Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
This was a very interesting read, and I learned a lot about the different theories about why emotion is evolutionarily important.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
This book looks at the evolutionary underpinnings of emotions as a whole and specific emotions. It discusses how personality emerges through various expressions of emotions and how our current emotional state drives so many of our actions.
Gems:
Ch1 Darwin studied emotion in animals
P26 “Once we realize we have buttons ourselves, it is wise to work at deactivating them.”
P28 “Reflexive behavior is a fundamental aspect of our evolutionary heritage, but at some point nature upgraded the approach to create an additional system for reacting to environmental challenges–one that is more flexible and hence more powerful. That’s emotion.”
P44 “In the genesis of an emotion, core affect is believed to represent the input of your body, which, when combined with the circumstances you find yourself in, the context of that situation, and your background knowledge, will produce the emotions you experience. One can think of it as a sort of baseline state that can influence your emotions in any specific situation and the decisions you make as a result–decisions often attributed to intuition–such as my father’s decision to stay behind. It is thus a crucial link between body and mind, connecting your physical condition to your thoughts, feelings, and decisions.”
P48 “our core affect primes us to think, act, and feel a certain way.”
P48 “In touchy situations in particular, it is good to keep in mind that a person’s response to your words or deeds might be influenced as much by that person’s current core affect as by anything you have said or done.”
P71-72 “An emotion is a functional state of the mind that puts your brain in a particular mode of operation that adjusts your goals, directs your attention, and modifies the weights you assign to warriors factors as you do mental calculations,” - neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs
P72 think of an iphone–normal mode it’s always listening and checking for emails, but in low power mode, the priorities are changed towards energy conservation. “The phone still operates by executing logic-based calculations, but it is running a different program.”
P77 “Emotion evolved as an aid to time those mental operations to the specific circumstances we find ourselves in.”
P82 “We all know that we overbuy when we walk into a grocery store in a state of hunger, but we may not be aware that we also purchase more when we go hungry to Macy’s.”
P87 “That’s what positive emotion is for, Fredrickson argued: it gave our ancestors a survival advantage because it kept them moving forward to new and better places.”
P103 “The constructionists see the terms we use to describe emotions as being just as arbitrary as those we apply to colors.”
P106 “Though often lacking, emotional intelligence is important even in the sciences, because conducting good research is unfortunately just the first step toward success in that highly competitive profession. At a time when there has been an explosion in the amount of research being done, the ability to get colleagues to pay attention to and understand your work is often at least as important as one’s raw scientific ability.”
P128 “...the accumbens keyboard can be re-tuned by context and psychological factors. A stressful and overstimulating sensory environment such as excessively bright lights or loud music expands the border of the dread-generating zone while shrinking the border of the desire-generating zone. On the other hand, a quiet and comfy ambiance alters the keyboard in the opposite manner, expanding desire and shrinking dread.”
P132 “When our reward system is operating as evolution meant it to, liking and wanting act in tandem, albeit in a nuanced, complex manner that allows us to distinguish between them. If we like sex, or ice cream, we may be motivated to pursue it–or…we may not. But addictive substances and activities cause physical alterations in the accumbens, dramatically increasing the wanting circuits. Each episode amplifies that effect, producing ever-stronger urges to repeat the addictive behavior. Scientists call that sensitization.” The physical changes are long lasting and may even become permanent. Sadly, addictive drugs often have the opposite effect on the liking system. The subjective pleasurable effects of the drug are decreased due to the development of tolerance. As a result, the longer the addiction, the more the drug is wanted and the less it is liked.”
P150 “it is possible to increase your baseline determination level employing long-term techniques such as exercise and meditation”
P153 “Having proper sleep is crucial to maintaining motivation and, more generally, to our emotional health. For example, neuroimaging studies reveal significant activity during REM sleep in each of the structures that houses nodes of the emotional salience network.
P158 “He doesn’t like to interrupt his patients. He’d rather see where they go themselves.”
P159 “Your emotional profile is a description of what it takes to trigger each particular emotion, how swiftly it builds, how intense it tends to be, and how long it generally takes to dissipate. Psychologists use the terms threshold, latency to peak, magnitude, and recovery. These aspects vary among individuals, and for each person they depend on the specific emotion in question, in particular whether it is a positive or negative one.
