Emotions Revealed: Understanding Faces and Feelings - Hardcover

Ekman, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 029760757X ISBN 13: 9780297607571

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003

Synopsis

Whatever culture we come from, emotions play a huge role in our lives and in every relationship within them. Whether anger, joy, fear or sorrow, they can be incredibly powerful things - but can be equally hard to understand or control. In "Emotions Revealed", Paul Ekman draws on a lifetime's study to take the reader on a complete tour of the emotional self. Against a background of specially commissioned photographs and forceful news images from around the world, he examines and explains how, when and why we become emotional and how far we can change what we get emotional about; why we sometimes get emotional when others don't; how to recognise and understand the subtlest signs of emotion both in ourselves and other people; and much more. This stunning volume contains a test to find out how good you are at spotting emotions, exercises to improve your awareness of the bodily sensations involved in each emotion and an explanation of how to apply all this information to enhance your daily life.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Ekman is a professor of psychology at the University of California and a world-renowned expert on facial expression, deception and emotion. He has consulted on and appeared in many television programmes in both the UK and US and is the author or editor of 14 books and over 100 scientific papers.

From the Back Cover

'A charming, sound, sane map to the world of emotions, the perfect guide.'
DANIEL GOLEMAN, Author of Emtional Intelligence

'Emotions Revealed showcases Paul Ekman's forty years of academic research and great common sense, providing a fascinating and enormously helpful picture of our emotional lives.'
JOHN CLEESE

'Paul Ekman is one of those rare thinkers who can connect what scientists have learned with what the rest of us wonder about in our everyday lives. If you read this book, you'll never look at other people in quite the same way again. Emotions Revealed is a tour de force.'
MALCOLM GLADWELL

'No one in the world has studied facial expressions as deeply as Paul Ekman. In Emotions Revealed he presents - clearly, vividly and in the most accessible way - his fascinating observations about the overt and covert expressions of emotions we all encounter hundreds of times daily, but so often misunderstand or fail to see. There has not been a book on this subject of such range and insight since Darwin's famous Expression of the Emotions more than a century ago.'
OLIVER SACKS

From the Inside Flap

Recall a time when you were blissfully happy, utterly despondent, or furiously angry - a single, raw emotion can be an incredibly powerful thing to experience. Whatever culture or background we come from, emotions play a vital role in all of our lives and more specifically in every relationship and interaction that takes place within them. They can add colour and drama to our existence whether subtly or passionately felt, but they can also be incredibly confusing and even damaging.

In Emotions Revealed, Paul Ekman, a world-renowned psychologist and expert on non verbal communication, draws on forty years of groundbreaking research to provide a revealing, fascinating and above all, practical tour. In doing so, he explores when and why we become emotional and what happens when we do, from the changes that occur inside our bodies to the signals that we give through our body language, voices and our faces - the muscle movements of which can be combined into more than 10,000 configurations.

Within the pages of this stunning and mind-opening book, Ekman answers such questions as: What are the most common emotional triggers and is it possible to bring them under control? Why do we sometimes become overly emotional or experience an emotional response that is inappropriate and can we do anything about it? Why are some people good at masking their emotions, while others wear their hearts on their sleeves? Emotions Revealed contains a test to find out how good you are at spotting emotions, help in recognising and understanding their subtlest signs in ourselves and others, and exercises to improve your awareness of the bodily sensations they produce. Most importantly of all, it contains information on how to apply all of this to everyday life - we couldn't live without our emotions, but it is possible to live better with them.

PAUL EKMAN is a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California Medical School, California. He has received many honours, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, and was recently listed among the top one hundred most influential psychologists of the twentieth century.

A world-renowned expert on facial expression, deception and emotion, Ekman has, in course of forty years of research, studied the faces of New Guinea tribesmen, schizophrenic patients, spies, serial killers and assassins. He is a frequent advisor to government agencies such as the FBI and the CIA, to police, antiterrorism groups and corporations including the animation studio Pixar. The author or editor of thirteen previous books, he has also consulted on and appeared in many television programmes in both the UK and US. He lives in Oakland California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 029760757X
• ISBN 13: 9780297607571
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384