The history of human emotions | Tiffany Watt Smith

Introduction

The speaker begins by asking the audience to close their eyes and identify their emotions. She then explains that emotions can be difficult to pinpoint and describes some of the different types of emotions people experience.

Identifying Emotions

• The speaker asks the audience to close their eyes and identify their emotions.

• She gives them 10 seconds to do so.

• The speaker asks how it went, suggesting that people may have felt a range of different emotions.

Types of Emotions

• Some emotions are associated with specific colors or experiences, while others are more difficult to distinguish from one another.

• Some emotions pass quickly and may go unnoticed, while others are more intense and difficult to ignore.

• There are also some emotions that don't have an obvious name or translation in English.

Untranslatable Emotions

The speaker discusses some examples of untranslatable emotions from other languages.

Examples of Untranslatable Emotions

• "ilinx" is a French word for the delirium that comes with minor acts of chaos.

• "gezelligheid" is a Dutch word for being cozy and warm inside with friends when it's cold outside.

• "basorexia" is a sudden urge to kiss someone.

Importance of Emotional Intelligence

The speaker discusses the importance of emotional intelligence in modern society.

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence involves recognizing and naming your own emotions as well as those of others.

• Emotional intelligence is considered important and is taught in schools, businesses, and health services.

The Complexity of Emotions

The speaker argues that emotions are more complex than some theories suggest.

Basic Emotions Theory

• Some theories suggest that all emotions can be boiled down to a handful of basic emotions.

• These basic emotions are thought to be expressed in the same way across cultures.

Problems with Basic Emotions Theory

• This theory doesn't capture the complexity of emotions or the many factors that contribute to them.

• Historical examples show that people have understood and experienced emotions differently at different times.

The Relationship Between Language and Emotions

This section explores the relationship between language and emotions. It discusses how some cultures might feel an emotion more intensely just because they've bothered to name and talk about it.

Naming Emotions

• Some cultures might feel an emotion more intensely just because they've bothered to name and talk about it.

• When we learn a new word for an emotion, new feelings are sure to follow.

• As language changes, our emotions do too.

Cognitive Phenomena

• Emotions are not simple reflexes but immensely complex, elastic systems that respond both to the biologies that we've inherited and to the cultures that we live in now.

• Emotions are cognitive phenomena shaped not just by our bodies but by our thoughts, concepts, and language.

Understanding Emotional Intelligence

This section discusses what it means to be truly emotionally intelligent. It argues that understanding where words for emotions come from is essential in being emotionally intelligent.

Emotional Intelligence

• To be truly emotionally intelligent, we need to understand where those words have come from and what ideas about how we ought to live and behave they are smuggling along with them.

• These large historical changes influence our emotions partly because they affect how we feel about how we feel.

The History of Nostalgia

This section tells a story of nostalgia's history and how it has changed over time.

The Story of Nostalgia

• Johannes Hofer christened homesickness "nostalgia" in 1688.

• The last person to die from nostalgia was an American soldier fighting during the First World War in France.

Changes Over Time

• Today, homesickness itself is seen as less serious, sort of downgraded from something you could die from to something you're mainly worried your kid might be suffering from at a sleepover.

• You and I inherit that massive transformation in values, and it's one reason why we might not feel homesickness today as acutely as we used to.

Celebrating Happiness

This section discusses how our emotions are influenced by cultural expectations and beliefs. It explores how happiness has become a celebrated emotion today.

Cultural Expectations

• Today, we celebrate happiness.

• Happiness is supposed to make us better workers and parents and partners; it's supposed to make us live longer.

Changes Over Time

• In the 16th century, sadness was thought to do most of those things.

• Was it perhaps the coming of modernity, with its celebration of restlessness and travel and progress that made sickening for the familiar seem rather unambitious?

• It's even possible to read self-help books from that period which try to encourage sadness in readers by giving them lists of reasons to be disappointed.

The Power of Emotional Language

In this section, the speaker discusses how emotions change across time and place. She introduces the concept of "awumbuk" among the Baining people of Papua New Guinea and "amae," a Japanese word that is difficult to translate.

Emotions Across Time and Place

• Emotions change across time and place.

• The Baining people of Papua New Guinea have a feeling called "awumbuk," which is a sense of lethargy that descends when a houseguest finally leaves.

• Amae is a Japanese word that means something like the pleasure you get when you're able to temporarily hand over responsibility for your life to someone else.

The Importance of Emotional Language

In this section, the speaker talks about how emotional language reflects our culture's values and expectations. She argues that learning new words for emotions can help us better understand our inner lives.

Naming Our Emotions

• Names for emotions are not neutral labels; they are freighted with our culture's values and expectations.

• Learning new words for emotions will help attune us to the more finely grained aspects of our inner lives.

Understanding Our Emotional Languages

• Words for emotions remind us how powerful the connection is between what we think and how we end up feeling.

• True emotional intelligence requires understanding social, political, and cultural forces that have shaped what we've come to believe about our emotions.

Dépaysement: Making Familiar Things Strange Again

In this section, the speaker introduces the French word "dépaysement," which means the giddy disorientation that you feel in an unfamiliar place. She argues that this feeling is exciting and can help us see familiar things in a new light.

Making Familiar Things Strange Again

• Dépaysement is the giddy disorientation that you feel in an unfamiliar place.

• One of the speaker's favorite parts of being a historian is when something she's completely taken for granted, some very familiar part of her life, is suddenly made strange again.