P172 “But while a tendency toward high anxiety leads to an increased mortality risk, those with abnormally low anxiety also have higher death rates: low anxiety reduces the likelihood that individuals will seek help in the presence of a threat, or take prudent action to avoid it.
Gems:
Ch1 Darwin studied emotion in animals
P26 “Once we realize we have buttons ourselves, it is wise to work at deactivating them.”
P28 “Reflexive behavior is a fundamental aspect of our evolutionary heritage, but at some point nature upgraded the approach to create an additional system for reacting to environmental challenges–one that is more flexible and hence more powerful. That’s emotion.”
P44 “In the genesis of an emotion, core affect is believed to represent the input of your body, which, when combined with the circumstances you find yourself in, the context of that situation, and your background knowledge, will produce the emotions you experience. One can think of it as a sort of baseline state that can influence your emotions in any specific situation and the decisions you make as a result–decisions often attributed to intuition–such as my father’s decision to stay behind. It is thus a crucial link between body and mind, connecting your physical condition to your thoughts, feelings, and decisions.”
P48 “our core affect primes us to think, act, and feel a certain way.”
P48 “In touchy situations in particular, it is good to keep in mind that a person’s response to your words or deeds might be influenced as much by that person’s current core affect as by anything you have said or done.”
P71-72 “An emotion is a functional state of the mind that puts your brain in a particular mode of operation that adjusts your goals, directs your attention, and modifies the weights you assign to warriors factors as you do mental calculations,” - neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs
P72 think of an iphone–normal mode it’s always listening and checking for emails, but in low power mode, the priorities are changed towards energy conservation. “The phone still operates by executing logic-based calculations, but it is running a different program.”
P77 “Emotion evolved as an aid to time those mental operations to the specific circumstances we find ourselves in.”
P82 “We all know that we overbuy when we walk into a grocery store in a state of hunger, but we may not be aware that we also purchase more when we go hungry to Macy’s.”
P87 “That’s what positive emotion is for, Fredrickson argued: it gave our ancestors a survival advantage because it kept them moving forward to new and better places.”
P103 “The constructionists see the terms we use to describe emotions as being just as arbitrary as those we apply to colors.”
P106 “Though often lacking, emotional intelligence is important even in the sciences, because conducting good research is unfortunately just the first step toward success in that highly competitive profession. At a time when there has been an explosion in the amount of research being done, the ability to get colleagues to pay attention to and understand your work is often at least as important as one’s raw scientific ability.”
P128 “...the accumbens keyboard can be re-tuned by context and psychological factors. A stressful and overstimulating sensory environment such as excessively bright lights or loud music expands the border of the dread-generating zone while shrinking the border of the desire-generating zone. On the other hand, a quiet and comfy ambiance alters the keyboard in the opposite manner, expanding desire and shrinking dread.”
P132 “When our reward system is operating as evolution meant it to, liking and wanting act in tandem, albeit in a nuanced, complex manner that allows us to distinguish between them. If we like sex, or ice cream, we may be motivated to pursue it–or…we may not. But addictive substances and activities cause physical alterations in the accumbens, dramatically increasing the wanting circuits. Each episode amplifies that effect, producing ever-stronger urges to repeat the addictive behavior. Scientists call that sensitization.” The physical changes are long lasting and may even become permanent. Sadly, addictive drugs often have the opposite effect on the liking system. The subjective pleasurable effects of the drug are decreased due to the development of tolerance. As a result, the longer the addiction, the more the drug is wanted and the less it is liked.”
P150 “it is possible to increase your baseline determination level employing long-term techniques such as exercise and meditation”
P153 “Having proper sleep is crucial to maintaining motivation and, more generally, to our emotional health. For example, neuroimaging studies reveal significant activity during REM sleep in each of the structures that houses nodes of the emotional salience network.
P158 “He doesn’t like to interrupt his patients. He’d rather see where they go themselves.”
P159 “Your emotional profile is a description of what it takes to trigger each particular emotion, how swiftly it builds, how intense it tends to be, and how long it generally takes to dissipate. Psychologists use the terms threshold, latency to peak, magnitude, and recovery. These aspects vary among individuals, and for each person they depend on the specific emotion in question, in particular whether it is a positive or negative one.
