Emotions Revealed, Second Edition Paperback – Illustrated, March 20, 2007

Point of the reviewAs a student in Neuroscience class, I read this book because its discussion about emotions corresponds to my research topic in Pseudobulbar Palsy. The central focus of this book, emotions, caught my attention since emotions are a huge part of our lives and we are constantly dealing with our own as well as other people's emotions everyday. Thus understanding better of emotions, I may be able to improve relationships with people in a more conscious way.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------overall opinion of the bookI love how this book allows you to be able to reflect on yourself in terms of how you express emotions and how well you deal with them; as you're reading the book, you are slowly becoming aware of why certain people act a certain way (because of the impact of their emotional state) and being able to evaluate other people's emotions more accurately so that you can avoid conflicts to occur. This book is very practical to real life situations. I feel that reading this book definitely helped me to improve the quality of my emotional life in the sense that now I am more aware of my own and others' feelings through noticing the facial, vocal, and physical emotions expressed.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Style and structure of the book.This book is written in first person by a professor, Dr. Paul Ekman, who has dedicated his research in emotions through scientific studies around the world. The materials discussed in the book are constructed with both his scientific findings and also his proposal of concepts from his observations that had not been scientifically tested.The book is consisted a total of ten chapters, with the first four chapters discussing Dr. Ekman's research findings, explaining what emotions are and how they work, and how one can become more aware of the emotions. In the beginning Dr. Ekman would ask many questions to involve the readers into deeper thoughts. In the last six chapters, Dr. Ekman focused in more details on discussing how to deal with each type of emotions such as sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt, enjoyable emotions, and lies.Throughout the book, Dr. Ekman would suggest a concept, such as the refractory period for anger, then he would elaborate on the issue with a real life example so that the reader can relate and understand the idea better. Not only that Dr. Ekman explained the important concepts/definition of certain emotions, he also explicitly suggested ways to deal with them, making the book even more useful for everyday life.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Synopsis of the book.Emotions Across CulturesIn this section, Dr. Ekman explained how he began his area of research in emotions in the time of late 1950s. The main idea of this first chapter is that Dr. Ekman wanted to discuss the issue of whether emotions are universal or culturally variable. He obtained his conclusion through scientific experiments by traveling to various isolated villages that had no contact with the media and the outside world.When Do We Become EmotionalIn this chapter, Dr. Ekman listed the situations, a total of 9 pathways, in which we become emotional. These pathways were proposed in conclusion of research findings, and the experimental methods are briefly described in the text. There are triggers to all emotions, both socially learned and genetically inherited, and understanding the source of trigger will be beneficial in a variety of ways. "We share some triggers, just as we share the expressions for each emotion, but here are triggers that are not only culture-specific, they are individual-specific."Changing What We Become Emotional About"We do not seek to challenge why we are feeling a particular emotion; instead, we seek to confirm it.""For a while we are in a refractory state, during which time our thinking cannot incorporate information that does not fit, maintain, or justify the emotions we are feeling."With the information and concepts provided above, Dr. Ekman began to suggest ways that we could control our emotions such as how to weak our emotional triggers through various ways in order to change what we become emotional about; since most of the time the things we feel angry towards to may not necessarily be as harmful as we see it.Behaving EmotionallyMost people have two main conflicts with emotions that they either over-control their emotions or they over-express it. In order to find the balance between expressing and controlling, Dr. Ekman identified many problems we encounter unconsciously that cause us to behave emotionally inappropriate such failure to recognize the source of emotion and jumping to conclusion too quickly. Thereafter he suggested many ways in which we could deal with the problems such as being more attentive to our emotions."One method people use to become more attentive to their emotions is to use the knowledge about the causes of each emotions."In the rest of the book, Dr. Ekman addressed the following emotions of sadness, agony, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt, enjoyable emotions, and lies. For each emotion, Dr. Ekman gave a detailed explanation of what kind of situations cause such emotion, how should we recognize such emotions in ourselves and others (illustrated pictures of facial expression are shown), and finally how we should use the information we perceived in a sense of how to deal with the emotions.