Great book Emotions Revealed, by Paul Ekman, (download the preface for free at this link) explains there are seven core emotions and that a face has 43 muscles that can make more than 10,000 expressions.
Most expressions last about two seconds; some as short as a half second, but rarely are they shorter or longer. The core emotions are:
- sadness
- anger (most dangerous of all emotions because of its' potential for violence)
- happiness
- fear
- disgust
- contempt
- surprise (because surprise is so short-lived, doesn't linger, is often identified as fear by others, Ekman wonders if surprise isn't really fear, but he includes it in his list anyway)
You might ask why love or hate aren't on the list?
Ekman says they aren't emotions because they last too long. And they can't be considered a mood either, since we don't usually know why we are in a mood, but we do know why we hate or love. He prefers to call these "emotional attitudes."
In any event, Ekman's view is that emotions are primarily about how we deal with other people. Hey, that's my view too!
I believe that if you can read emotions more precisely (an EQ skill) you collect valuable data. (Remember, EQ means applying intelligence to emotions.) Now, the book is great at giving you clues to read emotions: narrowed eyes means anger; turned down corners of the lips means sadness. And so on. But it all depends on whether or not you are paying attention.
So, look!
Next, the voice is a giveaway to an emotional state. There is an impulse to make a sound whenever an emotion is aroused -- a different one for each emotion -- but then again, people can easily surpress these sounds. However, once someone starts to talk, it is very hard to keep signs of what is felt out of the voice.
So, listen! That's why I put so much effort into listening (with the eyes and ears!) so that it gives me a channel through which I collect data.
What I believe is critical in reading emotions is to be sure to detect emotional patterns, then you know with quite certainty what the person will do or what you should do. See, if you can detect emotions and patterns in emotions, what you are really doing is collecting data. This helps us immensely because we don't take emotions personally, or feel the emotionality of it all. After all, it's just data. It becomes that much easier not to make value judgments (e.g., anger is "bad".) After all, it's just data.
Take my husband. When he's in a down mood, he gets quiet -- a pattern very easy to detect since my husband is a very talkative guy. At the beginning of our relationship I took the silence personally. I would fear he was angry and was punishing me. I could get very worked up. (This is a classic example of a low-EQ moment: I busy myself with my emotions, when I have no data to support them. I should be focusing on the other's emotions and what they tell me. I should be listening and asking questions.)
So, detecting an emotional pattern (in him and in me!) helped me communicate. Now I ask, "You are in a quite mood, did I do anything wrong?" Usually the answer is no (but I like to check just in case I need to apologize or correct something). Next, I know he's a typical guy, and rather than lots of hugs and kisses, he just likes to be left alone. So I leave him alone. I may want to hug him and feed him and otherwise comfort him (because that's what I would like if I were feeling blue), but I leave him alone instead.
Works like a charm. He eventually manages himself out of a bad mood, I don't fret over irrational emotions, and everything is calm and harmonious.
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