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Product Description“Beautifully interweaves research with anecdotes, recommendations, and the behind-the-scenes flubs, accidental discoveries and debates . . . that are the essence of scientific inquiry.” —Scientific American
A renowned expert in nonverbal communication, Paul Ekman led a revolution in our scientific understanding of emotions. In Emotions Revealed, he assembles his research and theories to provide a comprehensive look at the evolutionary roots of human emotions, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and happiness.
Drawing on decades of fieldwork, Ekman shows that emotions are deeply embedded in the human species. In the process, he answers such questions as: What triggers emotions and can we stop them? How does our body signal to others whether we are slightly sad or anguished, peeved or enraged? Can we learn to distinguish between a polite smile and the genuine thing? Can we ever truly control our emotions? Unique exercises and photographs help readers identify emotions in themselves and others.
Emotions Revealed is a practical, mind-opening, and potentially life-changing exploration of science and self.
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A clarifying overview (Rating: 4 out of 5) The book is not a real breakthrough, never the less it provides a clear understanding and organization to something that sometimes is apparent but without a scientific approach that explains it. It can really change the way we look at people after reading it.
See what you already know. (Rating: 5 out of 5) See all of the people you meet clearly. Worth the time involved to compare the emotions on the faces that he studied.
Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life (Rating: 4 out of 5) it is a great new way of discovering emotional comunication, it's like you were able to read minds. I love it.
Interesting, but has it improved my communications? (Rating: 4 out of 5) I'm not certain that reading this book has improved my communications (yet?), or even helped me to recognize emotions in other people, but it was still interesting. Ekman's research seems unimpeachachable, and he has gone to great lengths to address concerns of his critics. It's a bit of an academic book; not exactly chock-full of anecdotes and funny stories, but still fairly easy to read. I liked the way Ekman sorted out all the emotions, reduced them to a canonical set, and showed the relationships between emotions like fear and surprise. The work he did with people who have never seen television or actors was a thought-provoking inclusion, and helped me think about my own emotions. There's a discussion of anger, for example, that includes its ties to obstacles, interference, and injustices as well as its usefulness as a motivator. The most fascinating part of the book is the pictures, many of Ekman's daughter, that have been carefully taken to show just one aspect of a facial expression or the subtle differences between two oft-confused expressions -- it turns out it takes careful training and practice to be able to show *only* how your eyelids behave when you're surprised. (It's fascinating to read that the actors used to make the pictures often felt the emotion as a result of trying to make the face associated with that emotion -- proof that "put on a happy face" might just work).
Essential (Rating: 5 out of 5) Paul Ekman has become something of an academic celebrity due to the timeliness and value of his academic interest in the world of emotion and expression. Indeed, he has help improve the world by making people cognizant of the role emotion plays for all of us -- both negatively and positively.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough, in terms of becoming aware of the nature of one's own internal, emotional life as well as how one can become more attuned to the emotional needs and circustances of those around us.
Brilliantly conceived and lucidly written. This is first rate stuff.
Buy it and read it!