P172 “But while a tendency toward high anxiety leads to an increased mortality risk, those with abnormally low anxiety also have higher death rates: low anxiety reduces the likelihood that individuals will seek help in the presence of a threat, or take prudent action to avoid it.
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
Emotions shape our thinking but how exactly and what the implications are is unfortunately only a super short part of the book with too much fluff around it.
Ca. 3,5 Sterne
Interessantes Buch, sehr „lesbar“ geschrieben mit vielen erstaunlichen Beispielen zur jeweiligen Einleitung oder Veranschaulichung. Habe dennoch relativ lange daran gesessen, aus dem simplen Grund, dass es ein nicht-fiktionales Buch ist und viel Information enthält. Trotzdem auch sehr „erleuchtend“ in vielerlei Hinsicht, im Allgemeinen, in Bezug auf andere und auch in Bezug auf sich selbst.
Interessantes Buch, sehr „lesbar“ geschrieben mit vielen erstaunlichen Beispielen zur jeweiligen Einleitung oder Veranschaulichung. Habe dennoch relativ lange daran gesessen, aus dem simplen Grund, dass es ein nicht-fiktionales Buch ist und viel Information enthält. Trotzdem auch sehr „erleuchtend“ in vielerlei Hinsicht, im Allgemeinen, in Bezug auf andere und auch in Bezug auf sich selbst.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
fast-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
I really enjoyed this one. There's been many interesting developments in neuroscience and psychology since I was a psych major (briefly) and Mlodinow communicated these developments well. The complex concepts were communicated plainly, but with intrigue that could hold attention easily. The anecdotes answered questions and added new questions for my brain to ponder about the roles of emotions. Interesting and Enjoyable
Highlightings:
Intro:
Depression is not a single disorder, but rather a syndrome with four subtypes
Ch 2:
1/2 the pretend panhandlers asked "can you spare 37 cents" vs. "can you spare 25 or 50 cents" - 17% gave in the latter and 73% in the former - auto-replies were interrupted - pique technique
Ch 3:
Full head transplant on a dog and a monkey
Paroles granted less further you get from breaks (core affect reflects our bodily state - tired and hungry make us more negative, suspicious, and critical)
Ch 4:
Those with "awe" in their lives were far more generous than the "awe-deprived" - people who had stared at trees were more helpful than those who had stood outside a building
Positive emotion boosts immune system, happiness, resiliency, and creativity
Financial trading simulations - sad music illicited more accurate and profitable
Ch 5:
Exercise and loud noises amplify aggressive reactions when provoked - also post exercise arousal increased romantic attraction for an alluring member of the opposite sex
Ch 6:
rats stimulated their brain obsessively and lost interest in everything else (dying of thirst even) - emotional pleasure motivated rats more than survival drives
Ch 7:
baseline determination levels
Ch 8:
interesting emotional profile inventories
Ch 9:
Emotional contagion phenomenon
Highlightings:
Intro:
Depression is not a single disorder, but rather a syndrome with four subtypes
Ch 2:
1/2 the pretend panhandlers asked "can you spare 37 cents" vs. "can you spare 25 or 50 cents" - 17% gave in the latter and 73% in the former - auto-replies were interrupted - pique technique
Ch 3:
Full head transplant on a dog and a monkey
Paroles granted less further you get from breaks (core affect reflects our bodily state - tired and hungry make us more negative, suspicious, and critical)
Ch 4:
Those with "awe" in their lives were far more generous than the "awe-deprived" - people who had stared at trees were more helpful than those who had stood outside a building
Positive emotion boosts immune system, happiness, resiliency, and creativity
Financial trading simulations - sad music illicited more accurate and profitable
Ch 5:
Exercise and loud noises amplify aggressive reactions when provoked - also post exercise arousal increased romantic attraction for an alluring member of the opposite sex
Ch 6:
rats stimulated their brain obsessively and lost interest in everything else (dying of thirst even) - emotional pleasure motivated rats more than survival drives
Ch 7:
baseline determination levels
Ch 8:
interesting emotional profile inventories
Ch 9:
Emotional contagion phenomenon