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------RecommendationI recommend this book to everyone because emotions are universal that we have to deal with everyday. I am sure everyone has experienced in a situation where someone become angry with you, and you became angry too because the other person's anger; such situations most of the time result in ugly conflicts. However after reading this book, you might consider the source that triggered such emotion and evaluated the other person's feelings before you can react emotionally so to avoid unnecessary conflicts. This book helps you to develop a stronger relationship with people, to improve one self's quality of life, and ultimately helps you to become a happier person. So this book is definitely for everyone, especially for those people who are experiencing emotional conflicts with families or significant others.Reading this book has personally helped me because I know of someone who becomes frustrated very easily over trivial things. After reading this book, I am now more aware of his frustrations (breathing more heavily; eyebrows pulled together), and that I know during this refractory period (the period that he is continuously emotional), he cannot gather information that are not relevant to his frustration, so he would say hurtful things. Now that I am more aware and understand better of the source of his frustration, I do not take his words personally whenever he is under such emotional stress, and I have also learned to give him space whenever this emotion occurs, so that he will have time to get over his refractory period. This is so much better than me getting angry at him also. ☺

btw I'm Susan Gill's son.Dr Ekman has been getting alot of attention lately, due to the fact that he is the scientific consultant for the new show on Fox "Lie to Me". The show is even based off of his science. In fact, it's the reason I got into this type of behavioral science. So if like me you want to strengthen your ability to catch liars or see hidden emotions in the face, this book is without a doubt your best bet.What makes this book so good is that Ekman includes pictures of every single emotion, and describes them in detail so that you should know which emotion should be felt at which time. Pictures are abundant in each chapter for each specific emotion On top of that, the book even has a test you can take to see how well you can read emotions before, and after you read the book.Another very helpful thing is that he even gives a negation signal people can make in the face called "mouth shrugs", and the difference between a mouth shrug and sadness. This was an issue if you've seen the "Moral Waiver", because it was hard to spot in that particular episode what exactly a mouth shrug looked like. In fact, I know what a mouth shrug looks like and I STILL have a harder time seeing what they did with it, so on that note this book is very useful.As for using it for lie detection, the extra chapter included in this edition is extremely useful. It describes the two types of errors a person can make when interpreting signals for lying, but not in so much detail that it kills you (I.E "Telling Lies"). It's almost as if it summarizes some of what "Telling Lies" says, so it's really good after you read "Telling Lies" to read that chapter if you're having any issues.My only complaints for the book is mostly the way Ekman set up the chapters. He wrote why and when we feel the emotion BEFORE you learn to recognize it. This was a problem for me because it made me want to get to the faces and how to read them. If he had done that first, I may have been more interested in understanding WHY or WHEN certain emotions occur.On a different note, Ekman really makes it seem that he doesn't have a lot of confidence in his lie detection system, but if you watch "Lie to Me" you can see clearly that his research can be well over 90 % accurate based on the context of the situations, and looking for changes in behavior instead of just one sign of lying only.One last thing, if you to want to learn how to detect lies and how to read faces and body language like the people on "Lie to Me" (and like Ekman), this isn't the only book you should get. It's more of a concentration on the Face instead of the "whole picture" you'll be looking at.This is my opinion, but you should really get Ekman's book "Telling Lies" and Alan and Barbara Pease's book "The Definitive Book of Body Language" if you want to get really serious about lie detection. Each book contains certain information that's more in depth on each subject. Like the use of Manipulators is alot more in depth in the Body language book than in any of Ekmans books (which is really needed because Ekman barely covers that topic). On top of that, reading body language can give you a better assesment of a person's behavior based on their positive and negative body language. Coupled with the "Tells" that Ekman describes, you should have a really good understanding of how the system works.Ekman's other book, "Telling Lies" is a bit of a tougher read, but it includes valuable information on the body and lying that none of the other books have. It goes more in-depth on the two errors a Lie catcher can make, and give you a much deeper understanding on how and why people lie (make sure you buy the 2009 remake version though, it has the best information, and makes it sound more conclusive about his studies towards the end of the book).So if you're interested in concealed emotions, buy this book immediately. If you're interested in lie detection however, buy this book, and "Telling Lies" (Paul Ekman) and "The Definitive Book of Body Language" (Allan, Barbara Pease) and to watch "Lie to Me" every week to get a better understanding of how to use his science.*****EDITED NOTES*****Just to let you know, I've edited my review to make it easier to read, and that I've written a review on "Telling Lies" if you'd like more information on that book.ALSO, new to this Edit is the newest reccomended book on body language. "What Every Body Says" is my all time favorite book on body language. It's written by an ex FBI agent. While I was turned off by that fact at first, I read into it and found that the author is VERY exceptional at what he does. If you can, get that book instead of Alan and Barbara Pease's book. It's still an excellent book, but I found "What Every Body Says" to be a bit better =)