about things I think are really important from across the two episodes, including:
What we can do with the information our feelings give us
How long we should support children in feeling their feelings (given that they don't always mean what we think they mean!) and when we should help them move on
Some tools we can use to re-regulate in difficult moments with our kids
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Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett's Books (Affiliate Links)
00:59Introducing today’s episode and featured guests05:01People in chaotic or uncertain situations, like poverty or neurodivergence, face greater challenges due to the increased stress on their body budgets.18:02Understanding and managing personal needs as a parent, along with emotional flexibility, can lead to more effective responses to children.23:46Parents need to balance their own feelings with their children's by asking if their kids want empathy or help. They should remember that every interaction is a chance to teach kids how to manage their emotions.31:07Parents can view their empathy for their children as a sign of competence, balancing their own needs with their child's emotions.34:22Jen draws conclusions from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research on emotions, highlighting how parents can use this understanding to empower their children in navigating feelings and enhancing emotional literacy.
References
Barrett, L. F., Adolphs, R., Marsella, S., Martinez, A. M., & Pollak, S. D. (2019). Emotional expressions reconsidered: Challenges to inferring emotion from human facial movements. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20, 1–68.Barrett, L.F. (2012). Emotions are real. Emotion 12(3), 413-429.Barrett, L.F., Gross, J., Christensen, T.C., & Benvenuto, M. (2001). Knowing what you’re feeling and knowing what to do about it: Mapping the relation between emotion differentiation and emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion 15(6), 713-724.Eisenberger, N.I. (2012). The pain of social disconnection: Examining the shared neural underpinnings of physical and social pain. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 13, 421-434.Fischer, S. (July 2013). About Face. Boston Magazine, 68-73.Gee, D. G., Gabard-Durnam, L., Telzer, E. H., Humphreys, K. L., Goff, B., Shapiro, M., ... & Tottenham, N. (2014). Maternal buffering of human amygdala-prefrontal circuitry during childhood but not during adolescence. Psychological Science, 25(11), 2067-2078.Gopnik, A., & Sobel, D. M. (2000). Detecting blickets: How young children use information about novel causal powers in categorization and induction. Child Development, 71(5), 1205-1222.Gross, J.J., & Barrett, L.F. (2011). Emotion generation and emotion regulation: One or two depends on your point of view. Emotion Review 3(1), 8-16.Haidt, J., & Keltner, D. (1999). Culture and facial expression: Open-ended methods find more expressions and a gradient of recognition. Cognition & Emotion, 13, 225–266.Hoemann, K., Gendron, M., Crittenden, A.N., Mangola, S.M., Endeko, E.S., Dussault, E., Barrett, L.F., & Mesquita, B. (2023). What we can learn about emotion by talking with the Hadza. Perspectives on Psychological Science 19(1), 173-200.Hoemann, K., Gendron, M., & Barrett, L.F. (2022). Assessing the power of words to facilitate emotion category learning. Affective Science 3, 69-80.Hoemann, K., Khan, Z., Kamona, N., Dy, J., Barrett, L.F., & Quigley, K.S. (2020). Investigating the relationship between emotional granularity and cardiorespiratory physiological activity in daily life. Psychophysiology 58(6), e13818.Killingsworth, M.A., & Gilbert, D.T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science 330, 932.Lindquist, K.A., Wager, T.D., Kober, H., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Barrett, L.F. (2012). The brain basis of emotion: A meta-analytic review. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35(3), 121-143.Pratt, M., Singer, M., Kanat-Maymon, Y., & Feldman, R. (2015). Infant negative reactivity defines the effects of parent–child synchrony on physiological and behavioral regulation of social stress. Development and Psychopathology, 27(4pt1), 1191-1204.Theriault, J.E., Young, L., & Barrett, L.F. (2021). Situating and extending the sense of should: Reply to comments on “The sense of should: A biologically-based framework for modeling social pressure.” Physics of Life Reviews 37, 10-16.Theriault, J.E., Young, L., & Barrett, L.F. (2021). The sense of should: A biologically-based framework for modeling social pressure. Physics of Life Reviews 36, 100-136.Tugade, M.M., Fredrickson, B.L., & Barrett, L.F. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality 72(6), 1161-1190.Waters, S. F., West, T. V., & Mendes, W. B. (2014). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and infants. Psychological science, 25(4), 934-942.Wilson-Mendenhall, C.D., Barrett, L.F., & Barsalou, L.W. (2013). Situating emotional experience. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, 764.Xu, F., Cote, M., & Baker, A. (2005). Labeling guides object individuation in 12 month old infants. Psychological Science 16(5), 372-377.
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